Blog troubles

Im having troubles with my journal. It's not wanting to update. Boo. This is the post I tried to post last night. Here's hoping it works!

"Oh Happy Day!"

Are computer troubles ARE OVER! Well, not really. Chris's is still broken. It's still in America. And it's looking like its going to stay there until we get back to America since shipping is SO EXPENSIVE. We can't afford another $180 shipping fee. Especially since it doesn't look like Best Buy is keen on refunding us. ANYWAYS, despite all that...

We got Chris's paper! We can now apply to his graduate schools and hopefully make progress towards that. He's going to apply to both Indiana University in Bloomington and the University of Arizona in Tucson. Woo! What an interesting spread. I'm looking forward to see what will happen to us in 10 months! ^_^

It's a huge relief to us though. Without an old essay, Chris would not have been able to apply to his first choice of schools. That's why it was so awful that his computer pooped out. Now its just an annoyance (both financial and inconviently annoying)! Oh well. Now we can find other things to stress about (like realizing how much stuff we have here and what we are going to have to do with all of it!).

In brighter news, I had an amusing class. My first graders were in very lively form today. I split them up into teams of two, had them names themselves (they were Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse, Beaches, Kirara, and Paper Craft Team), and then played a weird form of Scategories. I would give them a letter and one person from the team would have to write 8 words that started with that letter as fast as possible. Whoever got 8 words first would yell out "stop!" and the other teams would have to quit writing. It was hysterical because they just can't spell and they would rush and somehow write the same word three times. That wouldn't count and I would have to start them writing again. Heh. They were really into the game. Woo. The Beaches won because the kid, who is one of the worst speakers in class is apparently really good at English. Who knew? He's just a poopy speaker.

However, the real comedy happened when I threw a change-up at them. I asked them to do words that started with "th". They strugged with the blends. One kid, the most charismatic of the class, had a lot of troubles. His word list was "Those" "the" "thravenia" "throwvery" "thowse" "those" and "thise". Yes, he wrote 'those' three times and spelled it wrong during one of them. Oops. He also misspelled "strawberry" for throwvery" and I haven't a clue what "thravenia" is supposed to be. Heh. It was really funny. He took it all with grace and a sense of humor. All two points he got. His team...well...lost hard.

All in all, it was pretty fun. So fun, that I didn't get to play my second game because the kids liked this game so much. Heh. Great! I maaaaaaay try it with the 3rd graders but I doubt they could handle it. They would just mess it up. Heh. I have no faith in them.

So that's all that has happened lately. I hope your days are a little more interesting!

Okonomiyaki!

I thought I would do a little photo documentary of me making an okonomiyaki. Woo!

Okonomiyaki is Japanese for grilled/cooked stuff you like. Really. It's basically a big pancake where you throw in food you like to eat! Well, and that goes.

You start with the batter which looks like this:

It's just a flour and water mixture. Alot like pancakes! In fact, I think it is pancake mix but with 'okonomiyaki' written on the side. You can see other ingredients spread around (thinly sliced pork, mixed veggies, and soba noodles).

This is just a 'close up' of the veggies and soba noodles. I just sliced some cabbage, carrots, and green onions and mixed them together. The green bag under the noodles is called blue seaweed. The Werther's were NOT included in my meal. I do like them, but they would not really mesh well with the other ingredients.

So I toook the pork and put it in a skillet and let it cook first. Then I put on the soba noodles and then I poured the batter, which I had already mixed with the veggies, on top of the soba and let it cook like a pancake. This is what it looked like in the beginning.


Flipping it was beastly hard. It was really really heavy and thick. I kinda had to just roll it over. I cooked it on each side for about 2 minutes or so. Then I pulled it off onto a plate (thank goodness for teflon pans). I sprinkled the blue seaweed on top and then finished it off with a liberal dose of mayonaise. This is the finished result (ignore the deodorant in the back ground).


And it tasted....AWFUL. Believe it or not, that is what they normally look like. All weird and gross, just usually browner. However, I was making Osaka style okonomiyaki which doesn't normally have soba noodles in it. I like the hiroshima style okonomiyaki but that is hard to make, so I decided to just toss in noodles. That was mistake number one. The batter gets mixed in with the noodles and doesn't really cook. The noodles would start to burn, but the batter wasn't cooking because of it.

Mistake number two came from the veggies. I used too many! It's supposed to be mostly batter I think. There was just way too much veggies in it. That also made it difficult to cook the batter. Between that and the soba, it was just way too thick and heavy to really cook properly. When I took the okonomiyaki off the onto my plate, it wasn't cooked all the way through and it was gooey. This is bad. I know I like pancakes kinda gooey, but it's gross in this instance.

Mistake number three. I used a fry pan. The fry pan is good because its tefloned. It's bad because it's small! Even if it wasn't so thick and heavy, it would have been hard to flip because of the pan. Sad!

So yeah, the okonomiyaki was a disaster and I did end up tossing it out. Boo. Chris says it's ok though since I learned from my mistakes. Less thick batter. Cook it slower (I had the heat on too high). Less veggies. No soba noodles (its just not going to work this way, I will get my soba okonomiyaki from a professional). I have an bigger skillet so I will try to use that from now on.

Hopefully next time I will do better. I am dissappointed. But that's part of learning to cook I think. Making mistakes and learning from them. At least I didn't try to feed it to my husband!

On a lighter note, after I got done at West Izumo, I left the school and went to my bike. I wasn't paying much attention and I unlocked my bike and a tiny little froggy blinked at me. I squeeked loudly and almost dropped my bike in the dirt. Stupid little froggy.

He was very cute. I would have just left him on my bike and driven him home...except I was afraid he would jump on me and I would have driven into a rice field or something. Too dangerous. So I POKED HIM. Eek! And he flipped out and jumped crazily from my bike and fell in the bushes. I screamed and boys snickered a little. Oh well. Im just a weeny.

Happy Weekend

What a nice weekend we had! You know why? We didn't do anything! How great! Actually, we did do things, now that I think of it.

Saturday was a 'lie around the apartment' sort of day. We slept late. I didn't have Saturday English class this weekend. So I got to sleep until 11:00! Unfortunately, this left us kinda drowsy for the rest of the day. So we got up and biked over to this tasty little restaurant in the mall. It was yummy! I love the restaurant. Chris isn't a huge fan, but I think he mentioned it because he knows I really like it. There was some sort of festival going on at the mall. Their 25th aniversary or something. It was really annoying and loud though.

So we got done around 1:30 and biked home. Because it was one of those lazy days, we just lied down (laid down? lay down?) and chatted about books, movies, and games until it was time to get ready to go.

Go where you ask? Why, a yakisoba/okonomiyaki party that our japanese tutor was hosting, of course!! It was a lot of fun. A lot of the other JETs who are also getting tutored came to the party as well. Mishima-san (tutor) also has some English classes for Japanese people, so they were there. There were a LOT of Japanese kidlets running out. It was SUCH a loud party because of it. Kids are insane! Anyways, Chris made up a big pile of Yakisoba (I had been bagging about his yakisoba skills so Mishima-san had him help cook) (there were other cooks there, too) and I watched as some guy was making Okonomiyaki (grilled stuff you like).

It was all very tasty. Mishima-san had us talking to the Japanese people in Japanese and they were talking to us in English (well, in theory!). I was sitting next to Meagan (one of the married JETs on the third floor) and Tyler (the other half) was sitting across from her. It was very interesting to talk to them. It's always interesting to talk to another married couple. Because they get the same weirdness that we do when it comes to being married. Heh. She was also a really funny person. She reminds me of Audrey (my cousin). Really pretty, really funny, and just excited about everything. Heh, there are a lot of people here that remind me of various people I miss. It's weird.

Anyways, that was the soba party. It was buckets of fun. Mishima-san showed me some comics they have in the local libray about the myths that were supposed to have taken place around this area. Im very keen to get those. Or at least check them out if I can't find any place to buy some copies. They are just so interesting! Japanese people tend to find me interesting because I love their myths so much and am so interested in shinto and stuff. They like to talk to me about it. We left around 6:00 because Chris was getting eaten by bugs. The party started at 4:00. We weren't that hungry because we had eaten lunch at 1:00. But whatever. The food was still good and it was a fun party.

Later that night, at 9:00, there was the Friendship House welcome party. It's basically just a party for people to come together and meet the new JETs and drink or whatever. It was a really fun. We got there at the start so we could meet people before the drinking really got underway and before it got too loud. During the party, 3 people went out into a nearby park and did some Maori fire dancing. It was so cool. It's called 'poi' and it's that thing where people have weights on the end of long ropes and spin them around really fast and in pretty patterns. At night it was gorgeous because they lit the weights on fire! Oooo! So pretty!

We left around 11:00. It was a good time. After that we just came home and went to bed. What party people we are.

On Sunday (yesterday), we got up around 10:00 and Chris called his parents like a good son. We are in the process of getting his computer fixed and his parents are the ones taking care of it for us. It's such a huge help. This whole computer thing is so stressful for us. We want to get Chris's application to school off, but we cant until we know wether or not we can get his writing sample off. Boo! It's really annoying.

After that, we had a simple lunch, I had gratin and Chris had corn dogs. Then...well...we did nothing. It was great! Just lazing around the house and what not. We watched a lot of TV I believe. We also watched my favorite show ever, "The West Wing". I made fried rice for dinner, but it sucked. Oh well. Then we went to bed. We are just packed full of excitement, aren't we?

So that was our weekend. I hope you guys had a great weekend. I also hope that the Ice Cream social went well!

Weid...

I was walking to the grocery to pick up lunch this morning and I saw a car...accident? It wasn't really an accident, but it was very strange. See, there is this odd building set up. There is a small road that leads to the front of the apartment building. Next to the road is a raised parking lot. It's about 2 feet higher than the road. If you can visualize that, horay, if not...whatever. :-P Anyways, apparently someone had pulled too far forward and his car was hanging over the little ledge. IT was one of the very little cars so it was kinda cute and the poor wheel was just hanging over the edge. Im suprised the car didn't topple over! Anyways, it was weird. I wanted to get a picture, but the embarassed driver was there and I didn't want to make it worse. When I came back from the store, they had gotten the car un-stuck so everything was fine.


Speaking of cars! This is the car that James got for me to drive to Kisuki and back. It's the yellow tag type which means really really thin! I feel like I'm a giant when I am sitting in it. It starts to shake and the engine gets really loud if I go about 60 kph. Heh. Cute! It's a 4wd car though, and it's interesting how it feels differently. I can definitly tell its 4w instead of just front wheel, which is the only thing I have ever driven before. I will try to get a picture of me standing by it so you can see a frame of reference!

Now! More pictures that I thought you might find interesting. They are really crappy because they are camera phone pictures. I also took them quickly because people were thinking I was insane. Anyways, this is a ricefield that has been harvested by hand. This is one of the methods of drying out the rice...stalks? The rice grains have already been 'threshed'out.




The train ride was really interesting because we went through so big rural areas and there were rice fields upon rice fields that were being harvested. Some had machines, some were cutting the rice by hand. It was really cool to see the little old ladies in their bonnets and little old men working in the field. In case you didn't know, its really the old folks who care for the fields. I don't know why. Its just what they do.

Classes are going well. This entire weeks classes went well. Even my poopy seniors were not SO awful to me this week. Of course, I have assigned them a project that they are having to plan for in class. That helps with getting them to do things. I had my sophmores do a small dialogue project and they did better than I expected. So that was cool. And I only had one 6th grade class this week due to sports day being on Saturday. And class went well. My kids, they like me!

Speaking of good news, I have some! First of all, I last week the office lady ran up to me and handed me an envelope. Inside was my "paycheck" for the month of August. It was my normal salary...yet I didn't go to class even once. Woo! I love being a salaried employee! It's so cool! Even MORE cool is I found out how highschool in Japan works.

Now remember, having to teach the seniors is the one really really crappy part of my week. I REALLY dislike them. They are rude, noisy and make it really hard to get anything done. The worst part, is that I can't discipline them! Though I have gotten to the point where I am going to make one student stand outside next time he's so disruptive!! Anyways, back to my happy news. Seniors take their year-end finals in January! That means, they don't have class after January for the rest of the school year. They are given time to study for college entrance exams. They don't have to come to school if they don't want to. There are optional classes, but they get no extra credit for those classes! Woo! That means, come January, my classes are going to get a LOT better. Only the students who want to learn english will come and the rest will leave me alone. Hooray! And the best part? My salary will remain what it is thanks to being a 'salaried employee' and I don't get paid by the hour. Hooray!

Good news, right? Hooray!

Anyways, thats really all that is going on right now. Chris's computer has been sent back to America because all the service shops in Japan refuse to even look at it since it's an american coputer. I understand, but it's really really inconvinient AND it cost us a bundle to get the computer sent to America. Stupid customs tax. :-( Hopefully it will get fixed quickly.

I hope you guys had a lovely week too!

Friday (Well, Friday and the pre-story)

This is a LONG LONG LONG entry so I decided to break it up into four separate entries based on the days. It goes from Friday to Monday. I will post pictures to a shutterfly account, but most likely not until tomorrow or so. There are so many, it was taking too long to upload them here. So just be patient! Sorry this is such a gigantic set of posts. Anyways, enjoy the show.

So Chris and I had to go to Osaka for the weekend; from the 15^th through the 18^th. He was scheduled to take the GRE (the test you have to take before they let you in Graduate School) on Saturday and the only place you can take it in Japan is Tokyo or Osaka. It was also a holiday weekend so I thought we would make it a small vacation and go be tourists for once. Remember, Osaka is the city that we had to go to so we could get married and my visa stuff done. We never got to see anything though because we were always running to the consulate and then back to the trains. So Osaka it was!

About 5 weeks ago, I reserved hotel rooms so we wouldn’t need to worry. I got the confirmation email and safely tucked it away in my email accounts inbox so I could print it off the night before we left. We also bought train tickets a few weeks before we left. We went early so we could buy the extra cheap tickets. You see, if you buy a week ahead of your departure date, you will get a SIGNIFICANT price drop. The only catch is that you cannot change the tickets. You lose your money if something happens and you can’t make the train. It’s a little like an airplane ticket I suppose.

On Thursday night, the night before we were supposed to leave, I was printing out all the info I would need for the trip. List of things we have to bring? Check! Address and directions to the test center? Check! Address for the hotel? Check! Hotel voucher? Chec…wait a second…this hotel voucher says that I have reserved a hotel from the 25^th until the 28^th. Uh oh.

Oh yes, that’s right. Despite all the planning that has gone into this trip, despite the hours I spent making sure we would have an easy time when we got to Osaka, I booked the wrong days! I also never checked to make sure the dates were right. It’s 11:00 pm at this time and we are sort of screwed to book any sort of reservation on the internet. I check around as much as I can, but we are out of luck. I message an online friend of mine in Osaka and ask him for advice. He just says that we should go and see if we can’t book something in person. We are kinda wary because it IS a long weekend. However, what can you do?

So we nervously go to bed that night and wait for the morning so we can leave. We get off fine. We usually have no problems with the trains. I mean, we have done this same trip two times before, plus once to Kobe and twice to Tokyo using the same route. We haven’t had a problem yet. Just for cuteness. This is a picture of the Hikari shinkansen that was waiting when we got to the platform. It is a slower one than the one we take, but I am never in a position to take a picture of my favorite shinkansen. They are trippy though. They look like Amusement Park rides!

Ok, so we get to Osaka. We go to the information center to see if they have advice on where to look for hotels. The lady speaks ok English so that’s one good thing. She gives us a free map (which I think we already had but someone didn’t have to foresight to bring it) and a list of hotels. She says that we will have to call and see if anyone has room. We ask if she thinks it will be difficult to find a room and she pulls a face. “Well…it IS a long weekend…” We sigh and nod knowing that it makes things difficult. Then she looks at us apologetically and drops the bomb. “It’s also a big festival weekend, so most of the hotels will be full this weekend…”

GAH! I knew we were in trouble with hotels because it’s a long weekend…but a festival weekend too! Man. I really screwed up big time. She just nods sadly and we thank her and leave.

So we head on down to the ‘subway’ and over to the commercial/amusement section of the city. It’s close by where Chris’s test will be so we figure it’s probably the best place to look. Chris gets on the phone and calls around to a few hotels. They are booked, booked, booked. However, one hotel does have a room for Friday night. So we grab that room and hang on for dear life. We HAVE to stay Friday night. Chris has his test on Saturday. If worse came to worse, we planned to eat the cost of the non-refundable, non-changeable train tickets, and buy new ones home. It would be a lot to lose, but it was looking like it was our only option.

We go to our hotel. It was a nice little hotel in a good part of town. Not so out of the way that it took forever to walk to it, but not so in the middle that it was too hectic. The room was TINY. By far, the smallest room we have rented so far. Also the most expensive at $120 a night…When we get our stuff in our rooms and sit down, Chris picks up the phone list and starts calling around to hotels to see if anyone has rooms for the weekend. We really want to try to stay because it would be so expensive to get new tickets and whatnot.

Again, he calls and calls but is met with rejection. It’s a festival weekend! No one has rooms! However, on about the 5^th try, he gets a hotel with a room for the entire weekend. It’s also a little pricey. For two nights it would run us $220, but what could we do? It would be more expensive to get new tickets PLUS we would be stressed and in a hurry to make it to trains to get back to Izumo. Boo! So we decide to go with that hotel.

So after all that, we finally decide to relax. We decide to look for some dinner and see some sights. We are in the middle of Osaka afterall! So we go out and get a WONDERFUL Italian dinner. I mean, it was really tasty. Chris had Salmon and cream sauce spaghetti and I had crab and creamy tomato sauce spaghetti. We ate so much we were close to bursting!

Then, we went to a giant Ferris wheel! It was so lovely! It was on top the 7^th floor of a building and it was so tall. Giant even!

It was absolutely gorgeous riding the Ferris wheel at night. It was tall enough that we could see all of Osaka! Beautiful! The pictures aren’t great because we were enclosed in a big glass box-type gondola. Just know that the sight was much better than what you can see!

After that we went to Hagen-Das! Mmm! Such yummy ice cream. Too bad we don’t have one in Izumo (though I think I like 31 flavors better).

Stupid story time!! When we got back to the hotel, Chris decided to review his GRE test prep book and look at some of the vocabulary. I could tell it was kinda stressing him out. So I decided to cheer him up! When he got up to go to the bathroom, I saw a sheet of stickers that I had been using as a bookmark. It had two stickers that looked like eyeballs. So I got the ever so brilliant idea to stick each sticker on my eyelids. That way, it would be silly and stupid like in sitcoms where people color their eyelids so when their eyes are closed the sort of look open. Oh yeah. I am a bright one!

So I did. And Chris…well…he was stressed out and not really amused. So he told me to take off the stickers. Well, now, here is the DUMB part. I mean DUMB. These stickers came with a building block set. You are supposed to stick them on your pieces so when you build something, it has eyes or whatever. So these stickers are designed to not come off. Right? Do you see where I’m going with this? MmHmmm. I went to take the stickers off like Chris said, and they wouldn’t come off. They were good and stuck to my eyelids, like a really sticky bandaid. Crap. It took some pulling but I finally got them off. Boy, did that sure sting. I’m sure I had little circles on my lids where the stickers were. I sure am a genius. I’m sure it makes the family proud to know what a smart cookie they have. Woo!

That was Friday. It ended ok, but what a giant ball of stress!

Saturday

Saturday started ok. We slept until 9:00 and then checked out of our hotel at 10:00. Chris’s test wasn’t until 1:00 so we had plenty of time. We took a taxi to the test center. It was only about a 3 minute drive, we really didn’t need a cab. But, it took us right to the door so we didn’t have to look around for it. We stepped into the elevator to go up to the 7^th floor where the testing center was. However, when we pushed the ‘7’ button, the elevator binged loudly and a Japanese message came out from no where. Huh? So we stepped out of the elevator and a security man came out of his hidey hole. He looked upset and told us that we couldn’t go to the 7^th floor yet. It was closed! They closed the 7^th floor. Weird. I didn’t even know you could turn off certain floors.

We still had our luggage so we decided to go to our second hotel and drop it off. However, we were not supposed to check in until 6:00 pm. Poop! So we just rented a locker and put all the stuff there. Chris isn’t allowed to have anything but his passport in the test room so he had to get rid of his stuff. We dropped the luggage off at the train station near our hotel and then went to find lunch. We went to….McDonalds!! Hah. We were not in the mood to look around for something to eat and we wanted something quick.

After lunch, we went back to the testing center. Instead of trying again, we decided to sit and hang out at Starbucks for a while. We killed about an hour before the test and at 11:50 headed back to the test center. Now, I want to point out here that I scoured the internet trying to find out what Chris needed to have and ALL it said was his ID. That’s it. So anyways, when we got up to the testing center there was a big sign that said: “Check-in will start at 12:20. You must have your Passport, center ID, and Confirmation number.”

Buh? Confirmation number? I was SO MAD. Chris, of course, had a confirmation number. It was just sitting in his inbox in his email account. Ah. That’s bad. We had 30 minutes to find an internet café, get the number, and get back to the center to check in.

Let’s just say, we booked it out of the center. We went to the Ramada Inn across the street to see if they had a computer we could use/rent/whatever. People are supposed to speak English in hotels and you would think a big American chain would have English speakers. But, of course, they didn’t speak English OR have any computers. However, they pointed out an internet café which was 10 minutes away. It’s 12:05 at this point so we take off. We don’t run, but we do walk super fast trying to get to the café and back. We get to the café and died a little inside as it took the ladies at the counter longer than needed to set us up an account. We ran to the computers, copied down Chris’s number and test center number as fast as possible and ran back out.

No charge for the internet. At least that’s something. So we took the subway back to the center (it was right by a subway exit, we didn’t realize we should have taken the subway instead of walked to the café. We hurried up the stairs and got there at 12:35. Phew! Chris signed in and tried to calm down. Poor guy, we were so stressed out and then he had to take a super important test. Good job. I am the WORST planner in the world. I think Chris will get to make plans next trip. Hmph.

I left Chris at the center around 12:50. You see, I wasn’t allowed to even wait for him in the center. They are super strict about it. It’s dumb! I decided I wanted to see the ‘Floating Gardens’. The problem was…I had to FIND them.

Too make a long story short, I spent the next 2 hours walking. Not standing. Not sitting. But WALKING. WALKING WALKING WALKING!!!!! Gah! I get upset just thinking about it. It took me 2 hours to find the gardens because I can’t read a map to save my life. I have no sense of directions whatsoever. Boo! Anyways, now for a little too much information. Most of you are my family, the rest of you are my friends so you can deal with my TMI.

So I made the horrid mistake of wearing ill-fitting pants. The problem being that the pants were too large for me. The hem was tattered and started to rub against my upper legs (sorry, for some reason, the word ‘thigh’ bothers me). Also, since the pants were too large, part of my legs touched each other. So two hours of walking with rough hem rubbing against my legs and what not, I ended up ‘injuring’ my legs. They were severely chafed. Boo. Not bleeding, but pretty close too it. I was walking kinda funnily. It really hurt.

So anyways, back to my trekking through Osaka. I was so hot and so upset by the time I finally saw my big building that I wanted to cry. I got there…and I heard…FIESTA! Seriously. It was Mexican Day. What a mood picker-upper. It was so cute. It helped. I almost bought a taco, but I didn’t want to upset my tummy. Hooray.

So I spent my 700 yen and went up to the ‘Floating Gardens Observatory’. It was GORGEOUS. It was so high! I could see everything. My only regret is that it was really hazy and hard to see. It’s tough to decide whether or not walking two hours was worth the view. I did enjoy the building. It was very interesting and a great view. But sometimes, just seeing a view alone is kinda melancholy. I probably would have enjoyed it more with Chris. But what can you do? By the way, there were totally no gardens, hanging or otherwise, at the hanging garden observatory. It’s just like the ‘subway’ in Osaka is not really a subway because it’s primarily above ground. Dumb! Maybe I don’t understand what ‘subway’ means, but I always thought they lived underground.

So after the I left the building, I limped back another 30 minutes and went to the internet café. Turns out, it was a free café. You could use the internet for free for an hour a day. So I sat down and decided to give you a riveting entry whilst in the middle of the trip. I was using a Japanese computer so it took me another 30 minutes to type out the entry. It was a long and good one. Then, I tried to hit the button to submit the entry and publish to my blog…and I deleted the entire entry. *twitch* I was so upset. I left the café and wandered a bit before I headed back to the Starbucks. It was about 4:15 at this time so I wanted to be near the testing center for when Chris got out. I figured he would be close to done. I also wanted to sit down and rest my sad and very ouchy legs. However, when I was almost there when I got a text message. Chris was done! Hooray! He texted me with his scores. I shant share them with you, because it’s not my business to share, but he did very well. “Kicked it’s ass” one might even say, if one were want to swear.

No sitting down for me, but, it did mean I could meet him at the train station and we could go to our hotel. It was early, but we figured they might let us check in early or we could at least sit in the hotel lobby and wait. So we headed over and they did let us in early. We immediately lay down and took a loooong nap. I think it was about 3 hours, but very much needed.

That night, we headed back to the amusement district of Osaka (called Umeda) and we had…Subway! That’s right! We finally got turkey sandwiches! And they were SOOOO good! Yummy yummy! We then headed to a big toy store and looked around. It was an awesome toy store. So interesting! We ended up buy a deck of bridge cards (they are small and thin and good for card tricks), Word Up! (you know, the game like scrabble except you build on top of words, it’s great for English class and fun to boot!), and Japanese Fluxx! I don’t know who has played Fluxx with me, but it is one of my favorite card games. Getting the Japanese version is that much awesomer. Again, I got it with a mind to play with my students. We wanted more games and stuff, but we decided to stick with just those (we almost bought regular scrabble, rummikub, and a few others but held off).

And thus, Saturday ends with a peaceful sigh.

Sunday

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. What can I say about Sunday except that it went the way that the rest of the trip did. We saw some interesting things, but other things went wrong and were miserable. Why don’t I start from the beginning?

We got up at 11:00. It was our day to sleep late and we didn’t want to waste it! I like slow draggy mornings. They are just the BEST. So we got up at 11:00 and headed back to Umeda. Our goals for the day were to eat a tasty lunch, see Osaka Castle, and go from there.

In Umeda, we went looking around for lunch. There was this awesome place underneath the train tracks. In Japan, the trains are often elevated through cities so you can still maneuver around/through them. But to save space, buildings are built into the bottom of the tracks. So this place was just this maze of restaurants. Restaurants of every type! It was so cool. I might say, it was one of my favorite places we went. We decided to eat at a nifty ramen restaurant. It was a narrow restaurant. I mean, REALLY narrow. When you opened one of the doors (they were sliding doors and opened the entire length of the restaurant), your knees would touch a stool. In front of the stool was a thin counter. On the other side of the counter was the kitchen which was so narrow, two people couldn’t occupy the same place. It was nifty. I got pictures! I asked the guys if it was ok, they looked at me like I was a nut, but shrugged and let me. Nice people. Good ramen, too! The gyoza wasn’t so spiffy, but I am spoiled on wonderful homemade gyoza at the ramen shop by our apartment.

After lunch, we decided to stop back off at Hagen-Das for some more yummy ice cream. We needed to fortify ourselves before we went to see Osaka Castle. It didn’t take us long to eat the yummy treats, so we headed off to find the castle.

Well…the castle. As it happens, the castle is in the center of a huge park. It is also in the center of two very large moats and on a very elevated piece of land. It was a gorgeous building. By far, one of the prettiest things I had seen. So Chris and I put on a gan batte spirit and headed for the castle. Now remember, yesterday I hurt my legs and feet from walking so much and Chris wasn’t in that much better of a shape. So we walked for a good hour or so to get to the stupid castle. We crossed moats. We saw musicians. We gave someone 200 yen for gas (possibly, he could have been a clever bum though). We saw pigeons. We walked up and up and up. Then we got to the castle. And it was even MORE up than we thought. It was pretty though. So we went up again. Up the elevator this time, and then up 3 more flights of stairs. As Chris says, “It might as well have been the highest point in Osaka.”

The view from the top of the castle was really pretty. I have to admit, I wasn’t so impressed. I had already been to the top of the big building the day before. I had already seen the Osaka skyline from that building AND from Ferris wheel. So it was a bit of a big let down for me. The reason was, I was expecting a cool museum about the castle. I wanted to see pictures of what it might have looked like when it really served as a castle and not a museum. What I got, was a museum about a civil war in Japan. It was an important war, but I have studied that before. It was NOT what I thought it would be. I had been waiting and waiting to see the castle since I found out we had to go to Osaka for Chris’s thing. *sigh* Oh well. The pictures sure are pretty though. And how many times do I get to see a real live Japanese castle, even as remodeled as it was. I think I will go see Matsue castle and see how that one is. It’s not as impressive on the outside, but maybe it’s cooler on the inside.

Coming down for the castle was just beastly. My legs were ready to give out. When we were at the souvenir shop (we bought souvenir cards, really pretty…did I mention Chris and I have been collecting cool decks of cards? We are, can you tell?), my legs were shaking so badly, I almost couldn’t stand up. Remember, Susie is, and always will be, out of shape. Then we had to walk another 30 minutes to a train station and then wait another hour before we were able to get back to the hotel room. Wah! I was so pooped and hurting. My legs were in bad shape. Not bleeding, but close to it (even with better fitting pants on!).

I did manage to stop and get a bagel. You see, we don’t have bagels in Izumo. I haven’t eaten a bagel in more than a year! So we got bagels on our way in. And what a tasty bagel it was. Yum! Anyways, so we went back and pooped out. We napped for another few hours just to recuperate. Then, because my husband is so wonderful and loves me so much, Chris went back to Umeda, back to Subway, and got dinner. Then he brought it back to the hotel so I wouldn’t have to hurt my legs anymore. Isn’t he the best. Before anyone fusses at us eating Subway 2 nights in a row, let me ask you this, if you couldn’t eat turkey sandwiches for another year, wouldn’t you try to get as much turkey as possible? That’s what I thought. He also bought me a Snickers because he loves me so.

However, when he was gone, I flipped on the news and found out about Typhoon #13. Typhoon #13 rampaged through Kyushu (southern island) and was really beastly. Trains were toppled over (only one, but still!), shinkansen lines were shut down (again, only one, but still!), some people were missing and others found dead, mudslides, sink holes. Havoc was definitely wrought on southern Japan. The problem being, Typhoon #13 was getting ready to blow over Shimane! That’s our prefecture! The news was predicting dire things. It wasn’t looking good for our home. It was looking even worse about getting home with no problems.

But, what can you do? Chris came back and we munched on sandwiches, ate Snickers, played a rousing game of UpWords, and watched the last half of “The Fast and the Furious”. All in all, despite the too much walking, it was a nice way to end the day. We went to bed early-ish to make sure we could get up the next day.

Monday

Again, we get up at 9:00 to make sure we can check out on time. I packed up the night before so we wouldn’t have to do it in a hurry in the morning. So we leave no problem. In Japan, all you have to do to check out is leave your key at the desk and you are done. Since most people just pay with cash when they check in, it’s not a big deal to just check out.

So we head over to the train station to wait for our train at 11:50. We decide to go ahead and eat at a restaurant so we aren’t so hungry on our trip back. We will be on the trains until 4:01 and Okayama has crappy food so we wanted to make sure that we got fed earlier. So we find this restaurant that has these nice plastic models of food and it looks yummy. So we go in.

First, they take forever to seat us. It’s like they panicked as soon as they saw us. We are foreign and they just assume we can’t speak any Japanese. It’s a reasonable thought in Osaka where lots of foreign tourists come and go. However, it was very inconvenient. So then we get sat. No one gives us a menu for about 5 minutes. That sucks. But what sucks worse is a waitress brings the menu and then stands and waits while we choose are meal. This sucks because she kept looking nervous like she was going to have to explain the menu in English, despite our assurances that we could speak Japanese, AND we had to choose from 3 equally crappy breakfasts. See, it was only 10:00 and they were just serving breakfast. They moved the breakfast models out front in an odd spot so we missed it when we came in. We should have just left when we saw the crappy menu, but we tried to stick it out. We choose the ‘Toast meal’ for each of us. The menu mentioned toast, a salad, and what we thought was a fried egg. That sounds yummy enough, right?

So we wait, and of course, being a stupid Japanese restaurant, people were smoking all around us. The restaurant was really gross with the smell of smoke. So we waited for about 5 minutes and they bring us a coke each and a plate. On the plate is the biggest pieces of toast I have ever seen. I mean, bigger than Texas toast and only really toasted on one side (yay for stupid toast ovens). There is also a small crappy looking salad. And a boiled egg still in the shell. So we had to crack the eggs ourselves on a tiny little plate and try not to get eggshell everywhere. It was really dumb. The eggs wouldn’t peel at all. Either than thin membrane would be left and only the outer shell peeled off OR the whole white pulled away with the shell leaving only yolk. Chris gave up on his stupid egg. I persevered and ate my egg. I gave Chris my toast though because it wasn’t very good.

We ended up throwing away most of our ‘breakfast’ because it was such a crappy meal. Good thing it was only $5 per person. That started our day off on a REALLY sour note. It’s unfortunate too because the day only continued to go down hill. We did end up buying some bento (boxed lunches) before we got on the train, so at least we had some sort of a meal.

So we get on the shinkansen, and because it’s really a wonderful train, nothing crappy happened to us while we were traveling. We were just SO READY to get home that I unwisely sighed and said, “At least nothing else can go wrong since we have made it to the trains!” Chris winced and said I jinxed it. But jinxes aren’t real, right?

I don’t know, but remember…there was Typhoon that hit Shimane the day before and was still chilling out in the area Monday morning. Typhoon = lots of rain and wind. Lots of wind = trains being delayed because you don’t want to trains to blow over and derail (and they really do, one got blown right off the tracks in Kyushu on Sunday so everyone was being cautious). Of course, our train was not delayed, but completely cancelled. We were only supposed to have a 10 minute wait for the train and then we had reserve seats for the entire ride home. It was to be grand and easy and fun. But noooo…our train was cancelled. We had to wait an extra hour for the next try and then fight for unreserved seats because the only reservable seats that were left were in the smoking cars. Because the trains were cancelled, our train was super crowded. Gah! Waiting the extra hour for the train just sucked, too. We were already so upset from breakfast and the whole crappy weekend that this was just the icing on the cake. The train also took longer than normal because it had to move slowly through some areas and it stopped in many extra stations to let off the extra people. I think we got home around 5:30. And before you roll your eyes, after so much waiting, that hour and a half was a big different; we had been waiting since 10:00 to get home! I was so TIRED by the time we got home. Just weary I guess.

I just wanted to cry. I was expecting such a lovely weekend and it was such a crappy trip. Everything went wrong! Now, every mistake and flub was completely fixable. We did get hotel rooms for the entire weekend (even though we paid about $100 extra for the rooms from what it was originally going to be!). Chris took his test and spanked it. The train was cancelled but there was one that came an hour later AND our seats were (obviously) comped. I did get to see the floating gardens. I got to see the castle. It wasn’t a disaster. It was just a crappy trip. And I’m sorry I have done nothing but complain about it, but it was really bad. I don’t even want to pretend it was a good trip. I did have some good times with Chris and seeing things, but overall, I give it a big thumbs down (but not two thumbs down, just one, but it’s a biggen’).

After we got home, we did go out to the Okonomiyaki place. Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki is my favorite Japanese food. It was really good and the owner likes us so he gave us free juice with the Okonomiyaki. Also, we got to see a tiny Japanese boy (he was 2 or 3 years old) run head first into a wall, twice. It sounds horrible, but it was REALLY funny. He was just really excited and/or bored. How can that NOT make your day? I hope you had a better weekend.

Happy belated birthday, Mom!

Tape thing Clarification

A. You cannot pick your own prize! Puzzles are very expensive here. Way more expensive than in America. Shipping is also about 50% more expensive from Japan as well. SO, I will pick the prize and just know now, that its not going to be something supercool, awesome, and expensive. It's just going to be something cute and nice from Japan. Maybe about $5 or something. And know that the little token for just sending me a tape is goign to be very small, but again, Japanese. Picking your own prize. You crazy women. Tapes are like $3 over there, less if you make your own.

B. The tapes can be whatever. I originally meant a tape with various songs you copied from CDs or the radio, but tapes you buy from the store are fine too. Dont do the mixing songs together. Thats just silly. Just whatever you want without really hiphop stuff.

Ok, thats that. I am going to Osaka now. I will update again about Tuesday my time. HAve a great weekend!

PS: Thanks for the information about the parade Grandma! You should take pictures of Mom and David in the buggy. That would be really cute!

What the crap!?

Wow, Im seriously annoyed right now. I posted a long update this morning and it disappeared. Like completely disapeared. It's just gone. Thats really upsetting to me. Im going to sum it up though.

Class last night:
It went well. It started rocky but ended on a good note. I think my girls will be two students. A funny note: Their names are Yurika and Yurina. Hard to keep straight!

Driving:
Scary but I did it. I wont have problems with it because Im getting a smaller car. 30 minutes each way. Not long, not short.

Mix-tape deal:
If you send me a mixed tape of songs that I might like, you like, or are just popular (excluding Hiphop), I will send you a small gift from Japan. The car I will be using only has a cassette player but I have no way to make tapes and no place to buy them. So I would love if I could get some sent to me. The person who sends the best will get a cool prize (but everyone gets something!). Make sure its a cassette tape and not a CD. Please send to:
Susan Willis
Shimane-ken, Izumo-shi
Enya Zenko-Cho 14-1
Fureai no Sato 501
Japan

Thats my address. You can just drop me a letter too. I dont ever get mail, so it might be nice...*hint*. Also, make sure you include your address so I can send you your gift.

Ok, thats that. Sorry it got deleted but I am way too crabby to make a good entry now. Stupid blog...

Bleh...

Children's Drink? It just taste like weak beer. I didn't like it. Chris says is doesn't taste like beer and finds it tasty. So who knows. I feel If Im going to drink it, I might as well just have a real beer. Sadly, I want neither. Well...not SADLY...but whatever. I will just have a COKE PLEASE.

On much more exciting news, it begins! I have my first English School class tonight. This is wonderful! I only have one class so far, but whatever. That's more dollars. We are also going to set up a planning schedule. So I will go in a few hours a week and make lesson plans and that sort of thing. Happiness! My first clas is tonight from 7:00-8:00 pm and with 5th graders. They are just a year below my Super English kids so I am pretty sure I am comfortable with their level. I have to plan though!

Ok, here is something you aren't going to want to believe. When it comes to lessons...I'm a planner. Not just a planner, but an over planner. I have folders on my computer of every lesson I have done for each class. Every last minute is accounted for, usually with some extra time taken up just in case my stuff happens too fast. These English classes will be the same. James, the owner, my boss, is not like this. He is a 'fly by the seat of this pants' kind of teacher. That just makes me nervous to think of going in without every last minute planned! I don't know how people do it. I would feel like I'm cheating the students if 45 minutes in to the 60 minute class I ran out of ideas. Of course, I have to improvise sometimes, but still. Just makes me nervous!

I also have to drive to Kisuki today. And before anyone can ask, Kisuki is the town where I will be teaching. It's about 30 minutes away from Izumo. I have been there once. James gave me really good directions so I'm not too worried about finding it. I am going to leave stupidly early just to make sure I get there in one piece!

On the car front, James has bought a small company car. Woo! I now have wheels! Of course, its only to Kisuki and back. I can't use it for Nishi (boo!) but that is understandable. But it's nice to not have to worry about the trains. The trains make the 30 minute trip into an hour and a half trip. Definitely no good! Plus the last train leaves at 8:00. So Im happy to have a ride!

Well...that's pretty much all that is happening here. Today is laundry day! I have been a bad housewife and put off doing the laundry for awhile. We leave for Osaka on Friday though so I need to have most everything cleaned! Im really excited about Osaka though. I will TRY to get pictures. I am not a good photographer and I like to just absorb everything around me. Then I forget to take pictures. So I will try. Just be patient and please dont fuss if I only come back with 3 pictures. I try.

Well, I think that's all I have to say today. I hope everyone is having a lovely week! :-)

Awww...

You know, Im really sad the Steve Irwin died. Really. I remember watching him for hours. I loved the Crocodile Hunter. Very said stuff. Anyways, yesterday, Animal Planet (woo, I get Animal Planet in Japan!) was showing a tribute to Steve. Nothing but Crocodile Hunter and family shows all day. I watched a few of them. They just made me sad so Chris usually had me change the channel because it would make me tear up and stuff. Well, last night around 10:00, there wasn't ANYTHING on. We have 60 channels and nothing was on TV. So I flipped on Animal Planet. They were showing the Croc Diaries (which is pretty much just a show about Steve and his family and what they are doing at the time its filmed). This one was about Sui (his dog). Now, his dog is always getting bit or sick or something. So I was expecting this to be a noraml "crap, Sui is sick, so lets get her fixed!" episode.

They took Sui to the vet to get her checked out. Chris said, "You should turn the channel because she's going to have cancer and die. Then you are going to be really sad." I just laughed and commented how I have seen episodes where Sui is sick and they always get her fixed. I wasn't worried. Sui wouldn't have cancer. They wouldn't show the dog die. Chris just shrugged.

10 minutes later, the TV confirmed it. Sui had cancer. THEY SHOWED HER DIE! THEY SHOWED STEVE SPENDING THE NIGHT WITH HER AND SLEEPING WITH HER WHEN SHE DIED. Really, it was so very very sad. I was already depressed because seeing happy shows about Irwin was bittersweet. But then to show him stay up all night with his dog and then WEEP after she died. I cried. I cried hard. I cried for a dog I never met and for Steve Irwin. I guess it's dumb. I didn't know him or anything. But he was such a good person. I am very sad he's gone. Sad for his family too. I will miss him and his wacky animal shows. They were always so much fun...

ANYWAYS, enough of that. Now, to show you my new lovelies! They have some gorgeous puzzles here. Here are three. The first is my birthday puzzle that I have already shown. It's gorgeous to me. It's titled "the Heron Daughter". Pretty pretty!


Isn't she pretty? It's just so graceful looking. I dunno. Im lame. I love puzzles.

This next one doesn't really have a name. Well, the lady has a name but I don't feel like finding it. It's not something you can pronounce anyways. Hahah...just kidding. She's pretty though...


The red was REALLY hard to do. But I enjoyed it mightily.

This puzzle was actually the hardest. I'm not sure why. Well, the blues were hard. It was hard to distinguish the blues of the kimono and the blues of the ocean. I think she's pretty though. She also just has a name. All of there were done by the same artist though. Very pretty. I was thinking about gluing them (all puzzles come with glue in Japan) and hanging them as art. But I can't tell if thats insanely nerdy or tacky or what. They are just so pretty!


You should be jealous. There are more in this series that I want. But like a big girl, I am just going to have to wait to get anymore. One puzzle a month is what we are doing. They are too expensive to do it anymore than that!

These next pictures are of a weird builder set. You get flat pieces that click together and you can make things out of them. I made the bulldozer. It took about 30 minutes to make because I had to sort the colors. It also used most of the pieces. We have a smaller set so we cant build huge things. I though it was nifty.



Chris posed for me and held it so I could take pictures.

Chris made the froggy. Also took the picture. It's really cute though. Well it was, we took it apart. Heh. But nifty. It's an interesting builder type toy. Like legos but flat.



This next thing is a weird drink we found. It's called 'Children's Drink'. We have no idea what it is. We suspect Ginger ale or Root beer. Japanese people call it Ginger Beer which could be anything! Who knows. It's a smaller picture because its from my cellphone.


It has a cute little lable on it. We are going to try some soon. I will let you know how it goes!

So the enkai right?

I didn't take any pictures! Hooray! But the reason I didn't take pictures was because it wasn't at a traditional japanese restaurant with traditional Japanese food. It was just at a "bistro" and it was a buffet. Nothing real interesting going on, but I thought I would give you the run down.

Chris and I showed up to the enkai and were imediately separated. We had to draw letters from a sack and then sit at the table with that letter on it. I got "C" and Chris got "G". So, aparted! At first I was bummed out because I was the only foreignor at my table. Chris got to sit with Hannah and one of the perky guys from the Board of Education. But it turned out, the one guy sitting down already used to be an English teacher and the other man who sat down at my table was the 'oficial translator' of the enkai. Now, don't be fooled by his title that I just made up...he couldn't speak English well. But they were both very gung-ho to try!

The food was pretty good for once. They had yummy roast beef, ok meat loaf, good doria (cheesy rice caserole thingy), weird sandwhiches, and other things. I filled up on doria. I think it was this type of enkai because of all the foreigners or something. So no pictures.

I don't know if you remember, but I have mentioned before about the purpose of an Enkai. The purpose is to get together with your co-workers, let your hair down, and get drunk. Since I don't like the taste of beer, I was drinking ginger ale. Over the dinner, my two table-mates kept asking me why I didn't drink. I cheerfully explained that I didn't like the way beer/alchohol tasted so I just wanted to drink ginger ale. They would just nod like they understood. They were drinking though. Heh.

So anyways, after dinner, it became wander around and talk to people time. You could still eat and they would bring out more food but people were mainly just chatting and stuff. Somehow, it was discovered that I really enjoy learning about Shinto and Japanese mythology. I find it a fascinating religion and a beautiful one. So first, they taught me about Izumo, which is known as "ya (w)o ryozu" which means "the land of 800 gods (Something I learned recently is the ancient Japanese mythology use the number '8' to imply inumerable. So it doesn't mean there are only 800 gods in Izumo, just that there are too many to be counted). Then they chattered about Dustin Kidd and how he visited every principle shrine in Japan. Now this is kinda amusing because no matter who I am talking to, or what I am talking about, Izumo residents ALWAYS somehow ask if I know Dustin. He's a bit of a legend around here. Everyone likes Dustin, the foreigners always just roll their eyes when they get compared to him. Heh.

Someone then remembered that there was another enkai-er who lived at a shrine!! Not only did he live at a shrine, but he was a shinto priest. By this time, I should mention, there were about 5 older men sitting around me, drunk, and intently discussing and teaching me about Shinto and asking questions. The were amusing. So they brought the priest over and we talked a little about his shrine. Now, I have no idea where he lives, what his shrine is for, or what he does when he's not a priest (being a shinto priest is not always a full time job!). They were explaining to me how he has the ability to purify people when they come to his shrine and can perform ceremonies.

Suddenly, people started asking me about my studies in Japanese religion. I had to admit that I had no formal education in Japanese religion but I did study Confucianism in college. Oops. We were having problems communication because no one knew what I meant when I said 'Confuscianism'. So, to solve the problem, they called over a tipsy Mihara-san to translate. Heh. Mihara-san, always the go-to-gal for translation difficulties! She really is very fluent in English, however, when tipsy, she has more difficulties. She wasn't drunk, just on her way to becoming drunk. Anyways, she perked up and ran to find a dictionary. They decided that the priest wasn't a priest, but he was a Japanese Pastor. Now this was really funny because Japanese people pronounce 'pasta' and pastor' the same way. There was also pasta sitting on the table. So when Mihara-san came back to say 'Confuscianism' in Japanese, she heard them say 'pastaa'. So she giggled and pointed to the pasta on the table. Well, everyone got a huge kick out of the pasta/pastor confusion. So someone said that it was priest. Then someone else giggled and said "pleased!" because it sound the same. Oh lordy. I promise, it was really funny but it was a 'you had to be there' sort of funny I think.

It was something I never thought I would experience. 5 men, all old enough to be my father, sitting around my table, while drunk, and me the center of attention. Surreal, one my call it. But it was a good time. The best part I guess, is that 2 or 3 of the men were my boss in some aspect or another. One was the head supervisor, one was the section chief, and one oversees Saturday English. That's what enkais are for though, getting drunk with your boss and having fun. When its not enkai time, it's like the partying and friendships never happened. It's so strange.

Anyways, after that I decided to go sit with Chris for awhile. Just to take a breather. I sat with him for about thirty minutes and talked to him and Junya (sounds like your saying 'junior' is how I remember his name!). Junya is a really nice guy. He's younger and one might call him portly. He's very funny though. Always cracking jokes, even when not drunk. We actually saw him at the beach last weekend. He was playing soccer with some friends. Or something. I dunno. While sitting with Chris, they brought out this fancy meat thing. I ate it and it tasted like...pot roast! It really did! It was so good. I might have had a second piece (Chris didn't eat his so I wouldn't have felt bad), but I was so full. It was really fancy looking though. All arranged nicely on the platter whith sauce poured over. I did drop my last bite in chris's watermelon juice and that was kinda disappointing.

About 30 minutes after I sat down, I decided to go back to my table with my 'ojiisan' (means old man or grandpa, thats what they called themselves). When I sat down, my ginger ale had been moved. In it's place was a glass of beer. They decided to play a joke on me. They tried to convince me that it was ginger ale and not beer. Heh. They were holding back giggles and staring at me like you do when waiting for someone to fall for a prank. I called them on it though. Beer is yellow. Ginger ale is almost clear (looks like champange really). However, I shurgged and said 'kampai!' (Japanese for 'cheers!') and took a sip. I made a horrible face, because beer is not tasty and they all laughed hysterically. After that, someone brought me a ginger ale.

Then the questions started. Now, this is the first time I have been questioned about my marriage by men, so it went in an odd (and telling) direction. At first they asked when I was going to get married to Chris. I laughed and said I was already married and my 1 year aniversary would be in October. After I round of applause and congratulations (I kid you not), they spotted chris getting something to drink and waved him over. They then congratulated him on his aniversary. After that they started asking about being married. Where did you get married? ("Oh, Izumo...yaaaaay! Kampai!") When are you having a ceremony? Susie, are you going to be mama? *sound of a record scratching* Er...mama? So I turn pink and explain that we want to wait until after we move home and Chris goes to grad school to have a kid.

And then the question I never expected came out. "You don't want a baby? So...why did you marry him?" Uh...excuse me? That was completely bizarre and unexpected. And all the men around the table were curious and wanted to know. So I laughingly (and even more pinkly) explained that I loved Chris. They just blinked at me. So I said that he was a good man. Still staring. "He's hot?" That brought them out into a burst of laughter and congratulating Chris in that 'aww man, you DAWG!' way. Heh. So weird. Then they asked Chris what my best feature was (embarassing!) and he said just went "uhhhh" and eventually they settled on everything (yay, Im awesome!). They were like, "so you love him?" And when I nodded they simply said "ah, of course...wow...I am so jealous."

It was kind of a telling conversation though. I'm not kidding when I say that you get married in Japan to have babies. That's it. If you want to smooch someone, or date someone, or whatever...you just do it. You only get married to start a family. And when I say that I don't want to start a family yet (come on, we can't afford a kid, it's so expensive!) everyone is really confused about why. Why I don't want kids. Why I got married. It's a very strange mindset to me.

After that conversation, Chris took off to his table and the Enkai wound down. They anounced that the first party was over and they would be doing a SECOND PARTY! Woo! They decided to go to Karaoke. Chris and I decided to call it a night though. Anyways, another interesting Enkai fact is they are often tiered. They will have the first party which is dinner. Then they will go to the second party (and they call it a second party). Sometimes there is even a third party (and so on and so forth) but apparently there was only one last night. They did go karaoke-ing and they actually went to the Karaoke parlor attached to our building. How fun! Like I said, we didn't go and just stayed in and watched a movie.

So that was the enkai. I hope this wasn't a terribly boring entry. I had a lot of fun last night. It was really interesting talking to the ojiisans and seeing everyone so relaxed. Plus the food was really good. That's always helpful!

Sometimes my life is so strange

Really. It's bizarre sometimes. Today, I went to Enya Elementary for Super English. I decided to do a lesson on prepositions since that was the last lesson that their previous teacher did. So I decided, instead of using flashcards, I would use a ball and a box. I would put a ball in, on, next to, etc. a box. To do this, I had to bring a ball and an extra box. Unfortunately, the only box I really had was a really big box. And even more annoying, I had to do it via bicycle. So Im sure you can imagine, here I am on a shiny grey bicycle, holding a big ol' box in/on the basket biking through some rice fields. It was amusing me because I am very wobbly when I only use one hand to bike so I was swerving quite a bit.

That wasn't the very strange part. Though. Im getting there!

Anyways, class went well. Once I showed the students to correct syntax for saying "The ball is in the box" (it's backwards in Japanese), the picked up on what I wanted. It was a short class and boring, but I promised them that we would play a fun game next week. Im not sure how fun it will be, but Im sure they will enjoy it. Hope so! They seemed pumped about the game.

Anyways, after class is when bizarro world started. I had to walk down two flights of stairs and make it out of the school whilst carrying a huge box with the word "BOX" written on it in big letters (I wanted to students to know what a box was and not worry about the vocab for 'ball' or 'box'). Ok, so the box wasn't HUGE, but it was an armful. Anyways, it seemed as if everyone and their mothers were there! And they all decided to politely thank me for coming. "Gochisosama deshita!" "Otsukaresama deshita!" The first meaning "Thanks for taking car of me/us", The second meaning...well...it's hard to explain in english. Its like "You worked hard, thank you!" All very polite stuff, however I have no idea of the apropriate response. I usually just agree or say thank you. This is uncommon but they were all staring curiously at the box. Plus, there were soooo many people. Even weirder is the people who "harro!" me. Kids normally do and I encourage it. But its always weird when the adults do it. Just biazarre!

Anyways, thats still not the weirdest part. I headed back home (a short 5-10 minute bike ride) and I was almost home and I saw this old guy. We shall call him, "Ojiisan". So I have seen Ojiisan somewhere before. I recognized him instantly. However, I was waiting to cross the street and he was across the street. He saw me (all sweaty and hanging onto my box). He went, "oh! Konnichiwa!!" Then he said something I didn't understand. So I was waiting to cross the street and he just stood there...waiting for me to get across the street...just staring at me. *sigh*

So finally the traffic lets me across and I get to where he's standing. He stops me and asks me if I am taking my box to recycling. I just smile and shake me head. I try to explain about how I was using it for English class. I show him an example. I don't think he got it, but it did bring a few others out and they decided to discuss why I had the box and why I didn't want to throw it away. I just grinned, bowed, and said excuse me and left them in discussion. Really, it was just strange. Not in a bad way...it was just an odd encounter. And I still can't remember where I know him from! That's what's driving me crazy I think!

On a completely different note, Im spying on you people! I know 6 different people have viewed my blog since the last time I updated and two of you have come twice (or one person came three times). Woo! So I can seeeee you in a super secret way. Woo! Heh. But shhh...it's a secret! Anyways, tonight is the first Enkai of the new semester. The new JETs first enkai. It should be fun. I will try to remember to tell you guys about it. I will bring my camera though. Lets see what kind of picture we can get!

Well crap...

Tuesday night, Chris and I were using his computer to watch 'The West Wing". Everything was fine and dandy. On Wednesday morning, I moved his computer from the kotatsu table to the crap chair (remember, the chair that no one uses that we just pile crap on?). Then, Wednesday night (last night), Chris turned on his computer...and nothing happened. The little processor light flickered dimly but then stopped. It's dead. This is very bad news. Very bad. So keep your fingers crossed for us. We are hoping that we can revive it or find someone who can fix it here. The good news is that it's under warranty still AND the warranty is valid over seas. The bad news is that we have NO IDEA where we should take the stupid thing. It's possible that it's dead for good. I really really hope that's not going to happen. If it does, I just PRAY that we can salvage the hard drive. Chris has hundreds of dollars of eBooks on his computer, plus all his papers and stuff from college (which he needs to submit for Grad school). So boo for that. Just keep your fingers crossed for our computer situation. We really don't need to be spending another $1000 on a new computer. >:-(

The stupid thing is that we always figured it would be MY computer that pooped out first. Oh well.

In better news, classes went well today. My first graders (highschool sophmores) did well with their oral reports. Only one student was completely unprepared. He did very well with improvising though (well, at least after I reminded him of the format). And then, we played an easy game and the kids had fun with it. My 6th graders (elementary students) were also very good for me. We were decorating nametags and just chatting today. It was veyr fun, even though they made fun of me for pronouncing their names badly. Oh well. It was still fun and cheered me up.

I was kinda down because of the whole computer fiasco, but that helped perk me up. Little munchkins. Unfortunately, I found out that until the end of the month, my 15 minute class are going to be reduced to 10 minute practice because of sport's day crap. Boo.

And now, for some completely random Japan pictures with no explanations unless you beg!

I've moved my blog!

I like this site better than the previous one. It just looks nicer than the old one. The old one is still around and will remain unchanged. However, because I love you guys...I moved every entry over from livejournal to this one. It actually took me a few hours. So appreciate it! Heh.

I hope you like this blog. I definitely like it better.

So anyways, yesterday was a bit of a bust because of school but it did end on a good note with my 6th graders. So I can't complain. Today is my day off though. Ive been doing laundry and that's about it. I do have to prepare for classes tomorrow (I have to alter them a little) but it shouldn't take TOO much work.

I had to go to Juntendo today to pick up some supplies (a hole punch and card stock). On my way, I noticed a flower cart. This is the picture of it.

It's supposed to say 'flower basket'. It's Engrish at its finest. Heh. Cute. It certainly made me smile!

On another dumb note. I just exploded a soda all over my legs and floor. I froze it for a liiiittle too long. Oops.

Anyways, this is my new blog. I hope I can fix it to look even better. But this is it now. :-) If you have trouble viewing it or accessing it, email me and let me know! Also, anyone can comment to my blog. You have to do a weird verify you aren't a spammer, but that is just so I don't get stupid spam in my blog!

Boo! FEature is not what I thought. Nevermindthis last part!

September 5th, 2006

So today was the first day of classes for West Izumo High. Well, no, that's not true. It was MY first class back, but I think they started last week. Anyways, I felt I was doing good and I planned this entire week's classes last week (all three of them!). Today, we were learning how to answer the question, "How was your summer?" My first graders (which are equal to american high school sophmores) were very good. They were interested and picked up on what I was trying to get them to do. The target dialogue was:

Me: How was your summer?
Student: It was good.
Me: Oh, really. Why?
Students: I went to Osaka with my family in July and we went to the shopping at the Hep 5 mall.

Thats all I was looking for. They are going to be giving me oral reports on Thursday for a grade. So we discussed and they caught on quickly. By the end of the class they were writing down their reports. It was a very satisfying class.

However...my third graders (seniors) were terrible. I couldn't even get them to tell me how the weather was! My elementary students have no problem with answering the simple question, "How is the weather?" These kids couldnt. They couldn't remember what WIND was! Gah! They were just horrible. I have no doubt that there will be several students who fail their test next week. Maybe it will cause them to pay more attention from now on! Boo! I hate my third grade class. I always leave angry and beyond frustrated. Ruins my day.

So anyways, that was my plan for today. Maybe I would do some laundry or take a nap. Last night...my plans changed instantly! I recieved a phone call from Enya (remember, thats my elementary school). Surprise! Super English starts today! Eep! I had to do an emergency lesson plan. Of course, its a simple class. All I had to do was plan for my self-introduction. I start a new class today. It was just a rude surprise. I didn't think that Super English was supposed to start until the end of the month! It's not bad. In fact, its good that we start soonish. More money is to be made that way!

So anyways, thats my day! We didn't do much this weekend. Chris took me to the beach on Saturday and Sunday we just relaxed in preperation for the upcoming week. So thats that. I hope everyone had a lovely day off. Happy Labor day!

Edit: So I went to Super English. Class went extremely well. The kids are excited that Im their teacher. It's nice to be appreciated. It was fun. I made the kids work, but they did it! Such bright kids. Thursday we shall make name tags! Im looking forward to next week though, when I can start. These munchkins are going to learn the alphabet! Know why? *glees* They were already trying to read today! They are smooshing their minds around hard english words like "favourite". Im so excited! No one has done letters with them (well, they know romaji) so this shall be good! I'm feeling much more positive.

September 1st, 2006

It's my one year aniversary! One year ago today, I landed in Narita Airport and made my way to Chris. It was a long and nerve wracking trip (travelling alone is no fun!). After 22 hours of travelling, I was in the sweaty arms of my sweetheart. You see, it was also our two year aniversary from when we started dating. I thought it was a fitting time for us to reunite! Awwww! Anyways, its a year later (and apparently our three year 'dating aniversary' as well) and we are living it up in Japan. The first year was good, we had a few rough patches (homesickness, culture shock, gaining weight, cutting fingers, getting sick and incurable rashes, etc.) but we made it through our first year. This second year is looking to be much better than the first one!

So things are picking up. Chris went back to school today, finally. No more BOE for him (except one a week on mondays). I am going to go back to teaching High school on next Tuesday (which I have already planned for the whole week next week! Woo!). The English School is starting to pick up. We now have 2 students! Yay! Thats still hardly any money for me right now (and NO money for James), but Im sure it will pick up soon. Im still not sure when my elementary classes start yet, but I will find out soon I think. Wee! So we are about to go back into routine which is cool.

Turns out, no second car! How sad! Eric is getting the car I was looking at though, so I may try to snag a picture of it so I can show you what it looks like, since I talked it up so much. James (the owner of the English school), is going to look for a company car. Yay! That means we don't have to spend the dollars on a second one. It would have been a lot of dollars...

Also, Osaka is in our future! We will be going to Osaka on September 15th and stay through the 18th (its a long weekend). Chris is going to take the GRE and I am going to go siteseeing! Yay! Im a nerd! I love seeing historical sites. Yay! We already have our hotel reservations and stuff. It seems like its going to be a really fun time. I like Osaka and we haven't had the chance to explore Osaka the other times that we went. Hoorah!

So thats that. I just wanted to mention the aniversary day. October 7th is the BIG aniversary though...so expect many happy postings on that day. Yay!