Okay, so here are some pics and commentary.
Sorry, we didn't clean up to take these pics, but here is the hotel we stayed in the first night we arrived in Narita (Tokyo). It was really nice and a great size. Luckily I found it when I did! I reserved it a few days before I went, and it was the only room left that I found near the airport that wasn't over $300. Wow, how messy we are....
So, on the Sunday morning at check-out, we left the hotel in Narita, and took an hour express train to Tokyo station which took about an hour. There, we got on the shinkansen (the bullet train) and headed north to Sendai. The shink took about 2.5 hours. We arrived at Sendai station at about 2:30pm and met Chelsea there. She's the teacher from Toronto who has been at the school three different times during the past few years - helping fill in when there has been some gaps between teachers. She took us to the hotel we stayed in for a week while I was training at the school. Note the size difference between the two hotels.
Here are some pictures of the school. It's a really cute school, just one big room. It's got lots of materials, colour, and fun things for kids. The school owner who hired me is really great...down-to-earth, simple, with a good sense of humour. I've got three classes a day. The first class is with another teacher, Jackie, a British lady who's been with the school for a number of years, who's married to a Japanese guy and has a 7 year old daughter (who goes to the school too). She pretty much runs the class and I'm more of her assistant and that's totally fine with me. This class is with the 3 year olds. They start at 10:40pm and stay until 2:00pm. For the first hour they do English-focused stuff (weather, phonics, art, songs, movie-time, theme-based stuff, etc.), then they eat lunch for an hour, and then we take them out into the city in a little mini-van to parks, or play-centres or wherever. When we get back at 2pm, it's time for me to take my lunch (almost 1.5 hours). I teach two classes in the afternoon. The first one is with kindergarten kids from 3:30 to 5:00. We do exactly the same structure that we do in the nursery class, but the level is a little higher. A lot of the kids actually have a really high level of English already. The nice thing is, the structure of the class is the same for both, it's already made up, the materials are already ready, the kids know exactly what's next, all I really do is keep them in line and help them say stuff right. "Popcorn" for example, and not "Pocporn." The owner of the school is usually right there in the open office, and there is a Japanese assistant there at all times, it's a pretty friendly environment. At 5:00, the older kids come until 6:30. They range from really high-level 5 year olds to 9 year olds. Most are 7 or 8. The structure for this class is different, but still very easy for me, as it's already laid out, and there is enough down time where they practice writing and working individually. They also watch a video each class for about 15 minutes too. Instead of being strictly a conversation school, it seems to be a little more rounded out. I think I'll really like it. Anyway, here are the pics.
front of the school (the second floor) 
My schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Saturday I finish at 5:30pm, and have a 2.5 hour lunch. I hope this isn't too good to be true!
So Saturday the 26th I finished up and Welison and I stayed our last night in the hotel. On Sunday, Karasawa-sensei (Chikako) picked us up at 4pm and took us to the house. We had to check out of the hotel at 10, so we spent some time snooping around the city and taking pics. Sendai is a really nice city. Both Welison and I really like it. It's big enough, but not annoying and has plenty of greenery. The station areas (on both east and west sides) are pretty neat.
Sendai station (west side) with the train part on top and the bus/taxi part on the bottom, with walk ways overhead for people.
Where's Waldo? Can you find Welison in this pic above?
Inside the station, heading out to the west side, which is a little calmer. It has a theme-park look to it in my opinion. Very new and designed
We explored a little and found the Museum of Natural History which had a park around it where sakura (cherry blossom trees) were still in bloom. We had sort of just missed their bloom by the time we arrived, but these ones were waiting for us!
Cute Weli with pink tendrils makes a nice picture.
Further along, we found one of the baseball stadiums, called The Kleenex Stadium (pretty funny, eh?) and there was a game just about to start, so we walked around people-watching, felt the energy, and headed back to meet Chikako at the school at 4pm. She took us to the house, which is about a 40 minute walk out of the city, and it's up on a big hill, or mountain, called Yagiyama. She dropped us off, and we started our adventures of settling in. Welison and I both love the house, and the area, and although we're paying enough for it, for me, it's worth it. It's so comfortable and cozy. Here's a video of a view of one side of the mountain, just up from our house.
Here is our house. It stands out a little when compared to the other houses because it's smaller and coloured. Perfectly odd for us gaijin.
Here is our house. It stands out a little when compared to the other houses because it's smaller and coloured. Perfectly odd for us gaijin.
The front entrance. Take off your shoes and put them into the cubbie, and step up into the house.
Next to the entrance is the toilet room. Just a toilet.
Next to the toilet room is the bathroom. This first part is a sink, mirror and washing machine. When you walk in, and turn right, you get the room with the bath (nice and deep) and the standing part for the shower. You can wet anything you want in this room, cause it's all plastic and all for washing.
The main open room is the kitchen area. Here's a view from the entrance.
The room to the right of the kitchen is the extra room, for anyone wanting to visit us!! For now, it's our little "office/study."
Ahead of the kitchen is our bedroom with cable TV for the time being (plenty of English channels), a nice big wardrobe/closet, and lots of light from the windows and sliding door.
The room to the right of the kitchen is the extra room, for anyone wanting to visit us!! For now, it's our little "office/study."Ahead of the kitchen is our bedroom with cable TV for the time being (plenty of English channels), a nice big wardrobe/closet, and lots of light from the windows and sliding door.
Here is a view from the "backyard" where we have a little deck and a nice 2-storey complex that gives off a 'patio lantern' feel at night. We made our deck a little cozier by moving the blanket, hanging up bamboo curtains and re-arranging where we'll hang our clothes to dry.
Weli at work.
The end result at night. We're really liking the place. We've got more neighbourhood shots, but this blog took almost 4 hours to do. I don't find it so efficient, but maybe I need a tutorial. Anyway, until next time. TCHAW!
