Morioka Training/Easter

First, I wanted to say hello to whoever is reading my blog in Germany, Malaysia, and Indonesia. :)  (I've got readers in Japan, the US, and South Korea but as far as I know those are my friends and family - but hello to you too! :D)

I've not dared to touch my thermostat as the buttons are all labeled in Kanji but I was FREEZING last night so I think I will change the settings... YAY! I just went over and was pressing all the buttons and I changed the setting. It snowed today but my room said it was set to 24°C. I changed it to 25°C just in case. The heater just kicked on. MMMMM feels great! In any case, I didn't sleep very well because I kept waking up so cold.

I got up an hour early (earlier than I needed to be downstairs and ready) but as I didn't sleep well, I didn't move very quickly. I was still downstairs 15 minutes early but it meant I had to eat my breakfast fast. I tried a hardboiled egg and I don't know what they did to it, but it was not good. I had a couple small glasses of OJ and some breakfast breads. One was a flaky (like a croissant) type that folded over a small sausage. It was very good. There were coffee mini cinnamon rolls but as I don't care for the taste of coffee, I didn't care for those either (also in a flaky crust). Then there were regular, dinner-type rolls. I kind of miss miso now! It was nice to have miso and a little rice with sausages and veggies. It certainly felt like better power food for the day!

After that we walked over to the building (a 5 minute walk) and went up to the 8th floor. I've GOT to get pictures of the inside of this building! It's SO cool! They had escalators and elevators and the middle of the building is open and it has these crazy statues/sculptures... really cool.

So we got up to the 8th floor and got started on training. It was so nice to have such a positive meeting. It was really helpful and I took pages and pages of notes! (Also my group won Family Feud. Yup.) It came to my attention, however, that my exhaustion was showing (story below).

During the course of the training the building suddenly started to sway. Earthquake! This is the 3rd I've felt (the first one was fairly big, second ones that came as a cluster were very small, and then this one) and it was a 3. something. One of the guys was pretty startled as this is the first one he's felt/noticed. The rest of us just kind of nodded and went on with the training. Chris said you get to the point where you barely notice them because they happen so frequently. Perhaps I'm already there as I was like, "Not as big as the first." *shrug*

Today's been a little rough. I just am feeling really sad and homesick. This is the first time I have felt it since being here and I'm quite sad about it. Miss everyone back home and just would really love big hugs right now. :,/ I'm up in my room atm (obviously), and just wishing people at home were awake already. It's only 03h23! Why isn't anyone up!? ;) Hopefully the feeling passes soon. (I DID get to skype my family yesterday and that was really nice - I wonder why I'm feeling like this now all of a sudden.)

Anyway, Happy Easter!!

Funny Moments: 

At one point we talked about pronunciation and the letters to which we should give extra attention and emphasis. As everyone knows, or seems to joke about it, the Japanese mix up their r's and l's. You'll hear people say "Flied lice (fried rice)." Well, as we were taught that today, Chris called attention to the McDonalds slogan: "I'm lovin it." Here they say, "I'm rubbin it." Ya.... not the same, but terribly funny!

I was SO tired, this is (seriously) how I numbered my paper during Family Feud: 1. 2. 5. (3 sir! - But really that line didn't run through my head.) I stopped and looked at the 5 confused, then wrote a "3" over it. Then I continued: 4. 10. !? I gave up at that point. LOL My numbers are gone. Just gone. I also at one point in my notes meant to write "Write on the board" but I wrote, "Write on the fridge." What the!? I don't think anyone had said fridge either. *facepalm*

One more story I forgot earlier! I told you about this crazy cool building already. Well, we went up to the 8th floor using the escalators as there was so many of us it would have taken several elevator trips. So, after the training was finished I hung back to ask Bryan (our MC) a question. So it ended up being Bryan, me, and the trainers standing there (which totaled 5). Bryan had to return the key so the 4 of us went over to grab an elevator. When one came up, we got on and then this Japanese couple started to come over but stopped when they saw so many white people (and people have said that sometimes happens and this was my first experience for that, anyway). At the 4th floor, we stopped and picked up 3 little Japanese women. At the third floor, one of the women got off and the trainers got off. I stayed on the elevator thinking that I needed to go to the 1st floor. As the woman who got out of the elevator is waving goodbye, I look past her and see our ENTIRE group. Several people were looking at me in bewilderment and trying to ask me, with gestures, where I was going. Shocked, I held my hands up and shook my head. The 3 Japanese women were looking back and forth and started laughing really hard at me. LOL But I got off on the 2nd floor and took an escalator back up to the third. It turns out that the third floor is the street level entry. Oops. Hehehe, good times!

XOXO, A