California Girl Gone Cold!

It has been a while since I have written on this blog but what other to reason to write an entry than to talk all about the SNOW!

Five months ago I was sitting on Adam's doorstep talking to my brother on the phone and all of a sudden my phone beeped! I had just received a new email. It was the email I had been waiting for since I decided to try for the JET Programme, it was my placement email. As I read every word out loud to Adan there it was in bold lettering SAPPORO. My first reaction was cool, I am being placed where my favorite Japanese beer is made. Adan's reaction was a little different, he chuckled. He then proceeded to tell me that Sapporo was on Hokkaido, the ALASKA of the United States. My reaction immediately changed, I started to freak out. I am a California girl to the core. I like sun, food, beaches, taking walks late at night and not having to wear a jacket. My winter outfit consists of a pair of jeans, a long sleeved shirt, a leather jacket and a scarf on those really cold nights. Right away I thought maybe this move to Japan is not meant for me. Yes, it is just weather some of you might think but weather is a big deal to a girl who lives for the sun. While I have lived in extremely cold weather before in Japan, Holland, Germany and in Italy, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go back to that kind of lifestyle. Well, as we all know I did.

On October 25th I was checking the weather online because the day before the weather had been perfect and suddenly the weather dropped. Sapporo weather is not reliable, it's hot one day and the next it's overcast but there it was, the word SNOW! It said that on Oct. 26th it would snow for the first time. My reaction was ok, let's do this. We all knew it was coming those darn snow bugs had been warning us for a month. On Tuesday morning I wake up and the sun is completely shining. I'm talking to Adam on Skype around 6:20 A.M and I am describing to him how beautiful it looks outside, then all of a sudden my kitchen got dark. I look outside again and realize in the far mountains there is snow on them.  I describe to Adam how the sky all of a sudden went from being really bright to darn to pure white. He tells me that's what snow weather sounds like. Then literally out of now where it starts to pour snow.

Once I am done getting ready for work I run outside to grab my bike. I figure this will probably be the last time I will be able to use my bike, which is what I was really dreading. I have come to love my bike and I like riding it everyday. As I ride to the subway I am getting sprinkled with snow. By the way, I have never been as cold as I have been today in maybe over a decade. My commute to my new elementary school takes around 2 hours and 45 minutes and when I get there I realize where I am. I am in those mountains in the boonies where there is snow on the tips. As I am walking from my bus stop to the school there is no sign that it will continue to snow, I was wrong. Through out my entire day of teaching I can not take my eyes off the windows. It starts off slow and quiet and continues all day getting heavier and heavier.

By the time I am walking back to the bus stop at the end of the day I realize this isn't going to stop. As I stand there waiting for my bus I look across the street at a ski slope, it is so beautiful. The hills are filled with beautiful red, orange, green leaves and white snow. This is going to be a long 6-7 months of winter and it will really take me out of my comfort zone but it will be an interesting change. I look forward to: learning how to ski or snowboard, manning up to this cold weather and most of all to Adam moving here on December 27th when he will keep me warm in my cold apartment :)

First Day of Japanese ES: Humiliating or Just Another Day in Japan!!!

For the last month and a half I have been teaching at Motomachi Junior High. This school is my base school so I will be returning there in February until I leave in August. October 1st marked my first day of teaching at elementary schools. I will teach at 9 different schools in the month of October all over Sapporo. Sapporo has 200 elementary schools and 2 million people in the city alone.  So while everyone was excited for me to move over to elementary all I could think is one thing- I am bound to get really LOST! When it comes to sense of direction I don't have any. If I have been to a place I can most likely get back with no problem but finding a new destination is just trouble. In the United States I used my GPS for everything and honestly I never remember street names.

October 1st- the big day of going to my first elementary school.  The name of the school is Atsubetsukita Elementary School. The directions I was given come on a piece of paper giving me the name, address, the bus stop, the phone number and a drawing that consists of a square with the name of the school. The stop's name is Atsubetukitashogakkou Mae. I had asked my co-teacher at my last middle school how the bus stop was pronounced and he told me not to worry about it "it's too long."  The moment he said that I knew somehow that was going to bite me in the butt.

I started off my day like every other: I wake up, talk to Adam, get dressed and run out of my apartment with a coffee in hand. I bike to the subway station, hop on the subway and head in the direction of my school. Once arriving at Shin Sapporo I automatically am surrounded by people running in every way. I figure out where the bus terminals is and then realize that this is not a small bus terminal. In fact, I can literally count over 30 buses scattered all over. I have 6 minutes until my bus leaves, no worries I think just find number 38. 10 minutes later I am still looking. I get enough balls to ask a woman who is sweet enough to drop her cigarette and lead me through the terminals. After 10 minutes of wandering she shrugs and I figure out she has no idea. I am starting to panic, I have 30 minutes to be at the school and the ride alone takes 20 min. *SIDENOTE: In Japan it is extremely rude to arrive late, let alone for work. If you are late they look at you like you just spat on their mother.* Finally after running around I find it! Success is mine!! I concurred finding the bus. Yes, I know that sounds sad but it's the little things that keeps me from going crazy in a land where I don't know the language.

In order not to screw myself over I decide the best idea would be to talk to the bus driver about my final destination. He looks at the paper and nods- "ok." I arrive at the stop and the bus driver says that is the school and points. I get off and think this is awesome I have 10 minutes to spare, I have to be there by 8:30 A.M. I straighten myself out and chug my iced coffee. I walk into one of the most beautiful schools I have ever seen, I feel confident and am thinking "Ariel you got this." I look around and am a nice maintenance man shows me where the office is. I walk into the teachers room where there are around 18 teachers. They all look at me with excitement and greet me with smiles. They then lead me to the middle of the office and I automatically bust out my Japanese introduction. They continue to smile and hand me a cup of coffee. I drink it and politely hand them my directions paper. They all crowd around, look at the paper and burst out laughing. YES, I had gone to the wrong school. This school was not Atsubetsukita it was another school with almost the exact same name!


By now I was already late to my real school, it was 8:35 A.M. A teacher is nice enough to drag me out of the school while the other teachers are still laughing at me. He puts me into his car and drives like we are on the way to the emergency room. He runs red lights, swerves and grins at me once in a while.  My body automatically goes into freak out mode. If I was going to have to speak Japanese, this was the moment.  I  talk to 3 people who have no idea what I am talking about. I feel completely defeated but I figure I will try my Japanese with 1 more person, they don't understand me. Finally I say "I will be there in 5 minutes etc." my driver yells "now 3 minutes.. now 2 minutes... now 1 minute." The person on the other end of the phone finally says call you please just speak English. WHAT?!?!?!?! I was speaking English!!! All I could do was laugh it off and smile from how hilarious this story would be in a couple of hours.

My driver pulls up at my school, he jumps out, grabs my door open and helps me out. He stops the passing traffic and literally hands me over to the kyoto-sensei (vice-principal). I use my broken Japanese to apologize and basically give him a 90 degree bow. A 90 degree bow is really only used when you majorly screwed up..this consider this a major screw up moment. I walk into the school and am placed in the kochosensei's (principal) office. They bring me a cup of coffee coffee, black coffee.  I knew this would be deadly to my kidneys but drank it anyways. I finish and am still waiting, they come give me another cup of black coffee. Once again, I drink it because I don't want to offend them and am already messing up big time at this school. So within 45 minutes I had drunk 4 cups of coffee, oh man. Literally four hours later, I was still trembling.. never again.

Luckily, my school was just really excited I was there! After waiting in the kocho-sensei's office they escorted me to an assembly. Where kindergarten through fifth graders sang in unison songs from The Sound of Music. As they left the gym I said goodbye to every single student. My beauty queen wave practicing at Chez Panisse with Melissa finally came in handy! I end up teaching five classes through out the day. The other teachers even took time off from their classes to come see me teach. Everyone was curious about me asking me questions about everything little thing. A little boy left his desk to ask my semi-English speaking guide if everyone in California looked like me.   The best part of the day was when I handed out American dollars for the students to see. I handed out ten and one dollar bills, then a penny. This literally could have kept them busy the entire class period. They bent them, felt every crevice, brought out dictionaries to translate the writing and then they SMELT them! I loved that, kids are so awesome!

Since I am the first foreigner that most of these kids/ teachers had ever seen I was treated like a real celebrity. I signed books, got thank you letters and had pictures taken of me with every step I took. As I left at the end of the day all the teachers were waiting for me outside. They all bowed, thanked me and tried to express how excited they were that I was coming back on Monday. I was then taken by a staff member to the bus stop where I should get off and on the bus.  All together teaching at elementary schools in Japan is living the good life. Now I have to find 8 other schools this month, lets see how those commutes go down :)