Living in a Trash-free World

Hello everyone! Greetings from Japan! For those of you who don't know much about my trip, I am spending the next three months in Japan. I am here with two other Spring Arbor students, Lori and Mike. We will be living and helping out in a kindergarten class at a Christian school during the week, but we have the weekends to ourselves to explore different sites in Japan. I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures. I promise I will do my best to keep you updated on my trip and I hope you all will leave me some comments in return!

So where to begin?!? I met Lori and Mike at the Detroit airport on Thursday morning with our parents. We all had lunch at this restaurant inside a hotel with huge fake bamboo plants that went almost to the ceiling and served ketchup in little bowls. I almost got ran over by a security guard who was riding this "stand-up motorized scooter" (Lori's name for it). He had to lean forward for it to drive; it reminded me of something from Star Wars.

Anyway, the flight was about thirteen hours I think, but I honestly lost count after about five hours. I talked to the lady sitting next to me who was going to teach at a Christian school (sound familiar?) in Korea. Then I watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and an episode of Flight of the Conchords (the one about Sally and the Robot Song) and ate a lot of food. Lori, Mike, and I also loved looking at the pictures from our good-bye party at SAU, so thanks for those!!! I slept only about 3 hours total, so I was fairly tired when we landed.

We were greeted when we got off the plane by Minako and Keiko, both teachers at the kindergarten. They were both so excited to see us and I was really excited too because they had a sign with our names on it, so we looked really special. The ride from the airport to the school was only about 45 minutes, but we got a good idea of what the land looks like. Riding on the opposite side of the street was definitely a change. The roads are narrow and I thought we were going to crash into other cars or drive off the road about ten times, but alas we did not. The buildings are pretty close together and there are lots of farms. I was really excited because....

There is absolutely NO trash on the ground!! It's amazing! Most of you know that I hate trash and non-recycling and I love when the Earth is clean. The best part is that there aren't even trash cans every couple of feet either- everyone just picks up after themselves! I was blown away. Lori and Mike sadly weren't as impressed as I was.

Minako drove us to mall close by the school to get something quick to eat. We went to Subway (silly, yes), but Japanese Subways have sandwich choices like Avocado and Shrimp, Egg, and even Herb Dog (a hot dog with herbs on it!). Then we drove to the kindergarten. It's so adorable and colorful and fun, with the sweetest playground ever. Fun for the kids, but I will definitely enjoy it too. Mike has his own room on one side and Lori and I are sharing a room above the classrooms. I promise I will post pictures, but I am having some technical difficulties uploading my pictures. Then you can see the school and scenery and trash-less streets for yourself!