I’ve been in Japan for 1 week now, and am still really enjoying it.  I’m pretty situated in my apartment and am still loving the fact that my apartment is so close to the beach.  So far I’ve gone for a walk down to the beach everyday.  Ushually I don’t swim or anything, but it’s just nice to walk along the boardwalk. 

I’ve been to Tokyo twice, but it was for Westgate training both times, so I didn’t really see much of the city. On Saturday after our training, I went out for sushi with one of the girls who lives in my apartment building.  I tried sashimi (raw fish) for the first time ever.  I was a little worried that I would hate it, but in the end I didn’t　really hate it or love it.  I tried a little sample plate with different kinds of fish rolled up in rice with seaweed around the outside.  The tuna and salmon were fine, but the eel was definetly not for me.  (Way too chewy!  Yuck!)  I really enjoyed the shrimp and egg sushis, but those don’t seem very adventureous since they are cooked. 

The next night, after training, I went out with about 10 of my fellow teachers.  We went for dinner and a few drinks in Shinjuku, which is a really lively part of town and is very close to Harijuku.  Dinner was pretty good, but there was a time limit for our table. We were chatting too much so the waiter basically had to kick us out after we exceeded our 2 hour time limit.  We did see a few of the “harijuku” kids around.  They were dressed up really funky and ushually a whole group would have a theme or at least be color coordinating.  It was pretty interesting!

Today, was my first day of work.  It seems really bizarre that I am basically a professor at Nihon University for Biosciences.  (That sounds like way too professional a title for me!)  My school is 4 train stops from my apartment, so it takes about 30 minutes to get there.  The campus is pretty nice, but I haven’t really checked it out much besides our building and the cafeteria and the dollar store.  my students seem pretty good so far.  I am teaching the 3rd level of beginners, and the goal is to have them talking for 30 minutes out of a 40 minute class period.  Some of them are really outgoing, but I had a few challenging classes with really shy students.  My teaching hours are 9:50am to 6:40pm with some breaks thrown in.  So it is a much longer working day than I’m normally used to, but hopefully I’ll adjust soon.

Tonight some of my coworkers and I are going to go to a Japanese language lesson at the City Hall.  They have them for free every Wednesday evening, so I’m really looking forward to brushing up on my Japanese!

Leaving Thailand turned into a huge ordeal.  I was supposed to have a simple 5 1/2 hour flight leaving at 12:00 (midnight).  When I arrived they told me that my flight had been delayed until 6:30 in the morning, so they were going to bring us all to a hotel.  I got checked into the room at about 11:45pm, and then they told me wakeup call was going to be at 2:30am.  What was the point of even going to the hotel?!  When I woke up at 2:30am and went down to the front desk, they told me that the flight was going to be delayed at least another 2 hours.  I got really annoyed at this and was determined to get put on a different flight.  Me and the front desk staff called about 20 different people, and I finally got a hold of someone who could help me.  He put me down on the waiting list for a United flight.  It turned out that only 2 of us were switched to the earlier flight, so I was really happy that I had made a fuss about it!

I arrived in Tokyo at 4:00pm.  Everything went super smoothly.  Westgate (the company I’m working for) is really efficent.  They had tons of people at the airport waiting to help us, take our luggage, give us cellphones and train tickets.  Then there was a whole other group of people waiting at different train stations around to assist us and make sure we made all of our trains.  I am living near Yokohama in Kanagawa prefenture.  It’s about a 1 hour train ride from the central Tokyo train station.  And the best part of my apartment location is that I’m a 15 minute walk from the beach!  It’s still in the 80’s here, so I’m planning on going to the beach this weekend.  (I went for a little walk there today, and saw that there were tons of cute surfer boys in the water, so I might have to look into getting surfing lessons or something!)

Next I’ll tell you a bit about my apartment.  It’s really awesome!  It’s brand new and totally high tech- very Japanese.  I have all of the fun gadgets: a tv that has the Internet on it, a video camera so I can see the people at my front door, and a toilet with the water squirting thing.  My “bedroom” is my favorite part.  It’s basically a tiny little hide away.  It’s on the “second” floor and has a steep ladder (like a treehouse) to get up there.  The ceiling is only about 3 feet high in my sleeping space and I have a nice futon mattress to sleep on up there.  It’s so cool!  I love it!  I also have all of the normal kitchen stuff, fridge, microwave, and stove top.  (I can’t wait to show it off, when Mom and Dad come to visit.)

There are 7 other people living in my apartment building and most of them are working at my school, so it’s nice that I have people to hang out with.  Most of them are older, but they all seem pretty cool.

Well, that’s enough for now.  I’ll write more later about my school etc.  I’ll also take some pictures of my apartment and send those out to people.

I had been thinking about doing a fasting/detox/meditation retreat for quite a while, so when I found a decent priced place and had the time to do it, I signed myself up for a 10 day detox. Soppong is about a 5 hour drive from Chaing Mai (or 1 1/2 hours from Pai). My retreat was part homestay, part detox fasting. So I stayed with a Lisu, hilltribe family. (Well, the wife, her dhild, and grandchild are Lisu, and the husband is an American who moved to Thailand 6 years ago. He ran a fasting/meditation center in Hawii and used to work as a pschcologist, so it was a pretty good program.)

For 2 weeks before the fast, I ate vegan plus no wheat and no sugar. For the first 2 days of the fasting program I had a bit of fruit in the morning, some herbally vitamin pills. Then had a fiber/herb drink thing for lunch, and some veggie broth and another fiber/herb drink for dinner. After the 2 days, I cut out the fruit, so it was lidquids only. We did some yoga in the morning and then free movement. The free movement was a bit strange. Basically we just danced around in the living room to random new age music. Then we would do mediation twice a day, and I would have a nice long Lisu massage each evening.

It was definetly a nice break. I really needed to chill out, collect my thoughts, and just sit still for a few days. The whole fasting thing was much easier than I thought it would be. I didn’t really feel hungry, but I kept thinking about food all day long. After my detox was over, I weighed myself and found out that I had lost 17 lbs! (7 during the prefast and 10 during my fast.)

After the fasting/detox program was over I had about a week in Bangkok. I mainly spent the time getting my work visa for Japan, packing up, and doing a bunch of last minute things (shopping, dentist etc.). Jenn and I went to Koh Samet (an island 3 hours from Bangkok) for the weekend, and had a great time relaxing. I’m feeling a little bit sad leaving the nice hot beaches of Thailand, but I can’t wait to go to Japan!

I spent one more lazy day in Luang Prabang relaxing, shopping, and seeing a
traditional Lao “ballet” show. (The ballet was a traditional dance show,
which was quite interesting. There was a big orchestra and the performers
wear really beautiful clothes and interesting masks.)

Then it was time for my slow boat down the Mekong River. Luang Prabang is
in the middle of the mountains and there are no roads that go south-west
towards the border, so your only options are slow boat, speed boat (which is
supposed to be really dangerous), or flying. I decided to do the 2 day boat
ride. I had heard mixed reviews on the boat trip. Some people said it was
horrible, others just thought it was long and uncomfortable, but I hadn’t
met 1 person who really liked the slow boat.

Well, it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. There weren’t too many people on
my boat so we each got our own little bench (even though it was a very
uncomfortable bench, just a few pieces of wood screwed together). The main
positive thing was that the route was very beautiful. Lush jungle and
mountains except in the places were people had done slash and burn farming.
I also met an interesting guy on the boat. He was a volcanologist
travelling around the world for 2 1/2 years working on volcanoes. It was
nice to have someone to chat with, because after sitting on the boat for 12
hours a day with no food available, I could feel myself going crazy!

After what felt like a week on the boat, I made it to the border, but
unfortuantely the border was closed. So I had to stay in the border town
and then had another full day of travelling to get to Chaing Mai in
Thailand. First it was a short boat ride, then the craziest border crossing
I’ve ever seen. Obviously Lao people have never heard of lines before. It
was seriously a wrestiling, pushing, shoving match to get to the immigration
window. There were about 50 people fighting to get the stamp, and the
border officals weren’t even looking to see if the passport matched up with
the person. They were just stamping everything. Crazy! Next I had a tuk
tuk ride, then a bus ride to Chaing Rai. Followed by another bus ride to
Chaing Mai, and another tuk tuk ride to get to a guesthouse.

I was so tired after all of the travelling I didn’t really do anything on my
1 night in Chaing Mai, except have dinner at a fabulous vegeterain/vegan
place. The even had a vegan soy passion fruit frozen yogurt. (I know it
sounds gross, but it was amazing! Especially since I hadn’t really had
anything sweet for 2 weeks!)

I had one more day of travel before I finally was able to chill out and
settle at my detox /fasting retreat. It wasn’t too bad. I was able to take
a van instead of the bus, so those windy mountain roads were a bit easier to
handle!

I had a long windy bus journey from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang, but the scenary was stunning so it was actually a really nice ride.  My first evening in Luang Prabang, I checked into a guesthouse and then immediatedly headed out to see the night market.  The market was fabulous!  There are so many beautiful things that are all hand made, and super cheap!  It is a shoppers paradise.  (Too bad Jenny and Stacy weren’t there.)  I ended up browsing through the night market each evening, and always came back to the guesthouse with at least 1-2 bags full of goodies.  (Now my backpack is really heavy!) 

I had signed myself up to do a Mahout Experience for 2 days.  (Mahout means elephant trainer.)  So I set off early the next morning for the elephant camp.  The first thing on the itineray was a elephant ride, where you sit on a bench that is tied to the top of the elephant.  I’ve done quite a few rides like this, so it wasn’t too exciting but the scenary was great.  Then we had some lunch and I changed into my Mahout clothes (really baggy blue pants and an asian style blue top with a straw hat), and had my first elephant training.  The guide taught us how to say about 10 words in the Mahouts language (left, right, go, stop etc.). 

Then it was time for my first ride sitting on the elephants neck.  A real mahout was always on the elephant with me, which was a reassuring.  But my mahout only spoke Lao and French, so it was a bit tricky trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing.  Actually getting onto the elephant is alot harder than it looks.  The elephant sqautted down to the ground, but he was still as tall as me, so it was really hard to climb on.  Plus the elphant didn’t want to stay down long, so you had to be quick jumping on.  Sitting on its neck was an amazing experience!  There skin is very thick and they have a bunch of really tough bristly hairs on their head.  Walking down hill was the scariest part, because it felt like at any moment you would go flying over the elephants head. It was really fun though, and I was so glad that I had signed up for the longer option.

We ended up going on about 3 or 4 rides sitting on the elephants necks.  My legs were killing me on the second day!  You “direct” the elephant by squeezing it with your legs (sort of like a horse) to start and then are supposed to squeeze it on the side you want it to turn.  The only problem with this is that the elephant doesn’t seem to feel you squeezing it, so you have to use all of your muscles to squeeze as hard as possible, but in the end it is an Elephant.  They pretty much do whatever they want.  My elephant always seemed to be hungry, so we were always wandering off of the path searching for bamboo for her to eat.

The best part of the Mahout Experience was the bath time!  We went out to the jungle to collect the elephants in the morning, and then walked with them for about 30 minutes down to the river.  They walked right in and sort of squatted down into the water with us still on their backs.  We splashed some water on them and tried to clean off some of the dirt.  (They were always throwing dirt onto their back to try to get rid of the pesky horse flies.)  My elephant was splashing around.  Flapping her ears in the water and playing with her trunks too.  It was such an amazing time. 

After bath time, we walked the elephants back to camp and said goodbye.  Then we had a full day of trekking, visiting a local village, and trekking again to go swim in a waterfall.  It was extremely hot while we were trekking, so when we finally made it to the waterfall the freezing cold water was fantastic.  I finally made it back to Luang Prabang at about 5:00pm and then went for a nice Lao style massage.