Wonderful weekend with a baptism of & visit to Tokyo Disneyland

During the week break between our winter and spring semesters we were so happy to be able to drive down to Yokohama to attend the baptism of one of our dear students, into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) after some wonderful talks with her roommates and friends at Mikuni who are members she came to gain her own testimony of our church being true and decided to be baptized. Many of our students had traveled from their homes in varies parts of Japan to come to Hana’s baptism to show their love and support and one of our new teachers, Jessi drove down with us. It was a sweet experience and we all felt the spirit and our Heavenly Father’s love.

  

Aya pointing to the lei we made for Hana to show some aloha. She loves Bananas and chocolate so that's what we put in it :)

While we were in Yokohoma we were kindly invited to stay at the home of a colleague, Joy Yuasa, of Geoff’s from teaching Japanese days at BYU. Since then she had married a great guy named Masa and they have an adorable baby girl named Maya. We had such a wonderful time staying in their home and getting to know them. They are such fun, friendly and awesome people and we became fast friends. Maya was adorable and loved Hana and Aya. In the mornings she would call for them. :) We hope they will come visit us at Mikuni sometime soon. Love and thanks Yuasa family!

On the front steps of the Yuasa's home. I'm so sad I didn't take pictures with Joy and Masa and of their cool, old Japanese house! 

In the van with Maya-chan

We also attended church in Yokohama, Hana’s ward, and enjoyed that so much.  Such loving people there! I love going to church wherever we are and meeting the local people there.

Here we are at the church nursery with the little kids of this ward. The girls loved it and I really enjoyed chatting with the sisters during this. I usually go with Hana and Aya to primary so I can translate for the primary teachers since our girls don't speak much Japanese yet. (One of the sad things about living at an English immersion school where no one is allowed to speak Japanese.

The day before the baptism, Friday,  we decided to take the opportunity to surprise the girls and take them to Tokyo Disneyland for the day since it was on the way to Yokohama.  Our new teacher, Jessi, (who was immediately adopted into our family and taken on this road trip just a few days after arriving in Japan and was totally cool with that) came with us and we had so much fun! The girls favorite rides were Splash Mountain, Star Tours and the teacups. It was really fun to hear all the familiar characters and animatronic animals speak in Japanese! 

 

We caught a Frozen show with Elsa, Hana and Olaf, a great parade and the really cool light/fire/firework show that they project on the side of the castle.  

From the Frozen show in front of the castle. Ana, Elsa & Olaf all speak Japanese very well! ;)

The cool light, fire work show

 We also met up with one of our students that was also there that day so that was fun too.

Tokyo Disneyland is very similar to the original one in CA but it’s on a little smaller scale land wise so everything is a little more close together.  They have most of the same rides but not all of them and seem to have a few that aren’t in CA. Since it gets cold there in the winter the main street (not main street U.S.A.) is covered by a huge glass ceiling.  We saw very few foreigners and the place was just packed because the Japanese people love Disney! Tons of people were really decked out in Disney accessories, hats and entire costumes, and often you'd even see high schoolers in matching outfits. 

3 girls in matching mini costumes (random pic I found online since I didn't take any pictures of this while we were there.)

There is also another park next door called "Disney Sea" that is kind of the same idea as California Adventure that I really want to go to someday. It's the only Disney Sea park in the world. 

The Disney Sea park next door

Main Street

Cinderella's Castle

        

The castle at Tokyo Disneyland is Cinderella's castle instead of Sleeping Beauty's like it is in CA. You can see the Frozen troll flower beds they had while we were there in front of the castle.

The price is also quite a bit less than the one in the U.S. One of the fun things that they have there are collectible popcorn buckets shaped like different Disney characters and Disney items that have a strap so you can wear them around your neck. They are all the rage in Japan and it seemed everyone there had one. Apparently after you buy one you can bring it back with you to Disneyland and get cheap(ish) popcorn refills. They have several yummy flavors of popcorn sold all over the park. 

The R2D2 bucket we wanted to get...

The R2D2 bucket was adorable and we all decided we would get that as our one souvenir from the day but were sad to find that they only offer 2 kids of popcorn buckets at a time and R2 was not being sold :( I even startled a Japanese high school girl by asking here where she bought her R2 bucket and she told me she bought it quite awhile ago :( 

Ah well, maybe it was for the best since the buckets were pricey and as a professional organizer I know what usually happens to trinkets you pick up on vacation!

These are little filled mochi desserts made to look like the Toy Story Aliens and they were delicious! I like the chocolate cream filled one best.

In Toon Town 

Anyway, it was a fun day and total change of pace from what we’ve been doing.

I have to mention that Geoff drove the van all the way from our school in the mountains through crazy Tokyo traffic, to the tiny (and I mean so tiny we had to slowly back out of some of them because our van just wouldn’t fit!) streets of Yokohama when he had never done anything like that before. The driving he is used to in Japan is in the country where there aren’t a whole lot of other cars and wider roads. He’s so amazing!

In the van!

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.