So weird to think that I’ll be saying hello in Japanese and bowing occasionally for only so much longer. I am leaving in less than three weeks HOLY MOLY.
I apologize for the hiatus in writing but things have been absolutely crazy! Between the job hunt which is actually looking pretty positive right now, (possibly hello New York!) report cards and end of the year assessments, packing things up to move out, etc. it’s been a never ending roller coaster of constant moving.
I pictured this last month to be different. My anticipation was to travel more and revisit a couple of the places I’ve really loved to make the most of every single bit of time. But truthfully any free time I get I just want to sleep 😩 So I’m actually really glad we didn’t plan too much because most weekends have been packed with Skype interviews or planning/grading at school hours on hours.
We have done a couple of fun things though lately. I enjoyed going over another families house of one of my students. She taught us how to make gimbap which we have done before with Chioko (our cooking teacher) but this time I liked it more actually! We made sooo much and as always it was fun to hang out with 2 of our students (since they were having a sleepover) outside of school. We kicked their butts in Uno 😉
check out that huge rolllittle Caroline ❤
Feast your eyes on all the yumminess…
This food made me feel a bit better about missing out on food in Seoul!
Another fun event we went to recently was the NIS Walkathon which is their biggest fundraiser of the year. It was a gorgeous day outside and there were tons of vendors, music and people!! The trail was very short like about a 20 minute walk or so in total but it was just so great to be outside. 🙂
walking selfie!we found Maya!
Things are slowly falling into place and I’m hoping to start enjoying the end of the year and the bliss it can bring this upcoming week. It became more of a reality this week when I had to say goodbye to one of my students who is moving back to South Africa :(. I’m definitely not good at goodbyes I usually like to say, “I’ll see you soon” or “until next time” because emotions either hit me like a wave and I’m a mess but usually it takes some time until I’m removed from the situation for it to sink in.
I have a feeling that is going to be the same situation with leaving NIS. I miss my family and friends so much I’m really eager and excited about going home. But I know once I get home I’m going to miss certain people here from teachers, parents and of course the kiddos. I know I’ll definitely be missing about 99% of the things mentioned in this article as well http://en.rocketnews24.com/…/sweet-sorrow-21-little-things…/ (Definitely worth the read especially if you’ve visited or lived in Japan)
silly facespicture for Caroline’s goodbye cardtheir end of the year gift they don’t know about yet 😉Caroline’s goodbye party!she’s too cute I can’t handle it !!! Caroline-san haha
I’m not ready to write my goodbye post yet but for now trying to enjoy the ending of school. One of the most exciting parts is seeing how much the students have grown over the year. It’s absolutely amazing to see the progress they make!
I’m also looking forward to going to Okinawa next weekend as our last big hooray! We are taking off Monday as a personal day and hopefully the weekend will be full of sunshine, beach, snorkeling and kayaking! 🙂 just what I need!
That’s all for now hopefully next time I check in I will have an official job! For now we have officially sold our car YIPEEEEE! Slowly but surely it’s all working out 🙂
Konnichiwa humans, I am back safe and sound in Nagoya. Disclaimer: this will be a very pessimistic post of very unfortunate events.
It all started last weekend when we went to Hiroshima. Going to Hiroshima was on my bucket list for this year and I was so excited because I have only heard good things. My expectations were not only met, if anything Hiroshima exceeded my expectations and I wish I had more time there. We stayed in an air bnb which was deceiving from it’s picture because there was just about enough room for Katiria and I to lay like mummies next to each other. But oh man where those futons and comforters comfortable, I couldn’t get over it. If I was staying another year I would’ve asked her where she got it 😜
On Friday night we tried going out but it was a bust. Either everyone goes out way later or they just don’t really go out at all on Fridays. We went to this salsa bar but it was mainly just old Japanese men trying to talk to us and I really wasn’t feeling it. After we left that bar we decided to be adventurous and just try going up to groups of people and seeing what they were doing. This sounds strange but I’ve met some cool people and found random restaurants/bars this way while traveling. But the following occurred:
1. The first man said I had a small head and then they proceeded to walk away. This was ironic because I was just telling Katiria how I have a really small head and then that happened LOL
2. The second man and his friend that we approached automatically screamed “WE DONT HAVE ANY MONEY!” … Clearly Katiria and I look like robbers now.
3. The third man approached us asking what we were doing we said we were looking for a bar and then he said “actually never mind…” And just walked away.
We started questioning if we smelled or maybe we’ve turned into hideous aliens. I’m still not sure what the hell happened. But the last group of men were helping us find a bar and we asked if they wanted to join and they just straight up walked away.
I was a bit turned off by Hiroshima like what the heck happened? But the next day was muchhhh better. We went to Miyajima and got to see the famous floating tori gate. It was absolutely beautiful. There are also sooo many deer there which the Japanese love. We have way too many deer in New Jersey but what was crazy here was that they come up to you and will let you pet them! I actually found it kinda creepy. Anyways we really enjoyed walking around the area and we also attempted to go hiking. I say attempted because I actually have no idea what trail we took. We were trying to climb this one mountain but we got so lost at one point we ended up in a random area and almost tried to hitch hike. Yikes. But we made it back and either way we got to be outside in the beautiful weather and do some walkin 🙂 oh and we had some okonomoyaki for lunch which is supposed to be their speciality but it was just meh. However, the sweet potato flavored ice cream I had was NOMTASTIC.
Tori gate at Miyajima!friendly deer 🙂
After Miyajima we headed back and rested up before going back out again. We had a fancy Thai dinner together and shared a bottle of wine. You know, me and bae. Then we bopped around a bit and ended up at this one bar that was so fun. There are so many expats in Hiroshima it was refreshing to see/meet people from other places in the world. However, I got way too comfortable with being in Japan and trusting that people won’t steal things here. So I really wasn’t feeling like holding my bag while I was dancing. There weren’t that many people there so I had it on a chair near me with my sweater over it. I went to the bathroom at some point and came back and it was gone 😦 it had the key to the air bnb place, my phone, and pretty much everything in my wallet. Japanese ID, bank card, health insurance, home driving license, credit cards, etc. etc. I keep remembering more things, it’s never ending and sucks.
After some freaking out and tears, I had to move forward. It could’ve been much worse like some creeper attacking me or who knows what. When it came down to it, it was already done and nothing I could do. What sucked was the woman at the table said she saw a man pick up all the stuff and leave. I wanted to be like well you’re an idiot why wouldn’t you say anything? But then again, I’m the idiot who left it on the chair…
The next day we went to the peace park and the a-bomb dome museum. We were able to learn more about the bombing during world war 2. It was incredibly sad but also very eye opening for me. I’ve only really learned about world war 2 from the perspective of Jews during the holocaust. I really wasn’t aware of what happened exactly in Hiroshima. About half of their population (400,000 people) was wiped out. People burned to death on the spot, others suffered from the after effects. Reading about the children always gets me, so innocent and so young with so much ahead of them. There were a lot of similar things that I’ve seen in holocaust museums like the clothes people had been wearing, glasses, or notebooks that they had been holding. What’s also crazy is this really didn’t happen too long ago. It made me wonder if that’s why sometimes Japanese people have been so rude to me. I’ve been shooed away or looked at like I’m a disgusting piece of filth and maybe they blame all Americans. After thinking about that, I almost can’t blame them because what happened was pretty horrible. If you ever get a chance to go to Japan, Hiroshima is a must!
So after getting over the stolen purse hump, the next unfortunate event hit: I got sick. You surprised? If you know me, probably not. I get sick very easily if I don’t sleep/eat well and also if I get really stressed. It started on Tuesday but I thought I was just tired. Wednesday it was worse and I’m pretty sure I had a fever but we had student led conferences and I couldn’t miss school so I pushed through. I had to go get a new residence card (like a Japanese ID) after school so I could fly to Korea this weekend. However, the woman from school forgot to tell me the immigration office was closed only after I drove for a total of 2 hours and paid $25 in tolls… Cool.
The next day I was feeling much much worse. My fever escalated, I was achy, headache and my glands were so swollen it hurt to swallow, I was in so much pain. After going to the immigration office I successfully got a new card five hours later…. Never again. Then I made it to the doctor and found out I have tonsillitis. These bad boys need to come out this summer because I’ve had tonsillitis wayyyyy too many times to count. So I got the antibiotics and thought I would be golden. But the fever and pain was still going pretty strong until late Friday night I was feeling much better.
I survived the flight to Korea, mask and all. Yup I can tell you I never thought I would wear one but there I was! We hit the hay pretty hard at our hostel to make sure we could get up early to explore. Everything was dandy until after breakfast. I started to feel stomach pain and I knew something bad was coming. This is the last unfortunate event. I still don’t know what exactly happened if it was a reaction from the antibiotic, something I ate, random stomach virus but I think it could be a side effect from the tonsillitis (according to google). But basically for the rest of the day I had severe stomach pains and was vomming my life away. You know I’ve never been pregnant but I can only imagine this is what contractions feel like. If so, I do not want to give birth. This was EXCRUCIATING. From about 8 am-1 PM I was basically rolling over in pain in this little hostel with occasional runs to their bathroom to vom. At one point I had to push a man out of the way to get to the bathroom first, I am so sorry but at least I didn’t throw up on him.
view from the plane!Rocking my mask 😉
At about 1 I couldn’t take it anymore I needed help. Being sick alone in Japan was one thing but being sick and in pain in another country alone is actually miserable. I never wish that upon anyone. I sent a plead for help to the owner of the hostel. An hour later he kindly escorted me to a clinic. Seoul is probably one of the worst places for a sick person. It is sooo crowded and people are actually a bit rude. I got bumped into pretty hard a couple of times and no one said sorry. But yeah I tried to push past the crowds even though I was sweating like a maniac trying not to hurl all over people. There are also sooo many restaurants and food stands. Between that and the pollution smell or whatever it was, my stomach was doing back flips and giving me the finger. I made it to the office got some medicine which I have no idea what it was. They also gave me a nebulizer afterwards to calm down because I was crying so much because of the pain. The owner sadly didn’t wait and I got lost on the way back like a sick old dog trying to find home.
I made it, took the medicine after eating two crackers and it came right back up. Fun stuff. I decided food was not going to happen. I couldn’t really bare the thought of being sick in a stuff hostel for another two days. I switched my flight and made it back on Sunday. It started to get better on Sunday thank goodness.
All I can say is, thank goodness for this puppy who made me smile and kept me company. His name is Tor and I love him. Such a nugget minus his annoying teething. But anyways, I’m alive and I’m ready for some positivity. Please no more losing stuff or getting sick, I’m over the unfortunate events!!
my little love bug ❤
I hope one day I can look back and laugh about the time I went to Seoul, did absolutely nothing but be sick and then come back. Because right now I feel like I just threw a bunch of money into the wind and wasted time 😦
Keepin my head up and next post should be more positive!
The Traveling Teacher 