Geoff took me to Japan for our 11th Wedding Anniversary! ;)

Our Winter semester ended on Friday and what a semester it has been! We have been so busy that I haven't had time to blog like I had planned so I hope to squeeze in the time to add blog posts when I can.

This is backing up to February again...

We celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary on February 16th. When some of our students found out it was going to be our anniversary soon they offered to babysit the girls for us while we went on a date! It was so fun to go out and spend time with just the 2 of us. Our first night off since we've been here. We went to a yaki niku restaurant that is close to our apartment and it was delicious! Yaki niku means "grilled meat" and is really fun because you have a little grill at your table and cook the thinly sliced meat and vegetables that you ordered and then dip them in a delicious sauce. Unfortunately the pictures I have are terrible because my phone only takes good pictures outside in full sunlight but here is what I have.

Here is our meal of rice (which is so delicious in this reason)

Mikuni's got talent!

Wow, our time here in Japan is just flying by! We have never been so busy but we are really enjoying this adventure. I decided I had to make time to finally update this blog!

First I'm going to back up a few months and tell you about some of the fun events we had at our Mikuni school in February.

I get to teach the Modern American Culture class and I love it! I decided that we needed to start this class so I could help prepare the Japanese students for some of the cultural differences that can be hard for Japanese students when they first come to school in America. Since Geoff and I have had about 18 foreign students (most of them Japanese) come and live with us since we’ve been married we’ve seen a lot of these challenges first hand. Some of the things I teach in my class are: participating and contributing to class discussions (in Japan the students are expected to just sit and listen to their teacher with out asking questions, giving comments etc.) the differences between dating in Japan and in America (and wow, are there a lot!) food, cooking, facebook, gmail/googledocs, greeting people/being more out going, eating and cooking in America (where we don't use the metric system!) etc. I have really loved this class and I think the students do too, even though I make them do things that are completely out of their comfort zone! One of them was teaching them how a dance works and having one for Valentine’s Day. All of the students were so nervous and did NOT want to dance but after teaching them the basics and putting everyone on committees to get everything ready (music play list, refreshments, decorations, sound system etc.) when the dance actually came everyone did awesome and really enjoyed it! I’m really proud of my students because dancing is NOT something most Japanese people do! (Unless of course it’s Obon and they are doing the traditional line dances all together.)

Everyone getting read for the dance to start

Eventually I did get the boys and girls to dance together ;)

Some of our Mikuni ladies

Aya enjoying the awesome refreshments we had

I told the students what the term "wall flower" means and here 2 of them are demonstrating it for me :)

As if I didn’t put them out of their comfort zone enough, the next week we had a talent show and I told everyone well in advance that participation was mandatory.  And wow, Mikuni’s got talent! We were blown away by everything from guitar playing to baking to speaking Pigeon (that was Aya) to video game tutoring to my very favorite, a boys band!  Let me explain a little about this. Several of our boy students live in a lodge(cabin) instead of the apartment building like everyone else. We naturally started calling them “The Lodge Boys” and so I told them with a name like that they really should start a boys band. I would often remind them, jokingly, to practice singing and dancing and they did it! For the talent show they did not one but several song and dance numbers in boys band style. It was awesome and hilarious! When they get famous I’m totally telling everyone it was my idea :)

Lodge Boys!

One of our talented musicians

The cup song

Our lovely hostesses for the evening

A hilarious skit 

I love our students!

Our daily life at Mikuni International College

Our school building

Life here at our Mikuni is so busy but we love it! Many of you have asked about our schedule and what we do each day so here is an example of most week days:

6am-Geoff & I wake up, read scriptures, get read for the day etc.
7:30am-Geoff leaves for school with a van full of students for the first class at 8am & teaches class until 11)
7:30-12pm the girls and I are at home (I exercise & work on our business before the girls wake up & then we do breakfast, home school, dishes, laundry, cleaning etc. until we leave)
12pm-We join Geoff at the school and we all have lunch together with all the students and staff (we all take turns cooking for everyone)
1pm-Hana (and sometimes Aya) go to writing/computer class with the students
2pm-I teach my American Culture Class (So much fun!)
3-5pm Geoff works on class prep, administrative things etc. I work on organizing the school, finishing up home school with the girls, helping students with home work, cleaning, cooking, shopping for food, working on the school budget, planning upcoming activities etc.
5pm Dinner with everyone and clean up
6:30 or 7pm Take everyone home (on Monday nights we have FHE and on Saturdays we have movie nights so we stay longer on those days)
7:30pm I take Hana & Aya to the sento to get all 3 of us washed and bathed
8pm Family prayer & scripture study, Put the girls to bed
8-10PM Work on a few more things we didn't get done during the busy day, get ready for bed and relax a little if we can before bed.

Here we are in the study room gathered for FHE

On Saturdays we spend every other one driving to and shopping at Costco for the school meals for the next 2 weeks. It's a fun trip and I love getting to know the students better during the long drive. It's also fun to be at "real" stores as we live in the country and only have 1 small grocery store in our town. Then after we come back we have dinner and movie night with everyone, which is really fun.

On Sundays Geoff is in charge of conducting/organizing Sacrament meeting, Sunday School and Priesthood classes. I play the piano (though I'm working on helping some students be brave enough to do it!) give talks and teach lessons as needed and conduct Relief Society. The students are really helpful, conduct the music and give great talks and lessons when assigned too.  After the 3 hour block we prepare lunch and eat all together and then have free time the rest of the day.

And the reason we do all of this is because we love our amazing students so much! We want them to learn English well, be ready for college and grow spiritually so we have to be strict about schedules, homework and only speaking English at school but mostly just have a lot of fun with them.  We currently have 15 students, ages 17-21, 2 teachers (one is married so his fabulous wife is here with us too.) Geoff and I as the Principal and Vice Principal and our girls. Such a great experience for learning and growing for all of us here. Hana and Aya adore all of our students and are pretty sure they are all here to play and talk with them ;) I appreciate how the students are always so sweet with them and make them feel so loved and special. I was worried about how they would do since there are no other children here but they seem to be doing great with all of their older "brothers and sisters". I also love how our students just jump in and help with whatever is needed from shoveling snow to cleaning the school bathrooms, to making sure everyone is happy and included to setting up for the Sacrament. They are truly thoughtful teenagers/early 20 year olds! We love our Mikuni Family!  This helps a lot since we miss our families at home some much.

2 Ayas and 2 Hanas! Left to Right, Aya Nagano, Aya Biesinger, Hana Biesinger & Hana Ogawa

Playing in the snow in the school yard

Eating soft tacos

We have several amazing cooks in our school! This is the making of an awesome birthday cake.

On the ride to Costco. I thought it was hilarious to turn around and see Yuuichi covered in Hana's stuffed animals as she talked his ear off the whole way there! Good English listening practice for sure!

Some of our beautiful Mikuni ladies at an event we were invited to at a local hotel.

On the private bus that was sent to pick us up before the event at the hotel. Pretty nice!

This is in my American Culture class where I'm teaching everyone how to use google docs and Facebook.

Hana and Aya learning how to eat sukiyaki with Kisetsu. They thought it was pretty cool that you eat it with raw egg.

Some of our "Lodge Boys" (the school has some lodges as well as the apartments we live in. We call all the boys that live in the lodge "The Lodge Boys" and I've told them they need to start up a boys band :)

Basketball in our school gym.

The boys lined up for dinner (they always insist that all the girls go first!) Not sure what the dancing is all about but I love it!

Our Winter Semester students before the High School seniors joined us, along with our 2 awesome teachers.

Birthdays and Food at our school

It's a Sunday afternoon and the girls are playing a board game with Geoff at the kitchen table so I thought I would take the time to write a blog post. We are busy here everyday so time seems to fly by.

My birthday was on the 15th and Hana's is this week on the 26th. In our extended families we have a lot of January birthdays and always have family parties to celebrate everyone. It was sad to miss out on those this year but it was nice to be remembered with cards, packages, emails, phone calls and Facebook messages! 

A super fun birthday present from my sister and brother-in-law. Thanks, Ashmans!

I felt very loved. Geoff insisted we celebrate my birthday on the 15th on Friday for the Japanese time zone AND Saturday for the 15th for the Utah time zone so it was 2 days long this year. Geoff and the girls went into town and got me so delicious dark chocolate treats. (The food in Japan is just amazing and these were no exception!) I especially loved this one in the picture. It's dark chocolate squares with "biscuits" (cookies) on the bottom.

Also, one of our students made apple pie and another student made chocolate cake for my birthday! They were both delicious and I appreciated them so much. Thanks Genya and Keina! We had a movie night at the school and ate those with popcorn while we watched The Lego Movie. It was great!

Earlier in the day on Saturday we went to Costco! It is about a 2 hour drive away but after comparing prices at our very limited grocery store options in our little town we calculated that it was well worth the extra gas money and time to go every once in awhile to stock up for the school.  The savings on meat alone was huge! Most Japanese people shop several times a week because the kitchens, refrigerators etc. are tiny so you don't have room to store more than that but we are lucky to have a big school and kitchen so this is a much more economical way to shop for 20 people.

Check out the awesome Tetris skills used to pack all of our Costco purchases into the back of the van!

 Jedi fighting with pineapple and a frying pan

Aya with one of our awesome students, Ryohei
I was amazed at how packed this Costco was! I've never shopped in a bigger crowd before. Luckily everyone was polite as we maneuvered around each other.

Also, it is an amazing drive through scenic mountain forests, rivers, winding roads and sleepy towns that make you feel like you stepped back in time. I adore traditional Japanese houses and buildings so I love this drive.

And Costco shopping brings me to one of my favorite topics, cooking and food! Here at our school there is currently about 20 of us when you count students, staff and staff family members. We cook lunch and dinner in the school kitchen week day and eat together. On the weekends we have dinner together on Saturdays and lunch together on Sundays. The other meals and breakfasts are eaten at everyone's own apartments. Geoff and I have a budget and are in charge of planning out the best way for all of us to buy and cook the food needed for all the meals. All of my time spent teaching my cooking/meal planning/grocery shopping classes in Utah have really come in handy!  Several of the students are excellent cooks and all of them are super helpful with grocery shopping and cooking so things have been going well. We plan out a menu with everyone of what meals we want to have, then make up a shopping list of all of the ingredients needed and decided who will cook each meal. Everyone helps wash dishes and clean up.  I've been introducing the students to foods they will encounter in America so they'll be prepared to cook when they go to college.

Some of the "American" foods we've made are: soft tacos, Hawaiian Haystacks, spaghetti and  garlic bread, hamburgers and pesto Alfredo pasta. They seemed to really like these meals though there was so hesitation about the black olives and guacamole with the soft tacos and raw carrots in the salad (Japanese people typically only eat carrots cooked.) We usually eat Japanese meals and we have had some very delicious food! Some of my favorites have been: sukiyaki, miso soup, tempura udon, ramen, curry, yaki niku, nabe etc. And the rice in this region of Japan is amazingly yummy. Needless to say, we are well fed.

Hana and Aya love the Japanese bread, (especially toasted) juice, fruit, snacks and candy. Hana loves all the noodles, especially ramen and can't get enough of the nori (seaweed.) Both of them have had to try a lot of new foods and we're working on helping them eat better!

Hana and Aya enjoying sukiyaki with Kisetsu. They were intrigued by the raw eggs.

Cooking in our school kitchen

Just about ready to eat

Genya making grilled cheese sandwiches

Japan! Our new home in a different kind of paradise...

The view from our apartment window

 We are in Japan on our amazing adventure in a very rural, snowy mountain town called Yuzawa. Geoff is the principal at Mikuni International College.  We have been here for about 2 weeks and we love it. Geoff and I are happy to be back since we both served missions here and lived and visited here a few times. (For those of you who don't know, Geoff and I actually met for the first time in Japan when we were missionaries and then met again 3 years later in Japanese classes at BYU and ended up dating when we were both in Japan the summer of 2014 so this place is very dear to us.)

I've been amazed at how well the girls have adapted! Children sure are amazing that way.

The flights here went really well but I won't lie, it was pretty rough getting from the Narita airport to our home, here in Yuzawa!  After we got off the plane, went through customs, gathered our huge amount of luggage, shipped most of the luggage ahead to our apartment (love this service they have in Japan and wish we had it everywhere!) we took a bus to Tokyo and then made our way through the crowded and crazy Tokyo station to catch our bullet train to Yuzawa where Geoff had his first experience driving in Japan...on the opposite side of the road...while exhausted and jet lagged...in the dark...in a blizzard...in a place neither of us have ever been..with 2 cranky and tired girls! I was so impressed how Geoff just took this all in stride and did a great job. We were so happy to finally reach our apartment building but were sad to find that it was freezing cold and it took quite awhile for us to get the heaters working!  Thankfully we had Vernon, an intern from BYU Provo, who is one of the teachers for Mikuni who came a few days before us, but other than that we were all alone until the students showed up several days later. So yes, that first night was pretty discouraging!

 
Flight from Salt Lake to Seattle...

Long 11 hour flight from Seattle to Tokyo,  we watched lots of movies! The girls did great.

And now we're on the bus (called "limousine busses" in Japan) from the Narita airport to Tokyo...

and now on our awesome double-decker bullet train to Yuzawa...


And finally on to the school van (though it was dark and blizzarding when we drove in it!)

At our new home at last! The girls instantly fell asleep.

Geoff driving on the right side of the car, left side of the rode! Vernon, in the passenger seat.

However the next morning, the girls were up and bouncing around and so excited about everything in our tiny (under 500 square feet) apartment. They ran around and saw how everything was so small (for example the kitchen sink only goes up to my mid-thigh and the refrigerator is just a little taller than Aya) and said "everything is our size!" Hana declared that she has loved all of our houses but this is her "most favorite" one. Our apartment has 2 bedrooms, a family room/kitchen area, a bathroom (with separate tiny rooms for the toilet and also the bath/shower) and a genkan. Genkan means "gateway" and is the area in a Japanese home right as you walk in the front door where you leave your shoes, coat, gloves etc. and take a step up into the actual home. I love the idea of a genkan where you remove your outside cares and step up literally and metaphorically into the home.

Our genkan, facing the front door (remember this is before it has been organized so it's messy!)

As you can imagine, the professional organizer side of me has been really excited to take on the challenge of making the best use of our tiny space and find a place for everything. Here are the "before" pictures and I'll post the "after" pictures as I tackle the organizing of each room.

          

The hallway right outside our door and looking into our door into the genkan (Aya is showing off her "talking banana" :)

  
Immediately on your left, right next to the genkan is the little closet with the toilet in it (which we always keep closed because it's rude to leave the bathroom door open in Japan.)


...and right next to that is our bathroom sink and another little room that has a deep bathtub and shower sprayer on the wall. I love how deep Japanese bath tubs are!



Right across from the bathroom sink area is the girls room. It's tiny but they love it!


At the end of the hall is this door and when you open it you enter into the kitchen/living room area...

Here is a different view of it

And the tiny sink area and black fridge.


Aya standing by our fridge so you can see the size...

This is a closer look at the closet next to the sink area that has a tiny washing machine.

 

And the last room is right off the kitchen/family room with dividing screens and we use this for our bedroom. During the day you fold the futons up so you can use it for other things like...

Hanging your laundry to dry.

So that's our cute little apartment!

We love it here, even though life is very different than it was in Utah, we are busy and happy. We miss Kai a lot though. He is staying with another family in South Jordan while we're gone so he can continue on with his high school at American Heritage. He says he's doing well but misses us too.

I'm excited to write another blog post soon about our school and our amazing teachers and students! But for now, Oyasuminasai! Love and miss you all!

Another view out our window...

And another view, we live in a beautiful place!