First Impressions

I'm actually here in Japan!!!

The traveling took a long time. Once I got to Tokyo, Tyler was there to meet me. We took a bus to the train station to get on a bullet train, or shinkansen, to Morioka. Our train was delayed, but with the help of a nice Japanese lady, the station attendants, and a little patience and tenacity, we eventually just hopped on a train that was headed to Morioka after an hour or so of confusion. The bullet train apparently went really fast and covered what would have been a 7 hour bus ride in about 2 hours 45 min, but I honestly couldn't tell you whether or not that is accurate since I passed out as soon as we were on the train and had pretty much lost all sense of time at that point. I woke up at Morioka station, we got my bags, and took a taxi to our apartment, my new home!

The apartment is pretty cool. It's a Japanese style apartment with all the rooms separated by sliding papered door panels, and the bedrooms and living room have tatami grass mat floors. It's pretty spacious and on the ground floor of the apartment building, so we have a little porch and access to a grassy area behind the building.

Tyler had warned me that the appliances were confusing, since the instructions are all in Japanese. This morning it took me three tries to figure out the shower. The shower water heater is a gas heater, so you have to turn on the gas, light the burner, turn on the water, turn on the shower, and adjust the temperature. But all in all the place is great!

Yesterday Tyler surprised me by taking the day off of school, and we walked around Morioka city. There is a lot to explore that we didn't see, and we took pretty much the whole day walking around! It's definitely a city. Highlights of yesterday's journeying include: Morioka castle park, where we saw ducks, turtles, and huge carp; sushi for lunch; visiting the pet store so Tyler could convince me to get an axlatl (we don't have one yet but will soon); and all the other shops and places we went. It's a cool place!

I definitely feel like I walked all day yesterday, though. Today I moved my stuff in, cleaned the apartment, then walked to the dollar store to buy some hangers and stuff to move in. It's only 1:45pm but I feel like I've been awake forever and I think it's time for a nap. That probably shows in this blog post, since it was pretty rambling and uninformative. Thanks for making it all the way through it!

The main takeaway should be: I'm pretty much settled in and really liking it so far.

More to come soon!

I'm So Sleepy (Iggy)

I'm so sleepy
You already know
I'm on a fast plane

From LA to Tokyo!

Ok, so I'm not really on a plane from LA to Tokyo yet. But I am in the Denver airport waiting for my flight to LA, where I truly will get on a flight from LA to Tokyo! Who knew Iggy was singing about me this whole time.

It's early and I'm not going to write a whole lot now, but know that it's time for all you lovely people to start following my blog again. Lucky you! I'll post pretty pictures as I chronicle my latest adventure of moving to Morioka, Japan to teach English. Wahoo!

Good morning y'all. I'm going to go hunt down a bagel now.

So here's the lo-down..

Alright readers, here's the deal. Tomorrow I depart from the wonderful, awful, cold, awesome, beautiful, terrible land of Russia. I feel that I owe you all a skillfully crafted poignant closing blog post, but I don't have time to compose such a composition in the time I have left here. Packing and cleaning has me in a whirl.

I had planned to post something during the outrageous amount of travel time I have ahead of me, but life is always throwing things at you and through a turn of circumstance I won't have a computer with me on the way back home. So it won't be then.

Know that when I arrive home to Alaska (from which I should still be able to see Russia... right?), get settled in, and have time to properly reflect on my time here in Vladivostok I will write a beautiful closing statement that will leave you all feeling satisfied.

Until then, wish me safe and quick travels. Perhaps you can take this chance to reflect on the past four months of your life. It's an odd feeling, coming to the end of an era and looking back on such an isolated piece of time. It's as though my life outside of Russia were put on pause...

Ok, I can't start thinking about it yet. I have too much to do in the next 18 hours.
So long for now!

Ithaca

Hockey!

We went to Cameron's last hockey game to cheer him on. It was great - the Vladivostok team won 8-2 (if I remember correctly) and Cameron scored a bunch of goals. That was probably due to his incredibly enthusiastic cheering section. And skill, of course. 

Inside the rink, we got to wear these lovely booties. Russians really like their foot and floor hygiene. It made sense here though, because the whole area off the ice was skate-friendly.

Here's the totally rad logo for the ice rink. I liked it.

The end.

The Hobbit

Last night I saw the Hobbit in Russian. In 3D. They had really cool 3D glasses, which looked like this:

Plus, I ate popcorn.

Гулять

I think I may have mentioned this before, but the Russians really like to recreationally walk around. So much so that there's a special verb (pronounced gulyat) that describes that activity. Here are a few photos from around the city, taken at various times throughout the last two weeks or so. I usually had a destination when I was walking (making it not true gulyat-ing), but they're nice photos nonetheless.

Russian policeman helping conduct traffic during rush hour. I will sorely miss the ridiculously uniformed men you find on the streets of Vladivostok...

This is the main roundabout you go through on the way from the school to downtown. It's very Russian-looking, I think.

Russians love Christmas trees too! They're called ёлочна's (yolochkas). Of course here they're New Year, not Christmas, trees, but the idea is the same! The most popular new year song is about a yolochka.

This is just a cute picture of Jordan and I walking. You can tell it's cold out, huh?

This is one of my favorite signs we've encountered. No beer, no cigarettes, no steamy beverages, no hotdogs (I thought that was a banana at first), no dogs, no ice cream, and ABSOLUTELY NO FUN ALLOWED ON THE THRID FLOOR. Not a place I'd like to be. Haha.

This is my favorite wall painting in Vladivostok. There are lots of them on the little walls next to the streets. This one is just lovely though... I made a special bus stop just to take my picture by it!