Weekend #1 & My 1st Day on the Job

Let me back track to last Thursday, my last day of orientation. As I mentioned, we took a tour of the pools and got an idea of how the transitions for lifeguarding works. There are 3 pools; Purdy, which is a really nice indoor pool inside the Purdy Gym, Green Beach which is one big pool and one baby pool, and Command Hill which is pretty small and only has 3 lifeguards at one time. Here's a pic of the pool at Purdy Gym:

We also finished our posters for all our Fun Fridays. At the end of each two-week swim lesson session, we celebrate the kids' achievements by decorating, dressing up, playing games and singing songs, and parents are invited to come hang out with their kids and bring food. This summer our Fun Friday themes are Winter in July, Olympics, Hawaiian, and Under the Sea, so we created posters on shower curtains to hang up. Here are pictures of the two posters I helped create:

4th of July Poster 

My favorite, Olaf, for our Winter in July Fun Friday

Thursday evening we had a meeting to go over our staff manuals and get our schedules. I will be working from 10:15 to 6:30 Monday through Friday for the next two weeks at Green Beach pool, which is less than a minute walk from TPU where I live. After a long week of orientation, our directors decided to surprise us and take us off base to the daiso, which is the 100 yen store AKA the Japanese dollar store. I basically just grabbed whatever candy and snacks looked interesting or tasty off the shelves and ended up with two bags full of snacks. Here are a few of the things I tried:

Frozen Snow Cubes - gross.
Pineapple Pikachu Hi-Chews - haven't tried them yet.
Gummy Soda Candy - yuck.
Not really sure what the other two are... 

Green Tea Mochi - disgusting.

Princess Cookies w/ Strawberry Filling - YUM!
(Similar to YanYan, Robin)

It was so refreshing and exciting to finally get off base and get to see a little bit of what Japan is actually like; much different than base! I didn't take a lot of pictures because it was hard to capture just how awesome it was on my iPhone camera, so I didn't think the pictures would do it justice.

On Friday, we had our first big trip off base to some shrines in Kamakura. We didn't actually end up going to the Great Buddha, because apparently we are going to do that all together another time later in summer. Here are a few pics I took at the shrines and Kamakura:

Japanese man wearing traditional attire and geta (shoes)

Little place where you're supposed to wash your hands before entering... I didn't (whoops!)

Pretty sure these things are supposed to contain beer or something like that...
Ask my mom, she'll tell you all about everywhere I'm going.

I really suck at taking good pictures, but this was a big statue of a guard.
There were two and they were pretty awesome and intimdating. 

The details on this place were amazing... Animals all over the walls!
Not the best picture but this one is a tiger. 

Unicorn I think?

It rained while we were here, but it was still kind of hot...

Regrets or wishes that visitors write on these cards and hang on this little post thingy... 

Sasquatch in front of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu

Random apple stand I decided to take a pic of...

And some pineapples.

One of the ponds that leads up to the shrine... 

And my selfie with the shrine!

My roomie Tamara taking a Snapchat selfie with the shrine...

View from the Hydrangea Walk

Hydrangea Walk - this was really freakin' beautiful.
I want it in my backyard.

Cute little statues that lined the pathway on the Hydrangea Walk

There were a lot of these guys... 

There's me again with Buddha! 

Vegetarian dumpling thing...
I don't remember what it was called but it was delicious and cheap.

Mochi balls with soy sauce flavored glaze...
Not sure what it was actually called but it was okay. Also cheap!

Okay, that was more than a few photos. Anyways, that was our trip to Kamakura! We took the train to get there, so I had my first Japanese train experience. Basically, you buy a card and load yen onto it, and then you just scan your card when you get to the station and when you are leaving your next station and it automatically deducts the cost of your trip because the machines know how to tell how far and fast you travelled. The hard part is figuring out what trains to take. I still don't really understand the train system because it is CRAZY. Every station is like the size of an airport with levels up and down and upside down... Just kidding but it is pretty complicated, at least so far. 

On Saturday a few of my friends and I decided to try and tackle the train system anyways and visit Yokohama. We left around 1:30 PM and didn't really get into the city of Yokohama until about 3 to 3:30 even though it's only a 30 minute train ride... BUT WE MADE IT after a short detour to a 7/11 for some ice cream and a 20 minute walk, I was starving so we decided to go to the Ramen Noodle Factory first, thinking that we would get to try and eat some ramen. When we got there we paid 500Y just for admission. 

Friends and I posing with a giant Cup Noodle!
Not sure what the deal is with that chicken but it was all over the place there...

Next we went into this room that was like the holy shrine of ramen noodles. It was basically a glass case covering 3 walls that held every kind of instant ramen noodles in the order they were invented... a ramen noodle timeline! Then we watched a 15 minute animated video on the invention of ramen noodles which was actually pretty interesting... Not going to go into detail about it. Next we got to make our own Cup Noodle for only 300Y. We got to decorate our cups and choose which flavor and toppings we wanted on our noodles, and watched them be packaged which was a lot of fun. 

Cup Noodle Brochure

This was supposed to be a panorama of the timeline, but it didn't work.
SO here's a crappy pic of the beginning of it!

Everyone coloring their cups! 

Right before my phone died... My blank cup!

Unfortunately we didn't get to sample any ramen, so we decided to go to an Italian restaurant in a shopping center across the street. For anyone that is currently in Japan or wants to go at some point, don't buy pizza in Japan! I ordered spaghetti with eggplant which actually was pretty good... Could've used a little more sauce but I enjoyed it and ate the entire plate because I was starving by then. My friend ordered a pizza though, and it was pretty much flappy doughy crust with weird cheese on it and the bare minimum of toppings... Definitely a learning experience. Next we went to Cosmo World, a small amusement park right across the street from the Ramen Noodle Factory. This place was adorable and so much fun! It had rides that I had never seen before in the states! This place is known for it's giant ferris wheel that we didn't get to go on because we ran out of time, but we will definitely be making a trip back. They also have a roller coaster that goes underwater in a tunnel (for a split second) but that was still pretty cool too. One thing I've noticed about Japan is that there are very few trash cans and nobody litters. I could count on one hand the amount of times I've seen trash on the ground here. Also, the Japanese are very big on recycling. Every trashcan and dumpster is separated into combustible and decomposable (I think that's right?) and I honestly don't know how to separate my trash, but they do it all the time! The walk back to the train station was much faster, because we actually found the closest train station to our destination... Yay us! Another thing that is different about Japan is how people act on the train. People are very quiet... So quiet that it is common to see people nodding off to sleep. The trains are all air conditioned, thankfully, because they really do get crowded. I haven't seen the train stuffers yet (if you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ) but it has gotten pretty snug on a few trains I've been on. Finally we made it home around 10 PM and I think my feet just about fell off after that!

On Sunday I pretty much spent the day deep cleaning my room, doing laundry, and getting organized. I did go to dinner at this Indian place in Yokosuka though, and it was delicious! I got butter chicken curry with cheese nan.. Yum! I will definitely be going back to this place!

Today was my first day of work! I got up around 8:30, got ready, and walked to Purdy to swim a 600m. Everyday of work we are supposed to swim a 600m, and add 100m every week! Then I walked back over to Green Beach and started my first day! I'm not sure what I expected, but lifeguarding was very easy and not as stressful as I had anticipated. There are 9 different stations, and we rotate every 15 minutes, and we have to stand up on each "5", so 12:05, 12:15, 12:25, etc. which keeps me awake. There is also one station in the water at the bottom of the slide, which really wakes you up! I had one hour for lunch, which was honestly plenty of time to eat and get back to the pool. The pool closes at 6 and then we have to clean up around the pool and the locker rooms, and then go home! I won't be teaching swim lessons for the next two weeks, but I will probably try to go watch a few at Purdy to help me prepare for teaching.

To summarize, I am LOVING Japan and the friends I've made and my new job as a lifeguard. I feel like I sound really cheesy in all of this blog, but I really do love it here. I could go into so much more detail about everything but I've been writing this for at least an hour and a half and I'm tired!

Ask me if you have any questions or comments or suggestions or whatever!

Xoxo, 

Sasquatch

P.S. I'll try to remember to actually take some pics of Sasquatch next time I go out... LOL.