私は飲むと食べ好き

    Restaurant in  Osaka AMAZING! egg, raw beef, pork skewers, nikujaga, sashimi

                             

                                                            Making our own takoyaki

Devoured

Awesome sweets in Japan

Valentines day with John

Enjoying some nice cocktails downtown

Mojitos in bottle anyone? Hmmm, Nope.

Nagoya is known for their miso tonkatsu (pork with miso sauce)

Local veggie and fish market

Local veggie and fish market.

Local veggie and fish market

Sushi everywhere!

Miso paste

The love of my life sent me coffee, books, and a whole lot of love:)

Dog groomers, people love their dogs more here than in Bozeman

Doggie Desserts

Not a lot of beer options, but Kirin is a nice addition to any meal.

A nice balanced meal, cashew chicken and a chu-hi

My first gifts from students, a sushi car, and chocolate potato chips (delish)

すべてが大丈夫です-Everything is Okay

So I love getting called out for not writing a blog post in quite some time, so thanks Rob for calling me out on my shit:)
That being said, there is a reason for not updating everyone...I have been waiting for some of the dust to settle before explaining to everyone what has been happening here in Japan. After the earthquake happened, there was a lot of worrying here in Nagoya as well as back home. I was trying to figure out my plan of attack...to stay or to flee. Our boss at my school (who seldom worries) held a staff meeting about what his thoughts on the situation, where we should all meet in case of an emergency, and the best way to handle an earthquake or possible radiation exposure.  Needless to say life felt pretty out of control. I never imagined having the conversations that took place that week and in the weeks that followed...it all felt so surreal. But in those moments of uncertainty and insanity one thing was made quite clear, I needed to stay.  It was about 5 years ago when I was called to come to Japan and for various reasons that calling seems to be very important to who I am and who I will become during my experiences here in Japan.

That being said I feel like I should share one of the reasons I feel called to stay, which to be apart of the rebuilding of the cities that were broken during this horrific event. I have been blessed with a good paying job that allows it's employees to have quite a few days off from work...so my plan during one of those nice breaks from work, is to venture up to the areas that have been effected by the tsunami and give whatever help that may be needed to begin picking up the many broken pieces in that part of this amazing country.

So that's what has been going on, sorry for the long absence...below are some emails I sent out to my family right after the earthquake...Much love to everyone reading this.

March 12TH (email to my family)

Sorry if you were worried, it was a pretty scary day here yesterday. I have already been through two earthquakes here in Japan, but nothing like the ones I experienced yesterday.


We had two earthquakes around the same time that Tokyo was hit. I was teaching one of my adult classes and the first earthquake lasted for about 5 minutes, which feels like an eternity in earthquake time. We all left the building just in case, the way the earthquakes are here makes you feel like your equilibrium just got knock off. I was really light headed and dizzy for a bit. Then we heard about what happened up North, and about ten minutes later we had another earthquake that was a bit more mild and lasted about half the time. I got off work around 10:30pm and headed home. I talked to a few friends in Tokyo, and things there are pretty bad. Chiaki's apartment got roughed up, and my friend Taichi got stuck at work about 2 hour walk from his home. From what I've heard the subways are all down, which is how a lot of people people get to work, and because the earthquakes happened in the middle of the day a lot of people have been stranded from their homes... my heart goes out to everyone there, but luckily none of my friends have been hurt. When I finally got to bed it was around 12:30am, but I was soon awoken by another earthquake followed by two more during the night at random times...this was a all bit frightening because I kept thinking that Nagoya might be next, which is in fact a plausible prediction. Needless to say I didn't sleep much last night. 


So that adds up to 5 earthquakes in 24 hours for me, this of course has made me miss you all the more...I love you all and thank you for worrying about me, I'm blessed to have John to help keep everyone updated, he has been incredible though out this whole experience. I love you guys and miss you.


Love always,
-Chels

(Another email to my god parents)

Thank you so much for your concern. things over here seemed pretty grim for a while. While nothing has been said to assure the safety of Japan I've decided to live here on the principle of faith. I know that it seems scary, but 6 years ago God called me here and I know that there is a purpose for me here. As soon as everything began to happen in Japan, I became even more certain that I should stay, and help in anyway that I can. I am so grateful to everyone back home who has been praying for me and this wonderful country. I love you all and look forward to coming home and seeing you! Hope you all are doing well...

What has been going on so far...

Well I have yet to acquire Internet at my apartment, but enough was enough...I knew I had to  find some way of getting in contact with everyone back home, so here I am writing about my experiences so far.


I arrived safely in Japan on January 24, 2011 at around 9:30 at night only to begin working the following day. The staff that picked me up from the airport, as well as the rest of the staff here at the school have been really friendly and have made me feel at home quickly. The school I work for is called ABC Plus and it is one incredible school. We have two locations, one of our locations is about less than a minute from my apartment... literally I can stand on my balcony and see the front entrance. The other school is about a 15-20 minute drive from the first school, which I travel to twice a week to teach at. I work with 7 other teachers 3 of them are from England and the other 4 are from various parts of the states. The school is a family business which makes it quite unique and a joyful environment.


My designated shifts begin each day at 1:30pm and go until 9:30, but I find myself at the office more often than my allotted shifts.  I myself and responsible for 23 classes a week and because our students come to the school only once a week, each day is a different set of classes and students. This makes the job continually interesting and lacking in dull moments. I have an array of students ranging in age and experience in the English language…to give you an idea of how varied my students are my youngest student is 2 and my oldest student is 72 this aspect also makes things so interesting and so wonderful…the differences are stark and beautiful.


I will be continually updating this blog with little stories about this and that, but mostly will use it to share the photos that I take along the way.
This picture is of me on the balcony
of my apartment 

Love and miss all.
Chelsea