After saying goodbye to our students, we went home for a well earned sleep after a hard days work. A day at Disneyland is harder than teaching all day.

Some of the grounds decorations. The grounds are constantly cleaned and kept on prime condition all day long. The entrance fee to Disneyland was around $50 but fortunately our company paid for the entrance and a small amount for food.

At Disneyland they even have a parking lot for baby strollers.

Colleen got into the whole Mickey Mouse thing. We stopped for lunch at our favorite pizza place.

Of course I couldn't go to Disneyland without having a smoked turkey leg and my students enjoyed one as well. By the way Darrell, I had 2 turkey legs this time.

This was at the main entrance to Disneyland and gives you a bit of an idea about what the traffic was like.

Sunday June 3rd we went to Disneyland with 18 of our students. It was a cloudy day but we did manage to get sunburns. It was crowded and we were on our feet for 8 hours so it was a bit tiring. We did enjoy the time with our students outside the classroom. Kate and Lynn are the other 2 teachers and Ikue is our program coordinator.

I believe we hit the right weekend as it wasn't crowded and the roses were in full bloom.

Colleen really enjoyed the time at the park and there were so many flowers to enjoy, she was in her glory here.

It was an amazing display and it only lasts for about one month of the year.

Last weekend we found this rose garden on the internet and discovered it was only about half an hour from our apartment so we headed there on Saturday. It was a breath of fresh air. There were over 6000 roses here and hundreds of different varieties. ( Sorry Pete but you are going to have to take time to smell the roses.)

This is at our present university , this is where the building used to be that we taught in when we first came to Japan. It has taken them 8 months to tear down the old building and do a bit of escavating. A new building eventually will appear in this location.

Several rivers run through Tokyo and they are all polluted. Japan has a ways to go in cleaning up their environment.
I think we have been going through a bit of culture shock this time. It apparently happens to everyone but it has taken a little longer with us probably due to the short stays we have had here. After a while the way a different culture does things begins to grate a bit. Not that we aren't enjoying it this time, it is just that you begin to wonder about some of their ways and thinking. In Tokyo the sun sets at 7:00 so we miss the long evening you are experiencing now. However I don't think I would trade you weather for ours right now. It has been mostly in the low 20's since we have come.

Just a minute ago we had our second earthquake and it really shook our apartment, definitely a different experience than what we are used to in Canada. It only lasted a few seconds but you certainly know there is a force underneath.
This picture was taken from the university building where we had one day of training when we first arrived. You can see the pollution in the air. We definitely live in a concrete jungle and often crave the wide open spaces of the prairies.

We apologize to our blog watchers, we have really been lax in getting anything up this term. However, we are in Japan and have completed a month already. Classes are going very well and we really enjoy our students. It took a while to adjust as the jetlag hit us fairly hard this time. We have had to adjust our diet this term as Jim is attempting to keep his blood sugar levels down but he seems to have that under control; he checks his blood daily.
We are doing well and have only experienced one small earthquake so far. This picture is in a garden near our apartment.