Cliff Wadsworth was nice enough to send a picture of us from my last day of school. So, I thought I'd add it to the blog! Thanks, Cliff!

Just a quick editorial note. I will be adding more information on what I have learned during the seminars on Sunday. I'll be using my time on the Bullet train from Tokyo to Sendai to transcribe notes I've taken.

Thank you for all of the posts - especially from my students. You're also welcome to shoot me an email at: elissa@banasclan.com - don't use my school address, I'm having problems accessing it.

It started raining last night before the baseball game (good thing I had the foresight to go to the Tokyo DOME). It's now pouring. I'm really hoping it clears up before this afternoon so I have good weather to walk around Tokyo.

This is the first day it's really rained hard. I guess we were fortunate to have dry weather during the rainy season. It's been cloudy and muggy since I arrived and the temperature has been in the high 70s to low 80s during the day. It does not cool down much at night. You can check out the weather in Tokyo by going here.

It was a very busy day today and I'm ready to go to bed. It's the end of my day and the beginning of yours. I've used my husband's .mac account to publish all of the pictures I took today and to write about today as well. So, click here to see what I've been up to here in Tokyo!

BTW, I've now met 12 people who are either from the Buffalo area or have good friends that live in Western New York. You can take the girl out of the city, but you can't stop it from following her around. :-)

It's 5:11 a.m. here in Tokyo. I'm wide awake. It's very much a "Lost in Translation" thing with jetlag. Everyone I've talked to has had trouble sleeping. They do not observe daylight savings time here in Japan, so dawn occurs around 3:45 a.m. and it's full daylight by 4:14 a.m. In fact, the picture you are seeing was taken at 4:40 a.m. It's the first time I've seen the sun in days.

BTW, I've been meaning to thank Mrs. Mel Holden, the fantastic librarian at CHS who spent the time to help me with the finer points of blogging - thanks Mel! I also wanted to thank my husband for loaning me his .mac space for pics, as well as Mrs. Fundalinski and Mr. Nourse for tech. back-up.

I just finished putting together a page of pictures from yesterday and today in my (actually my husband's) .mac account. So,
here's the link.

The talk on education was very interesting because Japan is facing the same problems the U.S. is right now. Violence against parents and teachers is increasing, students are skipping school, and there is a break down of the family unit. Many parents have just "given up" on their kids. It's not to the degree that it is in the States, but it is a significant problem.

They are also trying to reform the educational system so a stress is placed on independent thinkers, instead of students who "parrot" back answers.

Finally, the theatre performances were very interesting. One thing I did not know is that I now know more than a typical Japanese person does about traditional Japanese theatre. It may be traditional, but it is not studied in school at all! In fact, most Japanese do not go to theatre for traditional Japanese performances.

Here are pictures from my hotel room. The grassy area you can see is the grounds of the Imperial Palace. The older looking building is the Diet (Japanese Congress) Building. You'll also see a picture looking down at the hotel's pool. I'm going to settle in now, so I hope everyone has a lovely day!

Konnichiwa! I am now sitting on the 34th floor of the Akasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo. I have a couple of minutes before I meet some Fulbrighters for dinner.

First impressions - so far, Japanese is no problem, as all of the signs are also in English. Also, the people are very polite and helpful. For instance, at the baggage carousel, there were workers taking the baggage and straightening it on the carousel. If a bag went around more than three times, then someone grabbed it and put it in a waiting area.

Here's a picture of me at the airport in San Francisco waiting to take off. The 747 Jumbo Jet we took is in the background. BTW, it's 5:05 p.m. Tokyo time. You guys are all sleeping because it's 4:05 a.m. for you!

It's a little after 6 a.m. in San Francisco. I just have a second to post a picture of the view outside my room before I get ready to head off to the airport. I'll be crossing the international dateline, so it will be 2:15 p.m. Tokyo time (and 1:15 a.m. EDT) when I arrive.

I'm glad I went to San Francisco with my family for vacation last year (see the picture at the beginning of the blog). I'd be bummed to be so close to S.F. and not be able to go see it when I'm so close. The hotel is on the S.F. Bay near the airport. We can't see S.F. from here.

Sorry, no pictures right now. I was up at 3 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago. It was very tough leaving my girls asleep in their beds and my husband at the airport. I arrived in Chicago at 7:30 a.m. EDT and was on a plane for San Francisco at 9 a.m. EDT. We arrived in San Francisco at 10:30 a.m. PST (1:30 p.m. EST). There were about 50 other teachers waiting and we all got on board a bus to the hotel.

I had a little time to relax and then it was off to orientation. I'm now on a little break before our dinner reception. I'm actually ready to fall over since my body says it's after 9:35 p.m. at night.

Just a few more hours and I can go to sleep!

All of the teachers here are extremely professional and motivated. This is going to be a very rewarding trip - professionally and personally.