Solo Week

This past week was my first week teaching all by myself. It went well. I also had to get myself to all of the locations, via trains and bikes. The bike day was fun. 30 minutes in 100 degree weather...complete with a thunderstorm. The work is good. It's fine. Nothing special. I'm having a hard time adjusting backwards. In Korea, I was doing ESL with the babies all day and it was exhausting, but I liked it. In China, I was doing real teaching and it was exhausting and I was super under qualified for the job, but I liked it. In Japan, I am doing ESL with all different age groups and at all different times and I find myself feeling extremely over qualified and a bit bored. I'm really trying to use this boredom combined with the excessive amount of free time I have to decide what I want to do with my life and then what steps I need to take/can take on the internet to make myself marketable in the world. It's challenging and frustrating and it's wearing on me. BUT, like I said it's only been 2 weeks and I came into this assuming the first 3 months would be hard.

On top of making these life adjustments, I haven't made any friends. There is a girl who works at another school that my boss runs and we've been trying to hang out on the weekends (we also co-teach once a week). She's very nice, but we have different interests and I would like to branch out a bit. This is hard because I have not seen another foreigner in my area. I did venture out to the foreigner bar that is a few train stops away tonight, but it was very crowded and I didn't know what to do. What kind of solo bar sitter do I want to be? Should I play with my dinos? Should I read a book? Do I just sit and smile? Do I sit and watch TV? WHAT DO I DO!? Needless to say, I'll keep trying.

Last weekend we went to the fresh fish market in Tokyo and had the best sushi ever. Then we wandered around the Imperial Palace. This weekend we went to the Harry Potter Exhibit. They had clothes and props and stuff from all of the movies. It was pretty cool. I was pretty excited.

I've been to 14 countries and America and Mexico are the only ones that I have not been to the capital cities in.

Would you rather share a toothbrush with a stranger for a week or not use a toothbrush for a month?

My street and a storm rolling in.

Bruised shin because I forgot there was a basket thing on the back of the bike.

Rice fields.

Dino in the rice!

T-Rex biking.

Women only train cars to prevent sexual assault.

That says "HARRY POTTER"!!

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside...

Bigass spider in the art district in Tokyo.