Gretchen Miller Travels to Japan with U16 Women's National Team!

Monday, June 6, 2005

WOW, what an amazing experience!  On my trip to Japan, I saw an amazing country wuth an awesome culture ... and amazing soccer.  Our trip began on Monday May 4th when I flew to L.A. after school.  I had tons of homework and my iPod.  The next day we took a short flight to San Jose to meet the rest of our team, before flying to Japan.  There are 18 girls on the U16 National  Team.  Most are '89s, but there are a couple of '90s also.  There were also 8 staff members (3 coaches, 2 coordinators, a trainer, a doctor and an equipment manager).
 
The flight to Japan was about 10 hours long.  Once we arrived at Narita International Airpot in Tokyo, we had to collect our luggage and then take a 3-hour dirve to Fukushima, Japan, right on the Pacific Ocean.  We stayed at J-Village which is Japan's National training Center, which had more than 10 fields and a great staff.
WOW, what an amazing experience!  On my trip to Japan, I saw an amazing country with an awesome culture ... and amazing soccer.  Our trip began on Monday, May 4th when I flew to L.A. after school.  I had tons of homework and my iPod.  The next day we took a short flight to San Jose to meet the rest of our team, before flying to Japan.  There are 18 girls on the team.  Most are '89s, but there were also a couple of '90s.  We also had 8 staff members (3 coaches, 2 coordinators, a trainer, a doctor and an equipment manager).
 
The flight to Japan was about 10 hours long.  Once we arrived at Narita International Airpot in Tokyo, we had to collect our luggage and then take a 3-hour dirve to Fukushima, Japan, right on the Pacific Ocean.  We stayed at J-Village which is Japan's National training Center, which had more than 10 fields and a great staff.
 
We started our training with two sessions on Saturday and then two more on Sunday, but then got a day off on Monday.  We left the training center early, and went to a Samuri castle and then did some shopping for our family and friends.  On Tuesday, we were back to training.  The sessions were light workouts because there were really high winds that made traiing extremely difficult. 
 
Our first game was on Wednesday ...Finally, what we'd all been waiting for!  The game was in the afternoon against Tepco Mareeze, a professional women's soccer team.  When we arrived at the stadium, our uniforms were all laid out for us ... it was an amazing feeling ... the red, white and blue long-sleeved jerseys looked so cool!  The game ended in a 0-0 tie, but it was a good result for our first time playing together as a group.
 
On Thursday, we had a swimming session where we mainly stretched and slowly jogged in the pool to help reduce the soreness.  We had the afternoon off for a team studyhall ... yup, you guessed it two hours of homework - AHHH! 
 
Friday was our second game.  We played another women's professional team.  We played really well and won 4-0.  Another shutout for the defense - YEAH!  After our game on Friday, we had dinner and then were supposed to have another team swimming session ... but eight of us (including yours truly) got stuck in an elevator between the third and fourth floors!  After a few minutes of nervous energy, we tried to press the emergency call button.  Unfortunatley, the person that anwsered didn't speak any English.  Finally, they were able to get in touch with our coordinator Michelle, who assured us we'd be out soon ... forty-five minutes (and several stories) later we were finally set free!
 
On Saturday morning we had training for about an hour, followed by lunch and a scavenger hunt.  We were split into three team of six, and had to answer 12 questions.  Each team finished about the same time.  The scavenger hunt was a lot of fun (but still competitive).  The rest of the day we relaxed, and then played a game of Pictionary after dinner ... which my team won (even thought some of the other teams stretched the rules a bit - all in good fun).
 
Sunday was our last day in Japan.  Everyone relaxed and packed in the morning.  Our last game was at 3:00 PM.  We played a high school team that included 8 players who play on Japanese National youth teams and won 1-0.  Sunday night we ate and got to spend 3 hours with the high school team.  We danced, sang, ate and laughed, and then exchanged gifts with the players.  After it was all over, we went back to our rooms to finish packing.  We tried to stay up late to make us tired so we would sleep on the flight home, but we were all exhausted from the 10 day trip and fell asleep early.
 
Monday, we took a bus to the airport at 9:30 AM.  The high school team and all of the staff at J-Village waved goodbye to us as we left.  We had a three hour bus ride and then a four hour wait for our flight.  While we were waiting at the airport, we were able to finish buying gifts for everyone at home.  The flight back to L.A. only took 8.5 hours ... plenty of time to finish off my homework!  From L.A., I had to fly to Detroit before heading home to Rochester - I didn't get home until 11:00 PM and was exhausted when I finally got home!  I was excited to be home and see my family and friends, but I'll always remember this amazing experience I shared with only a few others.  It was an awesome trip and I truly appreciated and respected the patience showed by the Japanese people when they were helping our group.  GO USA!!!
 
Gretchen Miller
NY West & Region 1