wow

its been a month since i've updated! i'm awfully sorry about that!

im going to make a list of stuff that ive done in the past month

• made my own homemade sushi 
• went to a sushi conveyer belt restaurant
• went to hiroshima for a weekend
• traveled on a sleeper train with my own bed!
• ate Okinomiyaki (famous in hiroshima)
• Stood in the spot where the bomb was dropped
• went to Peace Park and explored the museum about the bomb in hiroshima
• went to a club called Roop Fooding and another called Space Foo
• went to Gotemba Premium Outlets (just like Jackson Premium Outlets!)
• worked many many many hours
• bought myself a new chair and lamp
• been studying japanese occasionally (i really need to study more)
• learned how to work my rice cooker
• learned a few new recipes
• avoided the flu this month (4 out of 7 employees had it)
• received a few origami animals from cute 5 year old students 
• playing the new super mario bros on the wii
• ate soy beans to ward off evils for the year
• got asked 100 times what my blood type is. apparently its similar to people asking what your horoscope is. your blood type means something about your personality. consult wikipedia for the chart  mom or dad if you guys know what my blood type is.. let me know because i forgot. haha

thats the highlights i guess. pictures with details to come! 

Tokyo - HONTO!!!! (REALLY!!!)

Im not sure where to begin, which is why its taken me some time to finally update. I had such an amazing time in Tokyo its hard to put into words exactly the amount of fun I had there but I will try my best.

My trip actually started out in Shizouka City, where my training friend Travis lives. He lives an hour away from Numazu. I actually was going an hour further from Tokyo to visit him but I wanted people to travel with so it was okay. Britney and her friend Katie from home who came to visit for new years also went to Travis's.

What a fun bunch.

So we spent our time seeing Travis's cool apartment where we had a lovely dinner and went out for drinks with his friends in the area. Had such a great time! I also learned about Mameshiba here:

Its hilarious and also creeps me out. The music is creepy!!! Its not even selling anything. The joke was the little edamame coming out of the pod going.. nnnuuuuuuuwwww! hahahaha 

Anyways. The next day we took the local train to Tokyo which was 3 hours because it was slow and made a bajillion stops. It was okay though because I put my Kindle into good use and read a book. From tokyo station we went to Ueno station which is where my hotel was. Ueno was pretty cool. Everything was just so busy from being the holidays and lots of people wanted to be there for the holiday (like me). It had a starbucks which was cool. There were a lot of starbucks in Tokyo. That night everyone met up for drinks and we bonded over stories from our first month at work.  The group I met up with were all from my training week back in November. It's so wonderful how close we've become in such a short period of time. All the traveling and new experiences really can bring you closer to people. I'm very lucky to have such great people in my life here!

The gang.

The next day was spent checking out Ueno. There were so many cool shops in that part of town and the streets were crazy. I bought a fun necklace for my outfit that night and also tried on some crazy stuff:

 Don't worry, I didn't buy that ridiculous headband.

That night was New Years Eve. We started drinking around 5 (probably not the smartest idea, but a lot of fun)  We went to Travis, Ai-Lin, Brittani, and Katie's hotel room to pregame because it was bigger.

 "America's Next Top Sensei" - Keziah

From there we went to this restaurant that I dont think liked us very much because we were such a huge group and were all drunk loud messes. But its okay.

After that we went to this club called Legato. I honestly don't remember much at this point (whoops.) But I do remember it was 15 stories up and the view of the city was so amazing. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a countdown. I looked at my phone around 1 and saw a bunch of texts saying happy new year and realized that we completely missed midnight. But it was okay. At one point Brittani and I took our shoes off which was gross haha. (Travis - "THATS DISGUSTING") I sat outside for air at one point and someone gave me an energy drink on the street. Don't know why. I also didn't pay the 5000 yen (50 dollars) required to get into the club. Don't know how I got past that one haha. At another point Erin and I went to pick up some friends at the station that were late joining us and we thought it was a good idea to buy a bottle of Chardonnay at a convenience store and chug it on the way to the station and back. (because you can drink on the streets here)  It was a great night!

The next morning... sooo hungover but woke up and did what the Japanese do on New Years Day... go to the temple and throw a coin in for good luck , and get a fortune for the year. The streets were packed and closed down to cars to accommodate all the people going to this thing. All along the sides of the road there were shops and food to eat. Pretty cool. So we get in and take pictures and throw a coin in and then leave. The next thing we do is go to the side where you shake this metal tin case. There is a hole in the bottom and inside the can are a bunch of sticks with numbers in them. The numbered stick that falls out of the little hole is your fortune, and you have to match the number to a drawer. You fortune is inside that drawer. I got a Medium Fortune. If you get a bad fortune you have to leave it at the temple so it doesn't follow you throughout the year.

So yeah...doesn't seem too great of a fortune to me. I'll need to watch my front and back.

That night we went to the restaurant that was the inspiration for the end scene in Kill Bill, when Uma Therman goes nuts and kills 88 ninjas. IT WAS SO COOL. I mean they didn't actually film there, the movie used a set. But this is the place that Quentin Tarintino ate at and used as his set inspiration! I was excited. This place was in Roppongi. There was a huge spider right when you got off the train which was cool. It also had Tokyo Tower, which we tried going to and got lost. Whoops. My camera also decided to not focus at all this night so most pictures are blurry.

Then that night we did karaoke which is always a good time, especially with 15 people haha.

So the next day me Travis Brittnai and Ai-Lin went to Yokohama which is outside of Tokyo. They had a Ramen Museum that I really wanted to check out because Ramen is like.. my favorite thing about Japan. The museum was so cool. It was underground and it was a replica of a section of Tokyo in the year 1958. All around it were ramen shops that featured ramen from different parts of japan. It was pretty neat. So we had a big bowl of ramen and went on our way to Chinatown!!! This was the best chinatown I've ever seen. It was so cool with so much going on and the buildings were so beautiful. We got bubble tea and walked around and just admired the area.

 Inside the Ramen Museum

 Busy Chinatown street

After Chinatown we went to Marine Tower and went up 40-somewhat stories in an elevator to get to the top, where there was a beautiful view of the Yokohama skyline. It was so romantic haha. We were up there just admiring the city and loving life.

 

So later that night the group went out on the town for our last night in Tokyo. Lots of fun! And the next day spent traveling home because I was so exhausted from all the sightseeing during the day and partying at night haha.

So basically this was one of the best weeks of my life. Can't wait to go back!

Also, not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.

Here are some jokes from the week...just for me to remember

Honto?

Ano NEEEE

Mameshibaaa... Nuuuuwwww

How many _______'s does it take to get to Tokyo Tower??

the rest of the pictures from my trip are found on my facebook OR you can go to this link if we aren't facebook friends: CLICK HERE

My next big trip I think will be Hiroshima, Kobe, and Kyoto which is pretty far from me but I'd love to check those areas out. Okay. I'll posting again soon. 

LOTS OF EXCITEMENT

Well it's been a while since I've posted and a lot of interesting stuff has happened since then! Lets see...

Christmas was interesting. I worked. That was about it. Some of the parents gave me little gifts of candy, which was nice. I got paid on Christmas which was wonderful!! The best part was skyping with my family. I was able to be part of the yearly tradition of holding down Two Turtle Doves during the 12 days of christmas song and was with them during their morning when they opened their presents.. I also made myself Christmas dinner...the best I could come up with to an Italian Christmas dinner with pasta and 7 fish was spaghetti with vodka sauce (found the sauce in a foreign store) and an assortment of sushi haha

My Christmas dinner

I got some wonderful presents from family and friends and am told there are more to come!! Thank you so much everyone who sent me things :) It made me feel less lonely this holiday. Which this holiday was pretty lonely. But that'll just make next years holiday that much better :)

Also, check out this gift from my manager:

A huge tub of ice cream. SCORE!!!

So last week , probably the few days before Christmas I got pretty sick. For two nights I had a fever pushing 102 degrees and my throat really hurt when i swallowed and felt like it was swollen. Thankfully I only had to work one day while I was sick. I was sick Sunday-Wednesday I guess. Wednesday I had off for the Emperors birthday so that was great. So I only worked Tuesday (I have off Sunday and Monday regularly.) Tuesday night after work my manager took me to the emergency room, which was down the street from my apartment. It was pretty nice. They really hook you up there with medications. I couldnt tell you what I took but I do know that one was for my fevers and headaches, one was for my throat and one was an antibiotic (i think) haha. They also checked to see if I had the flu (reg. and h1n1). They did this by giving me a nose culture. They stuck a skinny little swab all the way up my nose past my eyes!! It hurt a little bit. But I like that better then getting a throat culture: those make me want to vomit. Anyways I felt great after two days of being on the medicine. It was sweet. And I still feel great. So I'm happy. We sat there and waited an hour before we were seen which isnt bad at all. 3 nurses helped me while my manager translated for us. They were so nice and trying to crack jokes with me. And the entire trip only cost me 30 bucks, including all that medication. So, not bad. I'm pretty sure what I had was strep throat. But they didn't know how to tell me that in a way I'd understand.

One of the medicine packets I received at the hospital. This one was for medicated candy looking suckers for my throat. My manager wrote down directions on each one so I didnt get them confused haha.

Cell Phone - I finally got a cell phone! Its a pretty cool Japanese cell phone through Softbank (similar to ATT, Verizon, etc) The keys light up all crazy with different colors when you do certain things. A japanese lady yells somethign at me when I get a call or text message. Their text messages are actually done through email on the phone. So you have to set up an email address and get other peoples emails if you want to text them. So.. people in the states!! You can text me!!! Just text this address: jessicamc@softbank.ne.jp
This also works if you want to email me while I'm on the go, or if I am not at my computer and you need to reach me.
I am on the search for a cool phone charm to hang from my cell phone. I am going to make this a legitimate Japanese cell phone hahaha.

My Cell phone! The lights are just so much fun haha. They are always changing.

So tomorrow is going to be exciting. I get to go to Shizuoka City to meet up with Travis and Brittani, stay at Travis's and then the three of us are going to Tokyo the next day for a few days! So I won't be at a computer. So this is when you reach me at my phone email address listed above! Because I'll get that immediately, whereas I won't be checking my gmail very often. When I come back I'll hopefully have lots of fun Tokyo stories for you.

Some random pictures:

Some random poster of a guy selling alcohol but I have no idea what it is.

Lee reminded me of Abby and her mom. Hi Abby! This LEE thing was in my grocery store, its curry that you heat up at home (curry is really popular here, but its sweet. Not spicy like Indian food curry..so I actually enjoy it)

I FOUND FRANZ BOXED WINE!! The college girl in me got excited.

This picture was taken for my Drexel girls. HI!!

My japanese is getting better. Today I was able to chat with a girl at a clothing store about clothes and New Years Eve plans. It was pretty cool.
This week I plan on saying Asobo!(Lets party!) A lot.
Also.. gekido(rage). Tokyo here I come.

So anyways. Life.

some small things

Hi. So a few things.

The 711's here are amazing. They aren't your regular run of the mill United States 711s. No. These ones have such amazing food in them. Different salads and pastas and chicken and sushi and desserts and omg its so wonderful. You can buy alcohol in these 711s. (Which I dont know if you can do in other states at home but in NJ you can't.) YOU PAY YOUR BILLS AT 711!! You take your electric bill and your gas bill and your cell phone bill and you bring it to the counter and they tell you how much you owe and you give them the money and thats it , you're done. SO EASY!!!!!! Add that to this list of what the states needs to have!!

Also, I recently had a conversation with Tomo about sprinkles that you put on ice cream. I told her that they are called sprinkles... but some people also call them jimmies in different parts of the United States. She thought that was hilarious. Then the next day she came into work and said she went out and got James. I was confused. "James? Who is James?" and then I realized she meant jimmies hahahahahhaha
I need to start a section of my blog all about Tomo and how funny she is.

This week has been holiday lessons so we've been teaching the kids about christmas stuff. They know that Christmas is when Santa comes and brings them presents but thats about it. So when I try to explain to them what a Stocking is, they keep calling it socks and don't really care much about it.

A parent of one of my students invited me to a Christmas party their family is having. She said that her friends will be there who just recently spent 3 years in New York and got back in Aug so she'd love for me to come and chat with them. That should be interesting! Ill get to see what people eat at parties and get-togethers and where they are held and things like that. Make some friends. whatevs

Not having a dishwasher in my apartment is the worst. Dishes have been piling up! Whoops. I need to work on that. In two weeks I venture to Tokyo for 5 days! Exciting!!

relax bear jessica sensei

Well I survived my first week as a SENSEI on my own. It went very well. I feel like I've already been doing this for a while and its only been like 2 weeks. I guess thats a good thing? I've found that I get along best with the 7 year olds. They were trying so hard to get me to laugh, and I guess I was trying the same with them. Making funny faces to describe an emotion we were learning and they would crack up. SO CUTE. I've noticed that there are some kids and some babies that remind me of people in my life back home. SO WEIRD. Like there is this one really nerdy Japanese boy that always does ninja moves whenever he wins at a game or gets something right. He looks so much like my friend Chandler. And there is this one baby that is only 1 year old who reminds me of a boy Nick I met in Jamaica last March. hahahahah Its so strange. Theres a girl that looks like the japanese version of my cousin Brandy. I think of her everytime I teach this girl lol.  Anyways. I am already getting to know my students which is great. And I think they are realizing that I have a silly sense of humor to me. We stamp their work and give them stickers so today I bought a stamp with Pikachu on it that says Good job! and I brought stickers from home and they've been loving those. SO FAR SO GOOD.

Yesterday, Tomo and her new husband offered to take me and Alex to a Holiday light thingy. It was so pretty! It was in Gotumba, which is right on the base of Mt. Fuji. So it was pretty cold at night.



Tomo is one of my coworkers at Amity. She is so funny. She loves hearing about shortened words like.. Be right back is BRB and Oh my god is OMG ... So she is always saying OMG! And she has a really hard time saying my last name. There are two things she said she cant say... Parallel and Avril Lavigne. The first time we met she told me that my name was harder to pronounce then Avril Lavignes name! And i had no idea what she was talking about haha but now I know. Its hard for Japanese people to say words with a lot of V's L's and R's in it. So Ciarelli is a little difficult for her haha.
So it was really nice of her to take us out...We all went to dinner and karaoke afterwards and had a great time. We had hamburg, which I took a picture of. Its not hamburger. I had a student last week who kept telling me she wanted hamburg and i was like hamburger? and she was like no hamburg. and looked at me like i was an idiot. Now I know. lol. Hamburg tastes really similar to meatloaf and you can get it a few different ways like with cheese or sauce or veggies or whatever. I had a sauce on mine that tasted just like a stew type sauce. Very yummy.
I finally did laundry and I was really sad to not have a drier. It was a lot more work having to hang everything up outside on the balcony, but not that big of a deal.
There is this bear here called Rilakkuma that is everywhere and I think its sooo cute:

AWWW

Rilakkuma means Relax Bear.

Anyways. Enjoy my pictures in the slideshow or at THIS LINK.

OH also.. here is a list of things I already miss from the states:

• Hersheys chocolate
• Reese's peanut butter cups
• CHOCOLATE MILK. they dont have it here and its depressing.
• A bed thats not on the floor
• Pizza that doesnt have mayo on it. (seriously they put mayo on everything over here)
• Tomato sauce that doesn't taste like spaghettios sauce.
• Being able to throw my trash into a garbage without separating it (the garbage here is so detailed. in my kitchen i have a garbage for burnables, one for plastics, and another for bottles. and i have to seperate every little thing GAH)
• QUIZNOS SUBS !!! AND JERSEY MIKES SUBS!!
• The latest music & movies
• Family and Friends and Weez- OBVIOUS

Things im loving Japan for having that America needs to have:

• Karaoke places (legit ones with a room to yourself)
• heated toilet seats!!!!! 
• SAKE (well, they need to have it everywhere.. esp. WARM)
• Ramen
• Bike riding everywhere possible without being called a nerd
• amazing 100 yen stores (aka dollar stores)
• rice cookers in your kitchen

anyways. im sure that list will grow. finding new things everydayyy. everyday is an adventure.

Apt, Seeing Mt. Fuji at the Beach

Hi! This has been a great weekend so far. I finished the week off pretty well. I will miss Anthea, she helped me out a lot this week. We had a nice going away Anthea / Welcome Jessica dinner after work on sat night. They got us sushi and weird fried stuff. It was really nice. Then Alex and I went out on the town in Numazu. I met some other "foreigners" that Alex had become friends with and we went to this small little bar that had 2000 yen all you can drink. So we hit that up. Everyone was really nice and welcoming. Most of them were with the JET program. (Similar teaching English program like mine, but to a much larger class). One girl had been here for 4 years now. I couldn't imagine being away for that long!

Me and Alex

The Numazu "foreigners". Kampai!

So that was a good night. Drank a lot of hot sake. Yummmmm

Today Alex and I rode our bikes around town. We decided to go to the beach and see Mt. Fuji because it was so clear out.

Mt. Fuji from my apt door! (Theres a mountain in front of it kind of covering all but the top)

So the rest of my pictures Im going to put on flickr. I loved being able to see Mt. Fuji and the snow on top while ago seeing the waves and sand. So pretty. It was interesting seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time from the other side. I also got to go shopping and look at all the stores and clothes. Its so interesting what people wear here and I am having a hard time figuring out what I can pull off. I noticed a weird issue here is that showing your shoulders or upper part of your body is really offensive, but the shorts are SO SHORT and it doesn't even matter. It's very strange. 

My head is bigger then Mt. Fuji

Tomorrow I'll be doing more traveling. I'm so happy to have this downtime from work but unfortunately its just a weekend and I'll be back to running around at work on Tuesday. I have something fun to look forward to... TOKYO FOR NEW YEARS! The kids from training and I booked rooms today so that'll be a great time. 

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE PICTURES

Numazu & Teaching

Well it has been three days of teaching. Im exhausted! But each day is better and better. My first day of teaching I just observed. I was able to meet a lot of parents and kids. Its hard making conversation when there's such a language barrier.
I actually tried out a little experiment. The first time a parent asked me where I was from I told them New Jersey. All I got was a blank stare.... so the next parent I told New York.. OHHH NEW YORK!!! SEX AND THE CITY!!!! YOU ARE CHARLOTTE I AM SAMANTHA!!! hahahahh it was hilarious. So from now on I say I'm from NY or close to NY. Easier then having to explain NJ.
I also had some interesting students.. one boy liked me so much he pulled his pants down in front of me. that was awkward! At one point during the day there were 5 girls around the ages of 3-6 sitting in the lobby trading stickers to put in their sticker books (so cute) and i sat next to them and tried to talk to them a bit and they all started giving me their stickers so put on my name tag and then they all started putting them all over my face and my arms. I was covered by the time they left lol. It was really cute. So I made some friends. I bet they'll love me when I bring in the stickers I brought from home.
Oh! Also, some parents watched my class this morning and decided to sign their baby up for classes so my manager was very impressed haha. That was pretty cool.
Still have to wear the masks when walking around town and i take my temperature every day and gargle and hand sanitizer and all that stuff to protect against the flu. Its so crazy but kids have been spreading it fast.

I've been really tired after coming home from work at around 8:30 so I havent had much time to do stuff around town. This weekend I plan on going to the beach and checking out the fish market going on in the streets. Should be interesting.
Some places I've eaten on my lunch break have been KFC (right across the street from work and it was raining.. don't judge me!) Moss Burger(burger joint) and Hotto Motto (bento). For dinner I've been cooking in my apartment... which hasnt been very exciting because I only have one burner. I've made pasta with alfredo sauce pineapples and ham(yum) Pb&j on rolls, and Yakisoba from the grocery store.

Hm what else. I teach 3 classes tomorrow. Every day I add an extra class. I actually really enjoy the adult classes more then the baby classes because you dont have to worry about classroom control. They won't run out of the room like a little 3 year old did to me this morning haha.

I find that I am already missing subs/hoagies. Like from subway or quiznos or jersey mikes!!! So good. haha. I heard there is a Subway in Tokyo so i'll have to grab that for lunch while im there :)

Oh! So the plan for New Years is definitely Tokyo. I'll probably spend 4-5 days there on my break with my friends from training week. We are trying to have it planned by Sunday. So we'll see how that works out.
My neighbor/co-worker Alex made friends with other foreigners (which is what I am! weird!) and there are around 35 of them in this town that like to get together. So next weekend they are having a big Christmas party and rented out a room in a bar so she is going to take me to that so I can start making some friends around here. That will be fun!

Ok the next post will definitely have pictures of my apartment/mt fuji if the weather is nice/me on my bike. Stay tuned!