Mrs. Presley's Personal Meeting Room [14 May, 2024]-English (1).txt

I. Uh. Uh, my name is Mrs. Petrou. Miss Lindsay, whatever you want to call me. And I have been friends with your teacher for a very long time. So I'm going to just share my screen here with you. I think I have everything as it's supposed to be. And let's see how this goes.

If it shows up as it's supposed to. Can you? See my beautiful cherry blossom tree. Um. There we go. Yeah. Here we go. Okay. So I have been to Japan seven times so far. Um. Why, you might ask? So many times. Well, it's an awesome country. That's all I can say. But also, this is my grandfather. His name was George Sita Tanaka. So very Japanese. And, uh, he never actually got to go to Japan. His parents came over, uh, to Vancouver area, and they met there. And that's where he was born. And, uh, unfortunately for him, during, uh, World War two, after all the the war with the Japanese and everything, he he had a lot of shame and his name for a long time, and they lost a lot of stuff. But before he passed away, he his his kids and his so proud to be Tanaka. And so he he learned some appreciation. And I was able to share a lot of the culture that he didn't get to experience with him because I had traveled to Japan so many times. So one, uh, as I believe Mrs. Presley told you is I got an opportunity to work in Japan. Uh, there was this businessman, Mr. OCO, who was starting up, uh, preschool. Uh, I call it English daycare. People like, what did you do in Japan? I say I played and played in English, rather. And, uh, he was, because he was a businessman. He was looking at this is fully, um, a money making opportunity. And so he was quite cheap on giving us any supplies. So you can see here the children sitting on the floor, uh, in the little tape squares, no chairs for them in the classrooms or anything. They we sat on the floor. Everything was done on the floor. Other than the tables there for the meals. And those are our first we ever had at our school there. I took a lot for him to get me any papers or things colorful to put on the walls, so I had to get creative. And so I would get people to bring me boxes and things. He would buy me tape. So I was able to create these. Houses for the kids to play in because there wasn't really much for toys there either.

But when I went back seven years later, you can see how much they had a lot more kids. So he was a little less stingy with the money and was putting a lot more things on the wall. But they bring the start bringing their kids to school as young as two years old, and they are there like almost like a full day and they are learning to speak English. It's very important to them that they learn English so they can. Have so many more options in the world because so much of the world does speak English, and of course, Hollywood and all that that's really looked up to is something special over there. Um, let's see here. When I'd ask Mr. Washoe for things to buy for the school, his response was always, um, maybe. No. They never like to say no directly. They'll say yes, but maybe no. I could never get a direct yes or no. Uh, direct? No. Rather.

Um. So then here this is also showing when I was originally working there. Um, one thing that they have for their kids, because they're still young and they still need naps as we would lay these mats down. The kids bring their own towels, and they would all lay next to each other on the mats and take a nap. Now, I don't know about you, but my children, if they had friends nearby, there was no way that they were going to go to sleep. They were going to giggle and play. But these kids are so well behaved that they will lay down and they know it's that time, and they'll be quiet and they all fall asleep. Here on the one side you see the little girl that her name's Kiki with her lunchbox, and that is kind of a traditional, uh, kids lunchbox with the rice, always rice in it in some form. And then hers has the cooked egg and cherry tomatoes and broccoli sausage. And I'm not sure what's in the little cupboard in middle, but that's kind of what a traditional lunch looks like. And you see her utensils, including the chopsticks in the in the middle of her utensils there.

I just got to go back to kids House again after many years, and now they have their own building. It's not just in the top of a grocery store, even with a little area to play outside, but they still have. You see the mats where the kids lay down with their towels for naps. And they have uniforms now and a lot of beautiful, colorful things around. So in Japan, their school year is a little different than ours. Their first term starts in April, so it goes April to July, and then they have a little summer break. And then a second term is September to December, and third term is January to March. So we were fortunate when we went over, friends happened to be on their break so they could join us for many of our activities that we were doing. Also, in Japan, they don't necessarily hire janitors. The kids learn that everybody. It's everybody's responsibility to keep things clean and tidy. And so they help clean the school. Something maybe we should do over here. I guess you guys don't have to worry about that at home so much, but you could help with that at home. So let's look at a traditional home. Here's a traditional home in Japan. Now, because so many people and not a lot of space, there aren't these these homes are older because there's just not the space to build out. Most places need to build up rather than out. So in a traditional home, if you go in, there is always this entryway and you'll see the shoes laying there and there's a set of slippers because you never, ever wear your shoes in the house. So everybody takes your shoes off. They provide slippers, which can be interesting for some of the best American sized people to especially the men to try and fit into some of their little slippers. But you put on the slippers before you go into the home. One thing I also noticed over there is there's a lot of kind of little cluttering things. Here is a in the top corner you'll see a traditional kitchen. Uh, you see how giant that fridge is? It's actually quite large by Japanese standards. You're not going to see an open concept with the island in the middle and space, there's very limited space. But in the cupboard there, you see all those little bowls and dishes. That's because they like to serve every different part of their meal in a separate bowl. They're not grabbing a plate and piling it on like we do at potlucks and things like that. They will have something separate for each one. And the bottom corner that is, uh, Japanese room in many of the homes is how they referred it to me. But in that room on the floor there, you see those mats that are called to Tammy mats. And, um, uh, they help to insulate and they. They work hard to make sure they're kept clean and well groomed. In the corner there, you see a little shrine that's actually, um, very in a Japanese room. They often have a little shrine to their ancestors where they'll go in and give a bowl of rice or incense or whatever on the floor there in front of us there. Those are futon mats, and that's traditionally what you lay on. You don't get a bed. You'll notice in here that you didn't see any couches or anything to sit on. Living in Japan. That's probably what I missed most. Is having a couch to sit on. Simple things. So most, most people live in apartments just because there is no space to build out and cost in all. So the yellow kitchen there was my apartment when I lived in Japan. Please take note of the giant refrigerator that I had there.

That's all I had. And it was consisted of about three rooms plus the bathroom. So in the bottom corner that is mine and my roommates room, that's the traditional sliding doors. The idea being you can slide it close and you can insulate the room a little better, and you're only heating what you actually are using at that time, rather than spreading heat throughout the whole house. Uh, the kitchen in the middle. That's my friend June Pay. And, uh, they actually have a larger size fridge in their house. I'm a mom. Time tell me fridges. But, uh, and then their table is just sitting on the floor and enjoying a meal.

All right. So we went back last year. Uh, my kids and I, my husband, we had gone in 2020, but unfortunately Covid wrecked our trip and we had to come back after five days. So we were make it doing our makeup trip here this last year. And so we got an Airbnb to stay at. If you you see how they squeeze buildings into any tiny open space, that's including the little part on top. There is also part of our Airbnb, which is ample space for us and a good price I recommend it. So inside our Airbnb, it's a little bit more modern than you saw in a traditional home, and it even has a couch. But if you saw my husband sitting on the couch, it's not a very big couch, but it does have the table and chairs so we didn't have to sit on the floor. Can we each got our own bedroom? And my key thing if you're getting an Airbnb in Japan, check out. Make sure your fridge is a decent size so you can store your breakfast foods in there. Here in in Japan, they like to keep their toilet separate, which I think is a fantastic idea because who wants that stink where you want to do other things? So in this Airbnb, it was on the opposite side of the house. It's its own special room. And can you see when I zoom in like this? And you see in that.

If you see here on the side of the toilet. Those are controls. So it's a you can heat it. You can do it by day on it. You can do all sorts of fancy things with your toilet. And then on the back that's a faucet in the back. So it's a good use because where's the sink in there to wash your hands. Right. And when you flush the toilet, it runs all your fresh, clean water in up through that faucet and into the tank. And so you can wash your hands. And that water will be used to refill the tank. I thought, pretty, pretty cool use. Uh, they don't have dryers there, so everything is hung to dry. And so that's the washing machine and a sink in there. The bathroom. That's another interested showering room. The actual bathroom. They have their tubs nice and deep. And you can take a quality bath in there and actually get covered without parts of your body freezing, but you never get into the bath tub dirty. You must through is a shower. And so you go into the shower room. You wash your whole body first in the opt in will have to sit on a stool while I do it. You wash your whole body and then you can go and have a soak in the tub while you're clean. Also makes cleaning in the cloud that much easier.

Here's some controls on a public toilet there. On your one side, you see that they have the bidet options. I sound about that was pretty fun while I was there. They also have the music option, so if you're making a few extra noises where you're going to the bathroom. You can play music and nobody can hear you. Fun little additions. Um, I also like how the sign says if you're in there for more than 30 minutes, station staff are going to come and check for your safety. I don't know who sit in there that long. Uh, here's my sister. The fun translations of Japanese to English. Restrooms. Please use them without hesitation. Um. This one was in a building, so chances are it was a decent bathroom. But in the parks and stuff if you go to use the toilet. Sometimes it's just a ceramic bowl in the ground and you have to straddle and squat over it. And I got to tell you, not everybody has very good aim. So you'll often see before ladies are going into one of those bathrooms is they'll roll their pant legs out before they go into the bathroom, so they don't get yuck on their pants. Kind of gross, but let's move on to something else now. Transportation. So the number one transportation around there is your feet. Lots of walking that street that you see my kids straddling there. That is a two way street down in the town. You'll see there's not really any sidewalks, but bikes and pedestrians and cars all use that lane.

Uh, thankfully everybody is used to a lot of pedestrians, and so they're quite cautious here. We're standing at a train crossing. It's kind of cool because those two arrows that you see there showing which direction the trains are coming from. So we're actually waiting for two trains to cross.

The number bikes are used all the time over there. It's just, uh, there's no place for parking your car. They're not expensive. And you can see they even have underground parking for garages. I garage parking for bikes because there's so many bikes used all the time there. In Japan, I felt very safe as a girl by myself. Um, actually, the first day when I was in Japan, my employer had given me ¥10,000 bill, which is about $100 bill, and I was walking to go to sign up for some classes, and it fell out of my pocket. And this lady came up behind me and she's like, Suzanne, Suzanne. And she she didn't want to pick it up. She didn't want to look like she was stealing it, but she wanted to point out to me that I had lost my money. So I'm like, great, this is a nice country. They don't just take my money from me. But bikes was something that you had to worry about maybe going missing. You wanted to lock it up because they are hot commodity. They are very useful. People do have their own personal vehicles. Uh, this is June Pei's work vehicle. He's an electrician over there, so he needed to actually have all his work. Nice. But they all tend to look a little, a little different. They had a definitely Japanese look to them. You see the big work vehicle? Jack is standing next to there with a ladder on top. I don't know how our parents or dads would feel about that having that for their work vehicle around here. And then my friend Kiyoshi there is putting his car into parking because when there's that many cars and that little space, where does everybody park? You start layering the parking. So they have these, uh, lifts that go up and down and you can have multiple cars on top of each other.

Um, you also know everybody backs in. They're very good at backing up because these streets are very narrow and trying to have a place to turn around properly when you're backing out doesn't work so well. So being able to pull straight out. Good. It's a lot of a lot of testing to be able to get your driver's license in. You got to be a skilled driver.

There are many vans are pretty decked out. From what I've seen. The black vehicle was actually from like 2009. So it's an older vehicle now. But I love the fact that you have all these extras in it, like seat rests and things like that. The white van was just last year and had like blue lights around the top and all the videos and all that. It just looks cooler than our minivans. That's all I can say.

Taxis are used a lot. There's a lot, a lot of taxis, and they take great pride in how their vehicles look. They have their white doily things all over to make things look clean. The drivers often wear gloves. Um, here we have, uh, a ferry taxi took over to Magma Island, and I just thought the name on that bus travel bus rather than travel. It was amusing, but buses are used a lot. And that is the school bus from kids house that they have now. Usually parents will pick up their kids, but there's a few that one need, uh, bus rather than the public transit or parents coming to get them.

So of course, you guys, I'm sure you've heard of the Shinkansen or the bullet train. Uh, this is my favorite way of getting around as a tourist. You can go ahead and purchase a rail pass from out of the country. Uh, it seems really expensive when you first purchase it. For instance, think for two weeks. It costs each of us $750 for the rail pass. Sounds really expensive. However. If you take the ray or the bullet train and say, I'm going from Osaka to Hiroshima, it might cost me $100 one way. So going there and back is going to be about a $200 trip. But and I'm using it every day to jump on whichever train I want, whenever I want. I don't have to get a ticket because I have the rail pass. And so I did some calculations and I saved by paying that $750. I saved at least $600 from doing that. And it's lovely because you don't have to go through all the ticketing and everything. Um, you do have to be careful because some, some of the cars are smoking cars and those are really stinky. So one lovely thing about the bullet train. Besides the fact that it goes up to 320km an hour, um, is all the leg space. I don't know if you can see, but on the top picture there, I've got my legs up, uh, on my bag, and there's still space to spare. And it's quite. And then they have ladies who come through with snack carts you could buy. They have nice washrooms on there and it's a very smooth ride and very fast. If I was I took the bullet train to Tokyo and it took me about, I'm going to say three hours, but I took the bus to Tokyo one time and it took me eight hours, so it's definitely a better way to travel. Um, this little video here is what it's like to ride on the bullet train. And right soon after it starts, you're going to see some flash of white go past. And that is another bullet train. So this is bullet trains passing each other. They're usually somewhere between 8 and 16 cars long. But keep note of how quickly. It passes by. Okay. And you'll check out the landscape, too. It's not all just city.

There. Greenhouses.

And start getting into the city area.

All right. So compared to that, I don't know if it felt fast to you guys, but here is a local train. This gentleman is interesting to watch because he takes great pride in his job and, um, just pay attention to what he does. It's quite interesting.

He's going about 80 years now.

Need apartments right there next to the train. No, that's not that's not an excuse. Why didn't you let me know about it? I left when I decided.

Will soon be arriving at no. Gas station 13. Those on the right side of road. Please change here for the subway name.

That's a local train. Um. This is sitting on one of those local trains. So in this situation, my daughter and I wanted to sit with my husband and son, but obviously there's only two seats, so she's going to show you how handy. Dandy. Because trains need to go both directions, and you don't always want to face backwards what you can do.

We want to sit together. So.

And we get all together.

Uh, what's really cool on these trains is they also have female cars. So, for instance, at night, sometimes we do have some people who are getting a little intoxicated and they're traveling the same train system. So they have some pink cars where the women can just go and they can feel safer by themselves and don't have to worry about some drunk guy coming up and trying to. Get friendly with you. They also have designated seats for, um, seniors and, uh, pregnant women. And you will note that if an older person comes on to the train, a young person will always stand to give them their seat. Very polite. This is what? A train coming off of a train station. Organized chaos, we call it. Um, you will note there are quite a few masks in here. This was in 2023, so they were still coming off Covid. They had just dropped the mask mandates, uh, a couple weeks before we got there. But even in all my times that I've traveled there. Um, they were wearing masks before then. It wasn't uncommon. Uh, they. But they don't necessarily wear it because of illness. They will wear it if they unwell because let's look how tight everybody is together. Things are going to travel, but they'll also wear it if they've got bad breath or like if you have a runny nose, it's rude to blow your nose in public. But that really sounds discussing to as to what might be happening behind that mask if they're not blowing their nose, but those are some fun facts for you. So these people have their tiny little homes. It's not like they have big TVs to watch or couches to lay on and all that stuff. So what do they do? They get out a lot. It is hard to have pets in such small spaces. So they have cat cafes where you can go and you can get your cuddle on with a cat. They'll give you a drink and some snacks for the cats, and you can go hang out for an hour. They also have them for pigs and rabbits as well. Uh, some people do have dogs. Um, and they like to dress their dogs up. But again, you're living in a cement world. You need to take your dog out to take care of its business. But you don't always have spots. So they have some designated little fire hydrants. Slash cleaning area for your dog to go to the bathroom. Who knew there was doggy toilets? Hey, uh, another fun entertainment or arcades? We have some of those here, but they also the back section tends to be Plinko, which is gambling for the adults. Gambling machines. Um, Pecora is another fun thing I don't think is as popular as it was when I first went to Japan. But you go into it, it's like a photo booth. You take a bunch of pictures with your friends, and then you go on the outside and you can decorate them and make them silly. And then it'll print out stickers for you to have.

Playgrounds. Their playgrounds leave something to be desired. To be honest, there's very little grass grassy area. So most of it is this these dirt areas they've thrown something in. Um, some of our playgrounds. I wonder how in all they would be. And the bottom corner there. You see that? What's looks like grass. It's fake grass that they've put inside a train terminal for a space for kids to be able to run around. But you must take your shoes off first.

Um, my husband and kids. They also did some geo caching while they were there. I don't know if you ever have a geo cache, but you can even do that in Japan. I think you boys will probably appreciate this. My son really wanted to do this. But you have to be a certain age. But you can dress up as a cartoon character and go for go kart rides through the city.

Kind of fun. Ferris wheels. We did see a few Ferris wheels while they were there. Uh, the red when we were sitting in this on the sixth floor, they had the Ferris wheel built up on the sixth floor of the building. And then you get to go up even higher. So here is a video of the city of Osaka from the top of the Ferris rows. What? We were.

Oh, the bottom line here.

Graphic.

It was Tamar.

You are.

As you can see, it's not a fast moving one. It's there for the view. When I first went to Japan, I got the opportunity to go to a Tigers baseball game. This was an experience and a half everybody. So one of the traditions is that the seventh inning. Everybody has these special balloons. They must hand them out when you go in, and everybody knows you blow them up and they all whistle and you all release them at one time. At the end of the seventh inning. And I think it's supposed to be for good luck. It was. It was a fun experience.

So of course, karaoke. Karaoke is fun at the best of times, but Japan takes it to the next level. You have private rooms, so you have your own microphones, your own room. They deliver food and drinks to your room. In the back there you can see Jack sitting in a massage chair and just pay by the hour to hang out. They have a whole building here. You see. There's 13 floors there, plus the ones down below. Which amusement, which would be kind of like, um, the arcades we talked about earlier. We have bowling rooms, table tennis. Oh, 13th floor. I go up to 13 13th floor to go bowling.

Uh, shopping is big in Japan. My husband's favorite store over there was eight stories tall. Each floor is like a different section. One for just toys, one for electronics, one for housewares. I don't think it actually had clothes in that store that I think about it. It was everything but. Um, so it's a lot of mix of the old and the new. So you can see the old. Uh, slippers there at the top. And then the new crocs that my daughter is holding up. In Japan. Shopping is a lot of fun when you go into a store. Everybody automatically you'll hear echoing throughout the store. Show me Mr.. Show me Mr.. Them and it's everybody welcoming you into the store. Um.

In this store. The eighth story for my husband loves. They have a floor that is all about gaming. So my son just happened to stay on that floor and play games the entire time where the rest of us went shopping. I took some time to go sit in a massage chair and get a massage while I was waiting for them.

Um, a lot of the stores are tiny little shops. You see the cover, the colored glass there on top. It's a shopping arcade there, so they like to keep it covered. It does rain quite a bit there. So they have all their shopping centers, the arcades, they call it the shopping arcades covered. And that way you can shop no matter what the weather is going on outside. And there's a lot of little shops. This one in particular is, uh, Nishiki Market. It is 400 years old. It is only 400m long and about. You can see how tight it is there with all the people packed in. It's only about four meters wide, but there's 130 vendors in that 400m. It's quite an experience. It's, uh, used to be an open. Well, it's still pretty open air fish market as well. Some of the fun things you can buy there. Another fun thing, when you do buy things in Japan, they will wrap it for you. It's not you know, they might give you a grocery bag here to throw something in. They will like box it and wrap it all. They have their special techniques where they can wrap everything using one piece of tape and. It's it's it's artwork. They go above and beyond for you.

Um, another little side note if you're trying on clothes, if you go into the change room, they also have slippers to go into the change room. You never wear your shoes into the change room. But the number one spot I shopped when I lived there was the ¥100 store, which is like a dollar store. Here you can get everything you need. So here's in the open fish market some of the fun things that will be on for sale. I think around here we would have be hard pressed to have that much stuff sitting out and be okay with people still buying it, but over there you can. In the bottom corner there it looks like planks, little things of wood with red writing on it. Uh, that's actually bento. I don't know if you've ever had bento flakes on your any of your Japanese food, but they're basically they've dehydrated and that fish to the point that it feels like a plank of wood. And then they shave it down and it gives that salty, fishy flavor on it. But it dances. They like how it dances in the heat. Sweet treats are also found down here. This was one of Jack's favorite part was there. And there's treats like those cookies. Those are little works of art right there.

See. So another area we went to was your soccer aquarium. This is also very cool. This escalator. The aquarium is six stories tall, and this escalator goes straight from the bottom floor to the sixth floor. That's a long escalator.

I think it's worth.

So when you got to the top of the sixth floor, you come out and it looks like all that forested area there. It just looks like you walked into a rainforest. And what is really cool about this aquarium is it's like it's this big cylinder going all the way down with glass. It's probably a couple feet thick, but you get as you walk down this little slope all the way, going around circles the whole thing. You get to see all the different type of animals. And creatures that live in the sea. And there are some pretty cool ones there. The thing that the Osaka Aquarium is known for is the whale shark. The. I think it's the only aquarium that actually has a whale shark. So it was kind of cool to see some other cool sites famous there. Kyoto in particular has lots. This is Fuji. Inari. It's a shrine, uh, for the patron of business. So, uh, it has about 800 of these tourists. The orange things there. 800 of them in a row to look kind of like a tunnel all leading up to the shrine. In total, they said there's about 10,000 of those torches on the property, but businessmen will put them there to try and be get benefits in their business. Another important spot to visit always is the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum. This is the last standing, uh, building from that tragic event. And then they have the Peace Arch there. Where has an eternal flame under there to remind people it's not what you want to do again. Gone through that museum many times. It's always very sobering. And I've told people, if you go through, don't plan on doing much else that day because it kind of emotionally exhausts you with all the information that you learn.

And more fun and more fun things. This is Nigel Castle. This is where Shogun used to live. Um, it was built in to have your 1679. It's pretty old, but, uh, what's really cool about it is it has Nightingale floors. And so what it is, is they built it in such a way that the floors squeak, like, it's like, uh, some of the metal or the wood rubs against each other, and it ends up making the squeaking sound as you walk along. So if intruders were trying to get in, they couldn't get in without, you know, one. Pretty tricky. Um, and they always have around all their sites, beautiful manicured grounds and enormous koi fish.

Uh, this is the Golden Pavilion. Thank you. I think a Coogee, and it is covered fully in, uh, gold. Leaf. And it's a Zen temple. It was originally built in 1397. And there's Shimizu dera, which is a Buddhist temple built in 1633. I mean, here, they kind of have shrines for everything. The big building, uh, the brown building, is actually where they do training of their Buddhist monks. But they have pavilions for, uh, uh, shrines for everything. The one my husband and I are standing in front of is one for fertility. And you see a guy worshipping at this other one, uh, in the top with my kids looking down. That's looking down at the, uh, the water one that Jillian and my husband are standing in to the side, and people will stand in line to go get a sip, a drink of water out of there because they say it's healing water. In Japan, only about 1.5% of the population are actually Christian.

And there's the bamboo forest to check out. They have lots of bamboo around. And then they have the monkey part. My kids were very excited to go. And they don't tell you that it's at the top of the mountain and it's a whole hike to get up there. But you're sure glad to see those monkeys by the time you get up to the top. So I have a little video, because who doesn't love monkeys on what it looked like from the outside?

I.

Like, go from that.

And then from the inside, you could go ahead and pay a dollar, and you could go ahead and get snacks to feed to the monkeys. And they had what I with you.

He wants us. You know he wants it, you know. Yeah. Mrs. green, I'm. That was much more fun, know?

This story. I think you might be familiar with. You want to be like. Yes. You know, you think this week is one more thing?

Uh, and then there's Osaka Castle. It's really beautiful outside. They've turned the inside into a museum. So if you want to learn all about the history of Japan, it's a cool place to go. If you really like museums. This one's my favorite. This is her magic castle. This is where I lived when I was there. I could see the castle from my apartment. Magic castle. That's called the White Heron Castle. It's supposed to look like a white heron getting ready to take off. And it's called the most Beautiful. It was built in 1333, and they have actors outside to try and show you what the residence might've looked like around there. And they have built it with so many extra tricky things, these short doors. So if you were trying to race in with an army, you'd be have a hard time getting through or hit your head. They have stairs of different levels, so it's not even. So if you were in a whole group trying to run upstairs, you could miss a stair and get trampled. Even the plants they'd plant around the outside of the building are like, um, easily rooted, uprooted. So if you were trying to climb up a hill, your feet would give out from under you as the plants came loose. All sorts of very, very cool things. I also like that when you go inside here, you can actually see what the inside was like. I'm going to go back a couple of slides because up right here, if you look at the outside of the, um, castle, it looks like there's one, two, three, four, five levels to the castle. But in fact some of those windows are at feet level. And so they're thinking being that if you were racing in, you would go, okay, we got to get to the fifth floor. And that's where we're going to find the Shogun or the, uh, the Emperor. But in reality, there's still two more floors for the Emperor to be hiding on.

So here's the inside. You can see again getting up to the different floors. There's some hazards there. But you know what's amazing is even in Japan, all these sites, there's a lot of tourists, not just foreigners and old, really old people all bent over and they're still easily climbing these stairs. And this is a view from the top that festive. There is the train station and you can see the buses and taxis and all that from downtown and Maggie.

This is Miyajima. This, um, is a Shinto shrine. That is a larger story or interest marker to the entrance of a shrine in Japan. And it's been there since 1168. This is kind of cool place to go. They have lots of wild deer around there. Well, not so wild. They're quite intrusive and friendly. If you're trying to eat or you have paper hanging out, they're going to try to eat it. But there's a gondola you can take to the top of the mountain and look out. And they have all sorts of shrines around and markets and yummy foods. And then my sister standing there next to the world's largest rice paddle. This is a cemetery over there. Just another city of cement.

Uh, who saw the night light? This is a fun area to go. Don't worry. It's known for its lights and its food. Lots of foods around there. Lots of activity. You see the signs that they have. And some of their restaurants are quite elaborate. And Spider-Man stealing a pool. Uh, Pearl there.

All right, S3. So this is one of their buildings just it looks like a shopping mall building, but they've even gone out all out of the way to make the light on it. Like, extra special. Thank you for running.

We.

Another activity you can do there is actually be made up as geishas. There are actually ladies who still dress in this fashion and, uh, put on shows and entertain for you. But you can also see some ladies at some of the nicer stores and stuff actually dressed up in kimonos. Um, but we were getting traditionally painted up and done so that we could have the whole thing the way my sisters painted there in the back, you see kind of the shape on her back. That's the traditional way they they do the painting on the back, uh, the paint on the. Hello. It goes. And this is how we looked after they let us walk the grounds. Those shoes were really fun to walk in. That's all I can say.

Um, so that is a kimono. So a more of a winter type garb. There's about seven layers of stuff that you tie it around your waist by the time you're fully dressed in that. This is a summer kimono. Sorry. I'm just going to mute that. This is a summer kimono called a yukata. And it's quite common for even if you're going on a date or something, you might want to go get dressed up a little more fancy garb, and you can go to these shops, and they'll let you wear some of their. You practice and go walking around some of the shrines. You can see. And it was exciting to see a gaijin, a white person wearing a kimono. So the guy had to take a picture.

Um, they had a lot of festivals. They seem to have festivals for most everything. And this is one festival we got to go to. Uh, I believe it was the Moon Festival. And, uh, people, uh, the citizens, the Japanese will go ahead and dress up in more traditional garb and eat fun, uh, foods and play games. They have drum performers and the musicians playing and singing, and sometimes they'll have acting up on the stage as well.

Um, for some of the festivals, they'll make up their own floats. You can see there on the one side, they're making quite an elaborate float. They have, um, festivals just for the fact that the cherry blossoms are blooming on the bottom corner. There. You see, my little friend. He is trying to catch a goldfish, but the, uh, a scoop that they've given him is made of rice paper. So what happens when you get rice paper wet? I kind of get holes in it, so you have to be pretty efficient with it. But if you get a goldfish, you get to keep it and take it home. They have vending machines everywhere for everything. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of smoking around there, so you have that as well as your alcohol. This one on the side is your bugs. In case you know you need crickets or whatever to feed to your pets. You can get it out of a vending machine. They also have vending machines with hot soup. Uh, with gyoza, you can get your soup in a can or soup in a cup. Every kind of drink you can imagine. And my favorite, of course, was the ice cream Haagen-Dazs. Like me, my Haagen-Dazs. Uh, one of the top things that my family like to do was try all the different drinks that they have over there. Pastas, vending machines. Like I said, you go to the top of a mountain, there's a vending machine, the top of the building, there's a vending machine. And they are all very different. You can get the Suica cards where you top up the, um. Put money on it, and then you can just tap it at the vending machine and it will just make money off of that that way. Very handy. Uh, grocery shopping. As you saw, there's not a lot of fridge space over there. So people do shopping pretty well daily. Their fruits and vegetables tend to be very large, but they smell and sell them in smaller packages. And that's a green onion that Jack is holding up next to my daughter there. So if you look at the price that watermelon that I'm holding there in the middle, that's about $30 for that watermelon. So, uh, you can also get the most big and beautiful grapes, but you're not going to be. Eating those just at random. It's it's tradition. If you go to someone's home, if you're invited over, you take a little gift for them. And you may. They had beautifully, uh, set grapes, but it's going to cost you, like, 50 bucks for the bunch. What's really handy for those of us, if you're by yourself there, whatever those meals there, it's about $5.80. You can buy a whole meal. It's got your noodles, you meet your rice, whatever and easy ready to go. And the bottom corner there that is ice cream in a squeeze bottle. You know, we have applesauce and stuff here like that when they get their soft serve like that. So you don't want your hands to get dirty. In the basement? Um, well, in the basement of anywhere, there's always more stores, and you can always seem to go lower and there's more stores down below. So this is kind of some of the sweet treat area shopping. And they have the most beautiful desserts there. And these would be things you might take uh, as a special treat if going to somebody's home. So this is a little video of some of their unique ways to make sure that you, um, don't get your hands dirty. My husband eating his hot dog. Oh. So they give you this package of mustard and ketchup, and you crack it like that, and then you squeeze them together to squeeze out onto your feet. Don't have to get your hands dirty unless you really want to. And the perfect balance. I'm out and I get good food. And it is so.

So good.

Okay, so food was kind of a favorite for us over there. There's a lot of street food. Jack likes to go for all the sweet that's candied strawberries and apples. There's noodles and chicken. The the ice cream cones that Jillian is holding. They're made with black sesame. So anything that looks a little different, it looks a little fancier. They like that. Know some other delicious or not so delicious looking street food. Some squid on a stick.

But they often you can see all the individual little plates. This is how a traditional meal would be served. Is all the different little plates, not a whole bunch on one. Our favorite one of our favorite meals is shabu shabu, which is a thinly sliced meat. There in the bottom you can see it next to Jillian's elbow. You take it and you swish it in the boiling broth, and then you dip it in some sauce and eat it. And you can also have vegetables and stuff with it. Simple but delicious meal there. Italian food over there is some of the best I have to say. Um, I have been to Italy but I really like their Italian food. It's beautiful. However, they would normally get this plate of Italian food and consider that something to be shared with everybody. But we're Canadian and we see that as one portion. Uh, you can also get Western food there to look a little bit different, but you can get it. Our first meal in Japan, this last time happened to be McDonald's because it was the closest and easiest. They may have a little different stuff, like teriyaki sauce to go on stuff, but that's about it. Their sweet treats are a thing of beauty and their bakery. I highly recommend, uh. They take great pride in how everything looks in their presentation. It's, uh, food is art as well. How would you know what to order? I don't speak the language. What do I do? Well, this is all plastic food. Everywhere you go, they have plastic food examples. And when you get your food, it's going to look exactly like the plastic food example. So you can just go out and say, point at it and say, I want that one. Uh, they also do it with the plastic, with the, um, deserts and their deserts or something. Something else. That's cotton candy there on the one side and marshmallows and all sorts of stuff. Pancakes and waffles. Those are served as dessert over there, not as breakfast. And it does come just like it looks when you ordered off the page. The favorite was sushi, of course. Uh, they had the conveyor belt. Sushi. You can just use the iPad that they have there. You order it and it shows up at the end. They just count your plates. So here is Jack getting his own blanket. You can put it on. I think.

This is my home. I know I want to.

Thank you.

Here's my flip. Thank you.

As you can see, he ate a few plates. That was his favorite. You could also take off the bottom if you didn't want a special order. So everything is about cleanliness and beauty. There even a brush to clean your brush. Old ladies out there cleaning the historic grounds with their brooms. They go extra above and beyond, giving pajamas at the hotel, but obviously made for smaller people. Not the size of my husband. And my daughter here was only ten years old in this picture. And you can see that's a full grown Japanese woman behind her that is shorter than her. She's not an out of an average un averagely tall ten year old either. This is how they manage Covid in, um, elevators. Everybody had to face the wall because you still had to use them because everything is floors and floors up and their fire trucks also smaller because there's just no space. So it's what's really cool about Japan is the mix of the old and the new. So at a wedding, you still may go and have your traditional Japanese garb there and go for years to your shrine and whatever for your ceremony. But then they also will have the Western ceremony, have a whole dress for that, and then change to a pink dress for your reception. It's an expensive process. They still have a great deal of appreciation for the traditions and the old things. Signs are always interesting, a little different than how we have them here. Uh, I always like this bottom sign. Ten minute walk. Seven if run a little to the railway station. And the bag that says this bag contains our will. Just, you know, we buy Japanese things with Japanese print on it, and we don't know what it says. They're probably doing the same thing, laughing at us as they are when we laugh at their English.

So that is about all that I have on that. In Japan it's very it's it's a respectful country. It's a clean country. When you meet somebody, you bow, when you leave somebody, you bow. And it's not like you're bowing to your knees. It's just kind of a head tilt or whatever to say thank you, I appreciate. Appreciate spending time with you. Goodbye. Whatever. See here. I can.

Sorry. I'm going to stop sharing my screen hair and come out of it. Um, they are very modestly dressed country. You're not going to see a bunch of people with wild hair and, um, tattoos that's associated with a yakuza, which is, uh, criminal underground type stuff. People want to represent. Their company and themselves in the best manner possible. So it's a it's a very cool country. I highly recommend going sometime. And if you go get pocket Wi-Fi then you can face time with your family wherever you are.

Awesome. Wow. Thank you so much, Mrs. Petrou. Um, I know we're right at 12:00, but I am sure there's a couple questions out there. Um, I know I have a couple, so if you're able to stay on for a couple more minutes, that's fantastic. And, uh, you guys can go ahead and ask some questions if you have them. I know there is one in the chat, so we'll start with natural.

Yeah, I was just going to ask the first time you went on that train, did you feel sick? No. It is an incredibly smooth ride. Like, you know how usually you're on a train or anything, and you come to a stop and everybody's kind of grabbing their grip. It's very smooth. They've got a great system there.

Hayden. Um, you're showing some pictures of its different signs, and I saw the stop sign. Is that a stop sign or a yield sign? As a stop sign? They do it different over there. I did not see any yield signs over there.

Trusting David. So with putting the race at the shrine for their ancestors, what are they doing? The rice after. This is just it, right? You're not allowed to eat it, so it has to be tossed out eventually. It's again one of those things that I don't understand about some of these other religions, thinking that dead people can do anything for you.

Any grace.

Um, I was wondering about, uh, for, um, learning Japanese. So at the moment I am studying Japanese, but I was learning. Thank you. I was learning. I'm sorry. I was wondering, uh, whether it'd be better for writing. Would it be better to learn hiragana or katakana? Hiragana? Okay. You're gonna. They have everything. Um, most everything. They haven't written out in the simpler language. So it's easier for you to go ahead and interpret. So you can get around just fine with hair. That's another thing I should say, is that when you're over there, it can be intimidating. The idea of going to a country where they don't, where English isn't the first language. But what I have found going there is there's always some English. They call it romance over there. There's always some English written. And everybody speaks a little bit because remember, they started when they were two years old learning they may be a little shy to try, but everybody speaks a little bit of it and they are so kind and accommodating. We had one restaurant we were trying to find because, remember, they're like seven stories tall and it's not all written in English and we couldn't find it. So we went into this, a 7-Eleven store and asked. My husband asked him where it was, and the guy left his store to come out and walk us to the restaurant so we could actually get where we needed to go. So amazing people. That's awesome. Does anyone else have any other questions before I ask a couple?

Evan. So I'm wondering how. Obviously respect, respect. Respectful culture. I'm wondering how respectful of these. Always very respectful. Um, I've been when I lived in Japan, I had to leave a couple of times, and, like, I went to Korea, for example. That was a real shock to the system, because in Korea and Japan, everybody's waiting in their line. You like, I showed you with a mass of people coming out, even despite there being a thousand people coming off of a train. You're not bumping into each other or hitting people or anything. Everybody's just going off and respecting space. Uh, I went to Korea and I had to hang on to my stuff, and I had to hang onto my own rear end because somebody's going to be shoving in right behind me and cramming me and pushing me around. It was. And but no very respectful and lots of respect for their elders, for their traditions, for their country. It's a clean country. You're not finding litter. Despite all those those, um, cans and bottles that you see everywhere because everybody's getting them, everybody recycles their appropriately. And it's not you're not seeing stuff around. It's quite nice.

Good question, Evan. Anyone else.

And in Greece.

Um, I was also wondering about, uh, Christianity in Japan. You said it's not very common, but I was wondering what would be. If I were to be a missionary there, uh, what would be like the right approach to introduce Christianity? Huh? That is a good question. I would say, as always, with most any country is first, show God through your actions. So getting out there and being helpful to people would be your first step in getting to know people where they're at and then starting to share your God with them. Um, yeah.

There are some quilts over there and they do have some English speaking. And like we went to church, one of our churches when we were there, and they had one floor that was just for English speakers, and there's a lot of foreigners there who all get together that once a week to commune and share. And then you can talk also there about how can I reach people? Yeah, I was going to say building that relationship obviously is really important. Um, when you go into a public, um, restroom and you are traveling to Japan for maybe the first time, how complicated is it just to use their toilets? Oh, no, not all of them are that fancy. As you saw, there was a button that said flush next to it. That's all you need. But here's a handy thing that my little pointer for you. They sell these little and looks like face cloths to me, like a little face cloth. And they have all fancy design or they have, uh, um, handkerchiefs. And you're like, why is everybody carrying this around? They don't have paper towels in their bathrooms. Another helpful not litter thing. So everybody carries a little towel in their bag or their purse with them. So you can dry your hands when you're coming out. That's interesting. So a lot less waste is produced. Yes. Yeah. And I love the concept of recycling your hand water to. Then it goes into your toilet water. That's so brilliant isn't it. Um, yeah. They're just obviously we know Japan's a lot more advanced than us, but just seeing your pictures, you can see all that advancement was pretty cool. Um, one thing I remember, uh, one of the one of our friends at travel with you and lived with you in Japan. Anna. Um, she had said. And you mentioned it today, that blowing your nose in public is very rude. So she had noticed that on the train, often individuals do not blow their nose, and so they actually have a really bad runny nose, but it's seen as being more polite just to let your nose run versus you actually blowing your nose. I know we call that they out that issue. You got your towel and wipe it people. Yeah. It's a I just it's a different cultural thing. Yes. I'd rather that ask for that situation. Yes. Um. Evan. I'll come in cars and. Say that again. Uh, how common are cars there? Well, there's lots of cars. Um, but you have to think of the what the population is compared to the space. So having a car is not cheap. Uh, any time that you park the car, you're having to pay for parking. It's not as convenient. Gas stations are also, you know, here you drive a block and there's another gas station. Drive another block. There's a gas station there. It's, uh, more complicated to go. Pay for those things. So really, it's more where do you want to spend your money? Do you want to spend it on a train pass, or do you want to spend it on? For myself personally, when I'm there, I find it much more relaxing to sit back and someone else do the driving.

Kieran.

Um. Was there. I have to. Was there very many electric cars? And what did you find? More common electric charging stations or regular gas stations? Regular gas stations? I can't say as I saw much for any electrical, because that would actually be quite a challenge considering the space that they have to be putting in more of those stations around around there, because there's just not that extra space to be parking them for a while to charge.

Um, one question I had about the car lift and parking is if you're backing your car in and then they're taking it elsewhere when you go and pick up your car, is it a very long wait for your vehicle to emerge? It's not you're going to go right now. You're going to be waiting for a few minutes while they go because they even have. There's one, I think. Because again, tight parking garage, you got to somehow get the car turned around and backed into the spot. So they'll have where you park on the car on this round thing. You pull in and then the car will slowly turn around on the round circle, and then you come back again. Yeah. Honey Grace.

Um, so I'm not sure if this is true or if it's only, uh, for certain people or in certain places. But, um, I did see a video where it was explaining that you can get insurance to remove a certain gland that causes the smell in your sweat, and because it's rude to, like, smell bad in Japan or something. And I was wondering if that was true or not. I have not heard that one, so I can't give you any facts on that. I can't say is there a small country though? I didn't notice a lot of B.O., you know. Some countries you go to and you're like, we're not there yet. Mhm. Um, just a more of a comment, I guess. I was very surprised with their, um, playgrounds being, you know, as they are considering they have things like dog toilet type situations and everything's so fancy and yet playgrounds for kids. What you think would be like state of the art. What I think of like some of the playgrounds that are coming in in Larcombe are so big and beautiful and then you showed us those. So that was just very surprising to me. Just not a lot of space like you see their playgrounds in their schoolyards and it's just dirt, like it's just open space. You don't see like a whole bunch of basketball hoops or paved areas or anything like that. It tends to be pretty.

And law. Cena. But then when you say that I assume sports aren't a big thing there. Well, they still have their sports that they like. Baseball is very it's still an important one over there. Um. But I don't. I wouldn't say like, you know, how sports, hockey and that kind of stuff is a big thing over here. It's not there's not off as much space for doing that kind of things. And it's more about how am I going to support myself moving forward. It's more focused, I would say, towards.

Survival and being your best you can be, and more working the brain than so much the other parts.

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess when you put it that way. Um, last comment I had is, I know that I have. I borrowed, um, Mrs. Petra's wooden shoes. She has a set at her house, and I have fairly large feet. Um, so they definitely didn't fit me properly, but, dude, I'm assuming they just walk very slowly in those. Yes. Not so comfy. Hey, those are pretty cool. Yes. Those are just, uh. Yeah, they're not a comfortable thing to be going long term in. It's. Don't I look nice? But we stand here. Well I look nice. The beauty sometimes is not comfort. Although I feel like we're really evolving now. Awesome. Well, it is almost quarter after 12, and I know you guys have to eat lunch. And I just want to thank Mrs. Pitcher for her time and, uh, sharing her different experiences. She's been there like over several years going next year kind of. Yeah. And again next year. Yeah. And bring me back these corn sticks that are absolutely delicious. She brought them back last time. Now I'm gonna have to remind you of what it is. I think I saved a wrapper. Um, I was like, bring back these treats for my class. Um, they were so good. So, yeah, we just really appreciate your time. And you just donating that to our class and sharing and putting together a really nice slideshow for us to see everything. So thank you so much. Um, grade eight, your assignment will be posted. Um, right after class. I'd like it done before class tomorrow. And if you guys have questions, you guys can email me. But yeah, thank you so much I appreciate it. Have a great afternoon, everyone. While.