It's a Small World!

Lux friends in Kyoto!

Some of my 7th grade girls

Time just seems to keep flying by!  I can't believe its been almost two weeks since I last posted...which means I have TONS to write about! I thought I'd start with school news first...I have officially chosen my A and B volleyball teams for my 7th and 8th graders and the girls are a lot of fun.  We practice in the mornings 4 days a week, which means I have to leave my house by 6:30AM.  Considering the fact that I'm generally a night owl, this whole early morning thing is taking some getting used to!  I think I need to put a bedtime in order and enjoy the fact that I can walk out of school at 4PM and not have an afternoon practice to coach!   My volleyball girls won their first game this past Saturday so let's hope we can keep that trend going!  PE classes are also going well.  I've being doing a cooperative games/team building unit and decided to incorporate some Acrosport/Human Pyramids into it.  The kids really enjoyed it and as you can see from the pictures!

9th Grade girls

Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto

I had an awesome weekend away from Tokyo...officially rode on the "Shinkansen" (bullet train) after school on Friday and headed to Kobe, Japan, a  town that is about 500km southwest of Tokyo.  The train was super fast and might I add super expensive!  I am learning a whole new realm of things being expensive, even compared to Luxembourg.  Two of my great friends from Lux, Jessica and Micah, were relocated to Kobe at the end of June so it was a perfect little weekend trip.  It was almost like a little Lux reunion, especially since my friend Carole was also here visiting from Lux!  We took a day-trip on Saturday to Kyoto, which used to be the former imperial capital of Japan.  It was a beautiful city, and one day there was enough to just brush the surface of all of the history the city has to offer.  We saw the most famous temple in Kyoto, the Kinkakuji Temple, which is literally covered in gold!  We also went to Monkey Mountain which included a little hike up a mountain to see the wild monkeys living there in the Arashiyama area.  We even got to feed the monkeys, so that was pretty sweet.  Another highlight of the day was the seeing the Fushimi-Inari-taisha Shine, which is where part of the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, was filmed.  There are litterally thousands of tori gates that you can walk through and it just was a really neat experience.  I feel like I really only saw the tip of the iceberg in Kyoto, but know that I will definitely make a trip back there in the future.  While in Kobe, we also went to Jess and Micah's church that they have been going to there.  It got me excited to eventually find a church community here in Tokyo, but I do know that it will take some time to find the right fit!  

Arashimaya are in Kyoto

My friend Carole flew out last Monday and I made the trip to IKEA with another teacher to buy the rest of the things I needed for my apartment.  I'm slowly getting the apartment together, so stay tuned and soon I will hopefully have it organized enough to take pictures for you all to see!  It was fun being in IKEA because I almost felt like I was back in Europe...and of course that brought back lots of great memories.  :)  My 2nd visitor, Diane from Lux, arrived on Thursday evening so we have been keeping busy to say the least...details on our adventures to come!

 
I played in my first pick-up ultimate frisbee game this past week and it was great!  I think it will take some time to really get the catching and throwing down, along with playing offense and defense at the same time, but I've already committed going to a beach ultimate frsibee the first weekend in Oct, so lets hope I improve fast! :)  I've also figured out how to use the pool that is a 5 min bike ride from my house, and been able to play some pick-up basketball too, so it seems as if I'm slowly beginning to build my life!  Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers, it's greatly apprecaited! 

Fushimi-Inari-taisha Shine

I've decided that the saying, "It's a small world," has  lot of truth to it!  On my way home from Kobe the other weekend I was in line waiting for the train and this Japanese woman approached me and said, "Hi Ms. Jury," which surprised me becuse at first glance, I didn't recognize her.  However, when I saw her son, who looked really familiar, I thought maybe I do know them.  It turns out that the family used to live in Lux and the boys attended ISL, in the elementary school.  They moved back to Tokyo this summer, only 5 metro stops away from where I live.  The boy was younger and I didn't actually teach him, but he was aware of who I was from a summer recreation program that I had done at ISL and told his mom, "That's Miss Jury, that's Miss Jury." Even though I didn't know they were in Tokyo, the family knew I was here just from the other Japaense families that I've been in contact with.  Still though, in a city with 12 million people, randomly running into them was crazy...it truly is a small world!  

All of the tori gates!

Where you wash your hands before entering the shrine