First day at Technos College - A.K.A. I felt like Justin Bieber.

Monday - June 3, 2013

It was nice to get a little rest last night.  Tokyo is a 13 hour time difference from the East Coast of the United States so I know my sleep schedule is going to be messed up for a few days.  But, I woke up this morning and went for a little run.  After I showered up, I had breakfast in the hotel.  Here I met some of the people from "wave two" who arrived at the airport later than I did.  They ate dinner a couple of hours after my wave did so I didn't have a chance to meet them last night.  Everyone's energy is certainly up from the night before.  Breakfast in the hotel is nice.  It's a buffet style breakfast so there are plenty of options.  It's fun because there are a lot of unfamiliar items so the buffet style gives us all an opportunity to try new foods in small portions.

We arrived at Technos in the late morning and made our way to a specific room where we all kind of cluttered together.  Campus was abuzz with activity and a red carpet was rolled out in the middle of the courtyard.  I had heard about this red carpet introduction of the schools but I had no idea what we were in store for.

When the time was right, we were all lined up by school and made our way through the courtyard to a "stage" area where we were introduced.  People were yelling and screaming... flags of various countries were waiving... music was blasting... it was a high energy official start to kick off Technos International Week 2013.  Our school was slotted with Call Me Maybe as our song which was fun.  I love that song.  Can't get enough of it.  haha

Here's a view from above of the craziness of the red carpet introduction ceremony going on below.

Then the pictures started.  As soon as we exited the stage area and went upstairs it seemed like everyone wanted to take pictures with us.  We really felt for a moment that we were celebrities.  The entire college was seemingly working together to make us all feel like very special guests.

Dayana, me, and Alex with some of our new friends that we met at the airport the day before.

 After the introduction ceremony.  The people who would be more closely involved in the next two weeks of programming met in a reception area for a smaller, slightly less crazy, gathering.  Here we were lucky enough to have Dr. Tanaka and members of his family and foundation at the gathering.  He gave a very nice speech followed by an equally nice speech by Mike Finch who was the faculty representative from Oxford University.  Afterwards there was food and more picture taking.

There was also time to express thanks to Dr. Tanaka.  The information packet that we received about the program suggested that no gift would be needed for Dr. Tanaka.  We brought one anyway and I am so happy that we did.  It gave Dayana, Alex, and me about 10 minutes to talk with Dr. Tanaka and others about who we were, about HWS, and it gave us a proper opportunity to say thank you.  My mother does quiltwork so she made a bunch of items for me to choose from to give to him from this array...

I took some of these items to use as gifts in Japan.

HWS gets a chance to say thank you.

 While we were here I also ran into two Technos students that visited HWS back in the spring.  I had a chance to hang out with these guys while they were at HWS and it was great to see them now at Technos.  It's fun to be in Tokyo and see familiar faces.

Ryo, Hatch, and Shinja... back in action!

After the gathering Technos students took the international students on a bit of a trip to some places in the immediate area.  The faculty were given some free time.  Later that night the faculty were going to dinner with some of the Technos faculty.  Some of the faculty felt like they needed a drink after all of the craziness that just happened so seven of us went with Yuji to a little restaurant near the hotel and ordered drinks.  An older gentleman saw that we weren't eating and he called the waiter.  The next thing we knew, orders of sushi were being sent to our table!  This man wanted us to partake in some of his favorite sushi dishes of the restaurant!  Unbelievable.  I've been in Japan 24 hours and the amount of generosity that I have already been blessed with is unreal.

This gentleman bought us some of his favorite sushi!  The guy on the right is Mike Theune, the faculty rep. for Illinois Wesleyen University

One of his favorite dishes.  It was really good.

Another of his favorite dishes which became my favorite sushi of the entire trip - salmon topped with fish eggs.  I came back and ordered it later in the trip.

So after the amazing introduction, and the amazing gathering afterwards, and the amazing sushi surprise, we were off to dinner with some of the faculty of Technos.  We went to the central part of the Fuchu area where there is a lot of shopping and restaurant options.  We went to this great restaurant and were served an eight-course dinner.  There was sashimi, a cooked fish dish that was delicious, soup, a curry chicken, etc.  And then there was dessert... oh wow...

Not exactly sure what it was... maybe a vanilla custard with a sweet glaze and some sweet bean paste?  Kristen Gray from Hope College gave it two thumbs up!

 It was also at dinner that I had a chance to talk for a while with Matt Rollo.  Matt works at Technos in the English program.  He's the Program Director and Head Teacher.  He's originally from Toronto but eventually ended up in Tokyo, met his wife there, and landed this job with Technos.  Matt and I had a great conversation about a variety of topics including Japanese baseball. I have a feeling he's going to be a great guy to talk to during the trip.  I suspect he'll have some interesting perspectives having grown up in Toronto but having lived in Japan for around a decade.

Mike Theune a.k.a. "Big Mike" and Matt Rollo. 

So... yeah...  This was our first full day.  Pretty amazing.  Looking forward to tomorrow.