Chiba, Full Circle

As has been true of all our Rotary GSE destinations, I too love Narita! I am very happy to begin and end our adventures in this city. We have come full circle in so many ways...








Wonderful people...












Fierce Fun...











Fantastic Food












Opportunities to get in the poop, I mean coop...well same difference!

Did I mention the food?

Thank you Rotary and our many hosts to date! I look forward to the last couple days of our amazing experience. Stay tuned! There is more to come...

Michelle is connected!

I am reconnected and able to update the blog. Time is flying!! Wonderful times in our last stop in the Kashiwa area. We were able to visit Kikkoman and stay overnight in a buddhist temple. The ladies also visited a salon, got our hair done and then put on the kimonos for a Rotary party.

Peggy, Elizabeth and I don the Kimonos.

Zen at the Buddhist temple gardens.

We made the paper! Top pic is us visiting the mayor's office. Bottom pic is Michelle playing an antique instrument.What?! more food.... this is just the first of many courses.

After all of the eating, I needed a massage... and then.... back to eating!

Today is another "hard hat" day. However, I did get a nice vocational visit to a very well known artist on the peninsula. We had a very good "talk".

From "Big Fish" on stage to big dead fish on the floor... we are seeing it all!

Today we visited Nippon Steel. Could only take pictures outside... security and trade secrets.

We got dirty!

Fugu... yes, the poisonous one... from fish to plate... and we lived to tell about it.

team business visits

A visit to Narita included a behind the scenes visit including a step out onto the tarmack.The inside of the cargo warehouse was a bustling place. Most items stay there for less than 3 hours before moving on to their final destination.
We also visited a milk factory and got to taste some genuine non-wisconsin milk.
We visited a horticulture research station. There were plants and trees in many experimental stages. They were working on efficient plants to use as insulation for roofs.

peggy's digs.

This is the house that Michelle and I are in right now. There are ancient building surrounding it, where they used to live. We haven't seen the inside of those yet. One of those buildings houses his 5 cars. He is a farmer.This is the house that I spent the first four nights in. I occupied the complete 3rd floor. It had a bedroom, half bath, living room and a tatami tea room...all for me!

the adventure begins...in Chiba

One of our mantras is "the adventure begins." It is now common when we begin a new portion of our month long journey to say "the adventure begins!" So, the adventure now begins in Chiba city.

Rudy and I visit Tokyo Electric and Power Company for our second vocational visit.

Stephen and Elizabeth look at culture samples at the Agricultural research station in Chiba.

the team looking fresh as we take off from Madison

The team dressed up for a vocational day in Narita. Later we head to the Mayor's office.

Peggy practicing Japanese calligraphy.

Two of us in uniform. One off to kindergarten and one off to a Rotary meeting. I bet he'll have more fun!

Michelle's First Week

I am enjoying my stay at my first host family's home, Hiroichiro & Emiko. They are very kind and hospitable. The first evening they took me to a local festival and we saw fireworks. The fireworks were fantastic, like Rhythm and Booms - choreographed to music. At one point they played the song Bingo (you know, there was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-O, B-I-N-G-O...) and they played bingo with fireworks. Depending on the firework that was shot off you would mark it on your card. It was fun! I also got to sample many different Japanese festival foods.

The family owns a shrine and the father is a priest. They live onsite and that is where I am staying. Their business website is http://habujinja.or.jp/. They have 3 daughters and I have met two. Their middle daughter, Sakiko, is pictured with her husband, two sons and two nephews. She speaks english very well. There is another photo I will upload later with more of us pictured. Hiroichiro & Emiko's youngest daughter is Mikiko, who is married to Keiji and has 3 sons: Haru, Sumi and baby Mio. Keiji works at the temple and also speaks some english; he helped me with the pronunciation of my presentation.

On the morning after I arrived, Haru and Sumi (picutred above with Badger hats on) greeted me with "Good Morning". It was very sweet! Mikiko and Keiji had taught them.

This morning was the first bit of excitement. I woke at 5 am to the view of a giant centipede on the shade of my room! I woke my host mother and she sprayed it. Wish I had thought to take a picture when I first saw it. Hopefully I won't have another opportunity though.

Today we depart for a tour of Katori and Sawara. At noon we will present at the Sawara Rotary meeting. This will be our first presentation. Wish us luck!

Sayonara!

We Arrive

A photo of the 747-400 after arrival at Narita Airport. We flew west from Minneapolis over canada to Narita.

The view of Nartita airport as we load up and head for the Ryokan

Rotary officials from D2750 in Japan greet the team at the airport.





Traditional Japanese meal we enjoyed at the Ryokan Ohgiya in Narita.

Dinner Gathering and introductions






The team prepares to enjoy dinner.

Exterior of the Japanese Inn

We drew quite a crowd at the Dane County Airport as the GSE Team departs on Thursday, October 15th, 2009.

Our team met on Sunday (09/20/09) at the Park Towne offices, which has become our regular meeting spot. A couple previous meetings have ended with lunch at Sushi Muramoto - not this time though, as we met later in the evening. We all gathered around my laptop and had Stephen join us via Skype, which worked nicely!

Translations for our presentation are underway and now the team has the task of learning the presentations we all created in Japanese. Thank goodness for our translator, who has recorded mp3 files of the presentations and provided phoenetic copies as well.

Our departure date is quickly approaching...22 days!

I am happy to report that the Rotary District 6250 GSE team, bound for Japan, is off to a great start! Our team has had the opportunity now to meet on four different occasions and we are getting to know each other better everyday. As team members who only just met just recently, we come to this experience with diverse backgrounds and experiences; but, one thing we all have in common is our excitement about the upcoming trip to Japan! It's exciting to see everything coming together. We all possess very different skills and this is evident because whenever a need arises, we always seem to have a team member who can fill the need.

Team members include: Stephen, Michelle, Rudy and Elizabeth; and we can't forget our fearless leader, Peggy! I've learned so far that if you have a technical question you can rely on Rudy, who is also a pilot! Stephen is a great resource when it comes to Japanese culture or language since he spent a year in Japan AND his family runs a food business, so he knows a thing or two about that as well. Elizabeth is a fantastic conversationalist, marathon runner, and world traveler; she was the last member to join our team, but certainly not the least! Peggy, well she is a fantastic artist and also has the title of "fearless leader" for a reason. It comforts me to know that we have a team of people who compliment each other so nicely and bring a wide variety of experiences and personalities to the group.

As I write this, we are all busy preparing our packing lists and presentation, working on our Japanese language skills, learning about Japanese culture, and much, much more. All I can say is - what a fantastic experience...and we haven't even left yet!

Michelle