Myrthe in Japan

 This morning, we were meeting up with Joy, Angie and Aris for brunch. We met up in Sjinjuku since thats where grandma and I needed to catch our train to Hakone. We went to a pancake house and had some good food. It was so nice to see them once more before our trip started and chat with them. I missed them already by just not talking to them for 1 day haha.  After breakfast, they helped us get our Hakone-passes that would get us to and around Hakone. We said our goodbyes for now and got on the train. The trainride was about 1,5 hours and pretty chill.  Once we got to Hakone, we walked to our hotel. I was so mesmerized by Hakone's peace and nature. After being in a big city for a long time, this felt like a fresh breath of air.  After checking in and resting for a bit I went to have a look around the hotel. It was huge and had an amazing private garden with 2 waterfalls, ducks and koi fish, a hot spring footbath... I was so impressed by the garden, you could never ima...

 We only have 1 full day in Tokyo before leaving for our trip, so I wanted to make the most of it. We visited all of the very touristy things today since it will be golden week when we get back to Tokyo. Golden week is the busiest week of the year and Japanese people don't even leave their house during this week because it is too busy.  We started our day at Teamlabs planet. Officially it's a museum but it's so much more then that. It's an experience with all your senses. It was incredible! The different rooms where a suprise over and over again and so beautifull. My favourites have to be the flower room and the 'rain' room where thousands of lights changed on the beat of music. It's hard to explain the experience but the pictures give you an idea.  After the museum it was time for Asakusa and it's pretty temples. We had lunch first and grandma wanted to go to either Burger King or an Italian restaurant. So we ended up eating Italian food and it was very...

 This morning I headed to the airport quite early. My grandma was arriving and I was going to pick her up. I was very exited to see her again and show her my life here. She had some trouble with her flights but got here around 11:30a.m.  When she arrived we took the metro to Nerima, for these first few days she would be staying in a hotel close to the school and my dorm. It was funny because the moment we got on the metro she started talking very loud and I was like 'ssst, oma! people don't talk on the metro here' and she was so confused haha. She ended up learning a lot more weird rules Japanese people have that day like standing left on the elevator, no eating/drinking while walking, no shaking hands when you meet someone... We checked in her luggage at the hotel and headed to Aoba. They had spring carnival going on and I was expected to be there so I asked if grandma could come along. Spring carnival is basically a big festival in the school: kids perform, foodtrucks, fa...

 This week will be the last week of my internship. It breaks my heart to think about it so I wanted to enjoy this week as much as possible. And I sure did exactly that! We were still doing the badges unit this week and it was so much fun! During the week the kids started building shapes in math and they got some really challenging ones done to earn the badges!  For UOI we had kerbal space program, a game where you have to build your own rocket and make it fly. It takes a whole lot of skills to build the perfect rocket and even more to make sure it doesn't crash. The kids were so motivated to make it work and they loved playing a videogame in class. And ofcourse we loved it too because they were motivated to learn an work! I try to make my own rocket and make it fly but lets say I still have some learning to do...maybe one day when I use it in my own classroom I might figure it out? 😅 The other option for UOI badges was making actual rockets, we started with learning how to ai...

 On sunday I went to Shibuya again. It was a very sunny day and I wanted to make the most of it. I got up around 10:00, got some breakfast and did laundry.  I left for Shibuya around noon. When I arrived I went to my favourite rooftop garden again. It's so lovely! I got panda express and took it to go so I could eat it in the sun on the roof.  Now that Sakura season is over, Tokyo got taken over by these really pretty flowers. Everywhere you go, you see them. I'm so impressed by how pretty the city looks flower wise, there is always something blooming.  After lunch, I went out to do some more shopping. I wanted to go to loft, a very popular souvenir shop here in Tokyo. I also got some more earrings. I went home quite early since I had school the next morning and had leftover panda express with some veggies I had left in the freezer for dinner. Another good day in Tokyo I would say. Goodnight! 

 As you can imagine...after my 'Friday funday' I had a pretty lazy Saturday. It's funny because here in Japan I don't really have a biological clock. If it's dark and quiet I'll sleep. So after closing my curtains and going to bed early this morning, I didn't wake up until 4P.M today! I woke up with texts from Angie asking if I was still alive. 😂 But this was my last weekend alone in Tokyo and I couldn't let it go to waste right? So I had some late lunch and headed to Akihabara district, also known as the electronics district of Tokyo. The district is known for it's electronics, modern look and cool cars.  My first stop was an underground parking, I saw online that a lot of car meets were held there and wanted to see for myself. Unfortunatly I didn't see any car meets but there were some pretty cool cars parked down there.  After, I just walked around the area. I didn't really need anything from the shops and it was already pretty late so I ...

 Friday was a pretty normal day in school, it was once we got out of school that the fun really started. Angie and I wanted to go clubbing in Tokyo because neither of us had ever been. But our friend Vincent was also having another DJ gig so we wanted to go to that first.  When I got home I fell asleep right away, I was more tired then I wanted to admit haha. I slept until I nearly had to leave but luckily I know that Angie is not very good at being on time either, so she was even later then I was! 😆 We went to the charity event Vincent was playing at. It was a whole different vibe then usual but kinda fun. The event was in a coffee shop and it was really chill. I asked the bartender for some hot chocolate with Baileys but he didn't have any. So I had a look at the liquors and asked for Cointreau instead. At first he said 'are you sure? It's not going to be good!' And I said, ofcourse it will be good, I've had it before. He made one for me and a small sample for hi...

 I cannot believe that this internship is going so quick! I have very mixed emotions because I'm exited to see the people I miss again but I am so so happy here. The people I've met here have been the most incredible of friends and colleagues and I will miss them so much!  The school really fits in my vision of teaching and I feel like they have the things I was missing in the Belgian education system. Freedom, Experiencing things, Playbased learning, Kids being your partner as much as they are your students.  I started the self improvement method with 2 kids this week. Starting from our idols, we created 6 focus points that we want to improve on in the next 2 weeks.  The 2 girls have been soo motivated to do it! I feel like a big part of this is because I am doing it with them instead of for them. They chose their own improval focus and have been rating themselves. I'm just there to guide and observe. The homeroom teachers already mentioned the improvement and I can...