Back at home

Guess who was sleepy on the drive home because she stayed up late watching videos on her iPad?

Here are just a few of Andy's (many) sunset photos. He went out two nights with B to shoot them at the Egg Harbor harbor.

Today's update from sensei:

Hi, Parents! We are back from a great day outside! We went to the area that is registered as the World Heritage for its nature, the woods and the beautiful environment. We rode the bus and drove north. We went through lots of pretty rice fields and then came to a mountain area. One side was the mountain and the other side was the ocean. It was absolutely beautiful. We got to the culture center place where we made our own bread from all local ingredients. Natural yeast found in the mountain, water from the river, salt from the sea etc. It was fun to see the kids struggle with the dough :) Some just couldn't make it into a ball, some were trying to knead with fingertips.

While the dough was rising, we had about an hour of free time. We told the kids that they could walk around outside. As soon as we said that, they ran!! What was outside you might ask... a play ground and coin-operated go-cart!! (yes the ones made for 3-year-olds.) Parents, your children wasted money on child go-carts!!! Honestly, the students are big in size but they are little inside. They were truly happy. Then group of boys went up a spider web climbing-thing...and they all found a path up to the mountain and disappeared into the woods! We decided to leave them there. Sorry, parents, your children are lost in the woods. JK. Joe Sensei went to get them. (Well...he said he was going up to get them but honestly I think he wanted to go... he is one of them after all....) The weak students all came back dirty, in swet, out of breath and happily declared that they climbed a mountain! But by Japanese standard, what they climbed was not a mountain, but a large hill...so...congratulations. It was a great break though. They all looked like themselves, being silly and having fun. They have been so nervous and stressed I am sure, so this was a nice get-away. Being here is so tiring. The students really need to pay attention to every little thing and really try to actively listen 24-7 and that is hard work! I hope they were mentally energized now.

Our bread came out well. We ate them and we took the bus to our next destination which was a family operated tofu factory. We sat and made our own tofu by putting Nigari into soy milk. Nigari is something that hardens the milk. It is one of the components of the sea water (sea water is made of water, salt and Nigari - we tasted Nigari. It was salty and bitter). ... We ate tofu, and he also fed us tofu/soy donut and tofu/soy ice cream. We got on the bus and came back to school. We heard students trying to figure out how to say things in Japanese while they were in the bus. The students are really getting better at understanding and speaking. We are so proud of all of them. They are such good kids! Parents, thank you so much for trusting us to take your kids!

We were able to talk to more students about their experiences here while we were out today. A lot of the students mentioned that the family has been feeding them too much... The Japanese people eat three solid meals a day. merican people don`t eat very much, I notice. You eat a bowl of cereal in the morning, a sandwich for lunch and dinner. But Japanese people typically eat big breakfast (Japanese style - rice, soup, egg or fish, veg, fruit or Western style - toast, egg, salad, yogurt etc.), then lunch that consists of rice, main dish, several side dishes, and similar dinner. So our students are not used to eating all that stuff. Plus, the Japanese parents look at our tall and bigger American students and think that they must eat more, so in some cases, the host mother was making extra dish or two just for the American student.

She again mentioned what some of the students were doing with their host families. She wrote: Elaine played Pokemon with her little sister. (Bradley, don't be jealous).

This morning I was chatting with E through my iPad and she said her family took her to a grocery store and she got a chocolate shake at McDonald's. She said it tasted less artificial than the ones we have here. She also said the view from the top of the "mountain" was beautiful.