DC, Day 2

Up in the morning hours - my body says that it is 5 AM, but the clock is certain that it's 6. Oh, well....

Meet Joy and Theckla in the lobby, and we start up the street to a collections of shops on the edge of George Washington University. The French bakery that I remembered from two years ago is still there, so we get breakfast and wander back down the street to the Japan Information & Cultural Center (JICC) for our first gathering.

More than one familiar face is here (MTP-ers from previous years) - there is Brian, and Angie, and here are Steve and Gary. And finally there is Ishitani-san, with our packets and nametags. Just as we finish passing out the paperwork, here come the Japanese teachers. With little difficulty, my partners find me, and we begin the process of getting acquainted. After a short meeting, our group heads for two tour buses to start our round of sightseeing.

We drive past the White House and make our first stop at the Jefferson Memorial. All of the planned stops highlight someone (or something) in American history that had a great deal to do with education and/or Japan. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, the statue of Ulysses S. Grant in front of the U.S. Capitol building, and the Smithsonian are all featured on this trek. Other stops or points of interest include the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, and an interesting modern sight - baseball greats coming out of the Capitol building after testifying before Congress about the steroids problem. Hmmm.....perhaps there is some educational value in that sight as well.

We eat lunch with our partners at the food court in Union Station, take them over to the Natural History Museum in the Smithsonian complex, explain how to find a taxi from that area, and then head for an orientation session for the American teachers. This is actually a FAQ session for new MTP teachers to ask questions of those of us who have made this trip previously; I wish we had had something like this two years ago, and am glad to pass along what I learned from my first trip.

Dinner with our partners, but before we go, I help my partner get his internet connection working again. After a discussion with Wayport tech support (I was translator for both halves of the phone conversation), we realize that Ishii-san's computer isn't handling the auto-connect that it needs for the hotel network. The technician tells us what parameters to set in the manual connection setup, we make the changes, and - he's in!

Dinner at Bertucci's - good Italian food, beer and wine available, and lots of interesting conversations. Then it's off to bed - tomorrow, we will be visiting a local high school and then holding our first joint orientation meetings.