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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