Nearing the End

I can't believe I only have 9 days left with all of Group 6... It's been an amazing summer, and being separated from them during my last week in Japan is seriously going to bum me out. 

We still have a few nights off, another USA Summer Camp session, and a short trip to Kyoto planned before we break apart for a week. 

So, to my team, in order of appearance from right to left...

Ahmed... You're a great guy, and you're crazy around the kids. Keep up the good work at our last camp together! And I'm glad your feet healed up well.

Phoua... You're extremely nice to everyone, and I never took your kindness for granted. You work well with the campers, and they seemed to love doing camp skit with you at the camp we just finished. 

Kao... We're going to have a blast in Gifu, but it's going to be odd not being surrounded by the rest of Squid Squad while we're there. Here's to the last week of the trip!

Hope... You're just awesome! You're easy to talk to and are always approachable, so thanks for being such a strong asset to the team. And I love your symbolism, by the way. 

Amanda, Amanda, Amanda... Thanks for putting up with me through all of these camps and for all of the camp drama. You're seriously one of the coolest girls I've ever met, but that wasn't a surprise since Emilie told me that you're awesome before this trip even started. 

Adam... Okay, maybe I should skip myself...

Sam... I seriously couldn't have imagined Group 6 without you on it. You're one of the coolest guys that I can call my friend, and I'm going to miss you a ton after this trip is done. Maybe we'll have to have a few drinks...or a lot of drinks in Oshkosh or La Crosse sometime!

And to everyone... You made this summer the best one I've ever had. Yes, I loved being in Japan last summer, and there's no replacing my original team, but I at least have two teams to see when I go home in a couple weeks now.

But for now, let's enjoy the time we have together and make our final camp the best one yet.

Squid Squad!

Adam

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A Brief Reunion! The Wheels on the Bus

After the three night home stay, you can imagine how excited I was to be reunited with my team.  However, shortly after meeting at Tokyo Station, I was informed that I would be spending one more night in Tokyo.

"Oh," I said, wondering why.  And is the rest of the team staying in Tokyo, too?

Well, the answer is no.  I found out that I'm actually going to be riding on a bus with 44 campers, so that should be an interesting experience to say the least.  I'll be on the bus with one of the Japanese counselors.

Waving goodbye to my team was difficult, since our reunion was short and bittersweet, but I'll see them all tomorrow when camp begins!

I had a great time exploring Shinjuku today, and I took some pretty neat photos.  I'll be scattering the uploads throughout the next week, since I'll be at camp every day for the next six days, which means that I won't have many, if any, photo opportunities.

Also, I have a presentation due on August 2nd for the final two camps, and tonight is the last main opportunity that I have to work on it.  You "could" call me a procrastinator, BUT you also have to realize that I'm exploring Japan and... no one else on my team completed their presentations, either.  Yeah... I'm just going to get to work on it now.

Chat later,

Adam
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Back to Work! Can't Wait For Kyoto

Well, I had an amazing time off in Japan!  Our last break was eight days, including the three night home stay. Now my team is preparing to reunite for our next summer camp.

So for those of you wondering if I'm actually working this summer, the answer is "Yes, I am."  I just had a week off, that's all.  I will have a few more breaks this summer, though, and it's the last one that I want to talk about briefly.

The seven members of Group 6 will be leaving Tokyo and be going to Kyoto for a few days around August 13th.  This will be the first time that I've ever been outside of the Tokyo area in Japan, and I'm rather excited to ride on the Shinkansen bullet train.

I've wanted to visit Kinkaku-ji, The Golden Pavilion, for years, and I think I might finally get my chance this summer.  If it doesn't work out for some reason, I'm sure I'll still have a good time, but I'll be so happy if I do, in fact, get a chance to see it in person.

And after our break in Kyoto, the group is breaking up into groups of 2-2-2-1 for the last set of camps, and we don't know our groups yet.  Our last two camps are actually through a different organization, and they typically like to have eight counselors from different countries around the world, so I'll have a chance to meet some more interesting people towards the end of the trip.  We'll still teach English to the kids, but if I'm understanding the program correctly, it's going to focus more on diversity and friendship, which will be a nice change after doing four more English camps.

I don't want to overload you with information, so instead I'll promise to write again soon.

Take care,

Adam
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Visiting a Japanese High School

I'm in Saitama for my home stay, and it's the first time I've ever been here.  To be honest, it's so nice to get out of the big cities for a little while and enjoy spending some time in a smaller town.

Today I had the pleasure of visiting a Japanese high school called Inagakuen.  My host mother teaches there, and she showed me around the school.  I was lucky enough to watch some of the kids practice karate, and they were excited to practice their English skills with me.

Even though I'm not at camp right now, I still feel like a counselor sometimes, and that's a good feeling.  Last night, I helped out with a private English lesson briefly, and I'll have the same opportunity tonight with a different student.

My host mother is showing me some interesting Japanese musicians, and I'm now hooked to the song "Dragon Night" by Sekai No Owari.  If I have the opportunity, I might buy one of their CDs.

That's all for now, and as usual, take care!

Adam
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Photos from my trip can be found here: https://instagram.com/atambohmer/

11 PM Curfew? Challenge Accepted

During our first break in Japan, we stayed at a nice hostel called the Tokyo Central Youth Hostel. It was a place with a beautiful view on the 19th floor. However, they also have an 11 PM curfew. That means that you can't get into the hostel between 11 at night and 6 in the morning.

So... Three of us decided that we'd go clubbing in Roppongi and just stay out all night. We left the hostel at 9:30 and found a bar with drinks so expensive that we could only afford one drink. And then... We discovered Ele Tokyo, a club with more expensive drinks, a DJ, and some interesting people that wanted to party...on a Monday night.

After a few hours of partying, we needed a place to stay for the night, so we sang karaoke from 2 in the morning until 5. 

At that point, we planned on taking the subway back to our hostel, but we were ushered into yet another club where we could spend even more money.

Long story short, we got back to the hostel at 8:30 in the morning and did just about nothing the rest of the day.

Moral of the story: if you're going to go clubbing, make sure you have the money to spend because I spent way too much. But it was a great time, and I'd do it again if I had the money for it.

Until next time,

Adam 

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An Incredible Five Days

I'm in Japan to teach English, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I love having time off to explore Tokyo. Recently, we had five nights off in a row, and tonight is our last night in a hostel before we separate for our home stays.

Anyway, I had tons of fun during my time off.  On the first night, I went out with a few of the guys, wandered the streets of Asakusa aimlessly, and ended up in a bar with an impressive dart board.  My friend Sam and I played on a team against the other three guys in a couple games of Cricket, and we obliterated them both times.  

Then Henry and I decided to break off from the group and head back to the hostel.  We thought we knew the way back.  In fact, we were positive we could make it back.  But... we were also wrong.  What should have been a fifteen minute walk quickly turned into an hour and a half of wandering unknown streets and stopping at various Seven-Eleven shops for free Wi-Fi to check the maps.  The worst part about the situation is that if I didn't have my phone charging back at the hostel, we would have made it back in no time, since I have unlimited calling, texting, and data here in Japan.  But we did manage to make it back somehow, so rest assured, I'm okay.  I'm writing this post, after all.

We explored Asakusa, found a Denny's restaurant at one point, and we even went to the Ueno Zoo.

But my favorite place in Japan so far is Odaiba!  I went there last year, but I never had a chance to experience the Aqua City mall.  I was lucky enough to pet kittens with Amanda, and I was able to buy some new Pokemon cards at Toys R Us when I went there with Sam and Amber later.  We had a meeting about the ECC camps that we'll be working at the end of the summer, but afterwards we saw the Statue of Liberty and ate pizza at a restaurant with an incredible outdoor view of the bay.

Photos from my trip can be found on my Instagram account here: https://instagram.com/atambohmer/

I'll write again sometime soon, but until then...

Take care!

Adam
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The Orientation Off Day

Wow, my first few days back in Japan sure were busy for me, since I had orientation for English summer camp counselors and my first two camp sessions.  My group has only worked two USA Summer Camps, but we've already changed the lives of over 200 kids so far.

At our orientation site, we had an amazing view of Mt. Fuji... when we could see it.  You see, it was usually rainy and cloudy while we were in Gotemba.

But orientation was a lot of fun, and I had a chance to work with people on other teams, too.  Some of our paths will cross throughout the summer, but my group won't see a lot of them again, which is kind of sad because I'm decent friends with a few of them now.

During orientation, we had one day off, so we watched the US beat Japan in the World Cup, and then we went into Gotemba to wander around.  We came across a Pachinko building, and playing it was a ton of fun even though we had no idea what we were doing.  And then we discovered an amazing hibachi-like restaurant, but since we'ere foreigners, they had a staff member cook the food at our table for us instead of having us do it all by ourselves.

And after dinner, the search for a bar began.  And it was more challenging than we would have guessed, since we were kicked out of the first couple bars because the servers couldn't speak English.  Eventually, we found a little closet bar that only fits seven people, and the server was completely drunk.  They had two TVs for karaoke, and I have to say, it was, oddly enough, an amazing experience.

Now we have a couple days off, so we're just going to have a good time in Tokyo!

Take care,

Adam

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Day One is Done!

Well, I arrived in Japan earlier today and... I am completely exhausted.  I woke up at 4:30 on July 1st in order to get to the airport on time for my flight, which happened to be delayed by two hours.  That left us less than 20 minutes to catch our connecting flight to Narita.

However, the delay gave me extra time in Milwaukee to start getting to know the other people that I'll be working with this summer.

The flight to Narita went smoothly, but I failed to sleep at all, and I arrived in Japan at 2 in the afternoon.  It's around 7:15 right now, and I'm ready to burrow into my bed and sleep for a while.  

I should mention that I was reunited with some of my Japanese friends that were part of the USA Summer Camp program with me last year, and it was great to see them again.  I have a feeling that this is going to be a great summer, and I look forward to sharing updates with everyone.

But for now, it's nap time.

Adam

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The Adventure Begins! Sort of...

My second journey to Japan is underway!  I said farewell to my sweet little beagle and most of my family a couple hours ago, but right now, I'm just chilling in a Travelodge hotel room, using their Wi-Fi service with the very secure password "brownbear."  

I may have left my home, but I honestly haven't comprehended that I won't be back in Holmen, Wisconsin for another two months.  I had my farewell parties with some of my high school friends and former Japan teammates, but it still hasn't sunk in that I won't be seeing any of them for a while.

Even though I don't fly out for a few more days, I'm getting used to living out of a suitcase and my backpack again, and to be honest, I don't mind traveling around with just the essentials that I need to get by.  

That's about wraps up this post for tonight, so take care, everyone!  I'll continue to send trip updates, and it should definitely be a little more exciting once I am actually in Japan.

Adam

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So What's New? - Japan Adventure #2

That's right, my friends.  I am returning to Japan in less than a week, so I thought, "Hey... I'd better start blogging more frequently again."  For those of you that are curious, I'm going through the same organization as last year (Guy Healy, Japan), and I'll be teaching English to several different groups of kids throughout the summer.

Honestly, I can't wait to go back, and I truly can't believe that I'll be returning to Japan after only being gone for about eleven months.  However, it's going to be a different experience, since none of my friends that I met last year are going back.  Well, that isn't completely true.  I found out recently that my friend, Ikuma, who was one of the Japanese counselors on my team last year is going to be the Director on my team this year.

Alright, alright, I hear you in the back, and I'll answer your question.  Regarding vlogs and blogs while I'm abroad... here's the plan.

I'll be uploading photos to Facebook whenever an opportunity arises.  So as long as I have Wi-Fi, my friends will be updated frequently.

I'll blog when I have time, but I can't make any promises that I'll make lots of blog posts during my trip.  If I don't, I'll certainly write about my trip afterwards, so don't worry about that.

And the moment you've all been waiting for... videos... Here's the deal.  I'm not going to bring my expensive laptop and worry about something happening to it every day.  So, to compromise for not bringing it, I bought myself a nice little Chromebook yesterday.  Now, as you can imagine, I don't have access to my video editing suite on the Chromebook, so I'll most likely be doing all of my editing after returning to the states in the end of August.  That doesn't mean that I won't record footage of me talking in front of the camera while I'm there; I just won't be able to upload it to YouTube until I'm back.

I hope that sounds okay for everyone.

I'll keep updates coming regularly until I leave.

Take care,

Adam
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The Last Night – Adam in Japan #7 – Finale!

I had an amazing time in Japan, but eventually, all good things must come to an end.  I also want to say that my first trip to Japan couldn't have been spent with a better group of people.  We had an award ceremony on our last night together, and this is what I wrote afterwards:

During the award ceremony, everyone received a certificate for completing USA Summer Camp, and we also got an award that is entirely in Japanese, so I'll have a fun time translating it.  Then we got individual awards, and mine was the "Best Director" award.  It felt pretty good to win the award for directing a horror film with my team, and I only say "pretty good" because I was "incredibly" honored to win what I believe is the most special award on the team.

My team voted for me to win the "Eric Spindler" award.  Here's some backstory: he was a counselor who passed away before he could come back to USA Summer Camp for a second year.  In his honor, someone from each team is given an award for being devoted to the campers.  You have no idea how great I felt, but it's just going to make me feel sadder about leaving my team.  I'll have to consider coming back to camp again in the future because I made so many great friends here in Japan.

Our last night together was so much fun, but it was a sad night, too.  We all gave speeches at the end, and I threw together a montage video for everyone to watch.  I had to make it without anyone knowing about it, and I barely finished it by the deadline.  Overall, I was happy with how it turned out, though.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about my time in Japan throughout these seven posts, and I’ll blog about it again when I return in the near future.  But for now, I need to continue studying Japanese every day because I really do feel like I’m improving quite a bit.  I’ll continue to keep you guys updated on all of the progress that I make using the Japanese Level Up method.

We had fake family drama for the campers.  This was our full family.

And this was me with my ex wife and our baby and my mistress... Family drama...

Just waiting at the Narita airport.

And we're back in Milwaukee!  The adventure is officially over.

Until next time,

Adam
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Homeikan over Homestay? – Adam in Japan #6

During my trip to Japan, there was a three day period where we could live with a host family, but three of my teammates and I decided that we’d find a hostel to stay at instead.  We thought it would be fun to plan our own adventure during this time.  And guess what?  It was a blast!

We stayed at a nice little hostel called Homeikan.  The two girls stayed in a building a few blocks from where Will and I stayed, and we got lost looking for their hostel on the first day, even though we had a map.  But by the last day, we were experts at getting around the area without any assistance.

This is what our room looked like.  It was nice and relaxing.

We even had complimentary tea!

Okay, the girls are around here somewhere... But on a side note, isn't this picture just beautiful?!

We finally found the building where the girls were staying after 20 minutes.

This was our map.  I believe we were at the Morikawa Bekkan, and the girls were at Honkan or Daimachi Bekkan.

On one of the days off, we went to the Meiji Shrine, which was a place that I wanted to visit for a long time. 

We're approaching the entrance!

I really wish my camera was capable of dealing with bright lighting.  Either way, I still like this picture.

Visitors from around the world leave prayers or messages for others to read.

We also got to walk across one of the world’s busiest intersections, the Shibuya Crossing, and we took a walk through Yoyogi Park.

It rained at Yoyogi Park, and we had one umbrella.  I was the only one prepared for rain, apparently.

There was a nice little coffee shop near our hostel, so we ordered tea and coffee there one morning.  Oh yeah, and the Tokyo Dome was near our hostel, too, so we went bowling and played Mario Kart on one of the arcade machines. 

It rained heavily on our way back, and we didn’t have our umbrellas with us, so I had to buy a raincoat.  I think it looks pretty darn cool, though.

I also want to mention that I went to a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant during our time off, and it was so weird but cool being served in English.  And it was nice to be able to order expensive alcoholic drinks, since I was 20 when I went to Japan, which meant that I could only drink legally while I was there, and that right would be revoked when I returned to the states.

This was the Homeikan team!

I was able to order alcohol, and I didn't even have to show an ID.  It was nice.

The restaurant locations are on the tables.

I ordered nachos!

I had the exact change to pay for my meal.

When you put this sign up, the server stops at the table.  Otherwise it says "Run Forrest Run" and they just keep moving.  It's a cool concept.

As you can see, the menu was in English, too.

This was a pretty neat Starbucks.

And I don't know what this building is for, but it was near our hostel.

The only downfall about the time off was that my camera suffered from water damage and broke.  The SD card was fine, though, and that’s all that really matters.

Well, that’s it for today, guys!

Until next time,

Adam

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Tokyo Skytree! – Adam in Japan #5

That’s right, everyone.  When I had some time off, my friends and I went to the Tokyo Skytree!  But if you saw my second Lang-8 blog post, you’d know that I didn’t actually go up to the top.

You’re probably wondering, “Why would you go all the way to the Skytree and NOT pay to see an amazing view?”

Well, one of the only valid responses would be a fear of heights.  And no, that’s not the reason I didn’t ride the elevator to the top of the Skytree.  So here’s the story…

Eight of us were having a good time while the other half of our team was still at their third camp, so one of the activities that we did was sing karaoke.  After that, we decided that we’d go to the Skytree.  What we didn’t know is that it closes around 8 or 9 at night. 

It was okay, though.  We still had 20 or 30 minutes to spare when we got there.  However, I failed to anticipate that one of the guys on my team would have to use the restroom.  The girls went on ahead, but my friend Will and I decided that we’d be nice and wait for him instead of ditching him.

Once the three of us were back together, we went down the escalator to the main floor to look for the girls, but we couldn’t find them.  To make matters worse, I was the only one with a working cell phone that could send messages without the need for a Wi-Fi connection.

“They wouldn’t go without us, would they?” we wondered.  No, that was out of the question.  Naturally, we thought they were waiting for us, and they were in one of the shops.  We got distracted looking for them, and I bought some Pokémon cards and figures while we were in one of the stores.

The Skytree closed, and we failed to find them.  When we returned to the hostel, it was confirmed that they went on without us.  Oh well, I’m not going to blame them at all, and it was actually a somewhat comedic situation. 

So there you have it.  That’s why I didn’t go to the top of the Skytree.  It's okay because I plan on returning to Japan a couple more times while attending college, and I’m planning on moving to Japan once I’m do with school.  So it’s all good… I’ll see the view from the Skytree someday, and when that day comes, you’ll see all of the photos that I take.

It's the Skytree!

At least we found Doraemon at one of the stores...

I bought Pokemon cards and figures instead of going to the top of the Skytree. 

Until next time,

Adam

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