He's alive!

Kumo-san is happily alive and living outside where he can be happy and free. I ended up just leaving him underneath the bowl and James dumped the spider outside yesterday. So I happy ending for everyone involved. :) How pleasant.

In other news, we mailed off our last two boxes today without any problems. The people were nice to us and very helpful. We sent a box that weighed 16 kg (35 pounds) and one that weighed 17 kg (37 pounds) by ship for only 19,000 yen ($190). Awesome. Apparently, we should have just taken back the giant box and broke it up into two boxes and saved like $100 but whatever. The giant box has made it home that. Merely a week to get home. So...I will just have to let go of my upset and get over it. Our stuff made it and we are officially done with shipping things home (I think).

We also found out this week, that the Izumo Board of Education is willing to not just pay for Chris' plane ticket from Narita to Atlanta ($1200!), but also a plane ticket from Izumo to Tokyo's Haneda airport ($250-300). Nice! That's going to make our trip home so much easier. Instead of taking an 8 hour train ride from Izumo, it's just an hour and a half flight and then another hour and a half bus ride to Narita. Cool. This means we don't have to spend the night in Tokyo. Woot!

Let's see, what else? I only have 5 weeks left at Kisuki, which totally rocks. I am ready to be done with that school. I really dislike working in the evenings. It's a drag and annoying. Just 5 lessons left per class. Also, for those keeping score at home...61 days until take off. :) How fun!

Oh! I punched Chris in the face the other night! Isn't that terrible? Ok, it wasn't a hard punch or even fast, but it made him grumpy. You see, he was sleeping really close to the middle of our futons. Usually, he likes to sleep against the wall, but apparently the curtains were blowing out onto his head so his scooted near me. I half woke up to find my elbow was aching (I sleep curled up in a tight-tight ball, so sometimes my joints will ache because they were stiff). Anyways, I decided to stretch out my arm to make it feel better and...well...BONK! I put my fist right into the bridge of Chris' sleeping nose.

Oh dear. So I cracked my eyes open to see if he woke up but he didn't appear awake so I just went back to sleep thinking I got away with it. Apparently, I was wrong. The next day he fussed at me for punching him and then going back to sleep. Oops. At least he can chuckle about it now. And he totally doesn't even have a bruise, so I think it didn't hurt. Heh.

Dangerous!

Well, I think that's all that I have to say today. Have a lovely weekend.!

Oh kumo-san...

Do you ever have one of those days? You know the kind? Extremely motivated and empowered? Like "I am Woman, here me roar" days. Where you know you are cool and hip and just awesome?

Yeah, me neither, but it would be nice, huh? ;-)

Anyways, I am a huge shrieky child today, apparently. And it's all kumo-san's fault. I HATE kumo-san.

Today is going well. It's boring as ususal (Thursdays usually are, I don't know why). It's not a bad day, not a great day, just another day to get through before moving home. I leave for work a little bit early to get a soda on the way over and get here without much incident.

There was some super slow lady in front of me that was driving me CRAZY! She was going 50 kilometers per hour. 50! Thats about 31 miles per hour! Ok, imagine having to drive 30 miles an hour from the Valley on Hightower to Blairsville with NO PASSING LANES. That's annoying. Like...eye explodingly annoying. However, no wrecks or even scares (and I did get to pass her in a passing zone at the end of my trip) so it wasn't that bad. Just a test of my patience.

Then...I get to Kisuki and it all comes apart.

I go to unlock the doors and I see through the glass that Kumo-san is just sitting in the middle of my floor staring at me. *shudder* Waiting for me! He's HUGE, too. Seriously. HYOOOOGE. He has to be the size of a half dollar if not bigger. Ick ick ick.

What do I do? I can't squish him. He's pure evil, but I always feel terribly guilty for squishing anything bigger than a fly. It's just icky and Chris' job. I was thinking I could wait for Mr. Takeda to come and squish me, because...you know...he's a dude and that want the men-folk are for. But that's a bad idea because as soon as Mr. Takeda walks in, he will pass Kumo-san and send him fleeing under furniture. Also, shrieking like a little howler monkey is probably not that good to do in front of a paying student.

So it was up to me to CATCH Kumo-san. Ooooo...terrible idea by the way. I did think smartly though, by turning on my new Linkin Park CD to drown out the screaming.

I arm myself with a styrofoam bowl and sneak up to Kumo-san (who is still sitting in the middle of my floor, as pretty as you please) and toss the bowl at him. Dumb! It's a styrofoam bowl so it of course throws as well as a paper plate. This also scares Kumo-san causing him to JUMP.

Squee! Cue me running in circles screaming because he jumped AT MY FACE (not really, he hopped like a half-inch off the floor...but still). He also scooted forward a couple of inches, no doubt mocking me. Hmph.

So I shuffle around and pick up my stoopid bowl and try again. This time, my idea is to drop the bowl on Kumo-san and hope that I'm so ninja fast that he won't see me coming. Would have worked too...except I approached Kumo-san from the front and he saw me coming. >.<>.<;;

Round 3. Attempt to drop the bowl on him from the back. Hah! Genius! Except...I'm slow. I just startled him again and sent him fleeing AND HOPPING again towards the desk with the computer on it. Grrr...oh of course I shriek again and bounce a little, but no running in circles this time. Take THAT Kumo-san.

Round 4. KO! I quickly drop the little bowl on him before he can really settle. HAH! Gotcha! He's there right now (causing my skin to crawl a bit...guuuuh...blehck). I will just leave him there for James tomorrow. He can dispose of Kumo-san.

Actually, I feel guilty because I think he will die if I leave him trapped in the bowl. I should do the catch him on paper thing and set him outside but that's too scary. As of now, he's still under the bowl, which is under a box of tissues and a shoe. He's not escaping on my watch. Maybe I can take the bowl off and let James know there is a huge spider running around in the classroom that he has to get rid of before I come back. Of course, taking the bowl off means possibly being jumped on by Kumo-san. And that's not going to happen. Decisions, decisions.

Ick. My little girly heart can't take it!

What WILL become of Kumo-san? Tune in later to find out!

kumo = spider in Japanese for those not in the know. San = respectiful title. Kumo-san means Mr. Spider.

Has This Ever Happened to You?

So I was closing out my bank account yesterday. I finally got my tax return deposited in my account so I decided to close out my account since I no longer needed it (Nishi and the Kisuki eikaiwa both pay me in cash). I decided to tackle this one on my own since we already ask so much of Mihara-san. So I went to the counter and said that I wanted to close my account. The lady just smiles and hands me a couple of forms to fill out. I start writing my name in English (but they have a small place to write your name phonetically in Japanese script) and I'm doing great! I mean, I've been writing my name since I was about 5 or so and doing it in Japanese for the past 6 years.

So I'm filling out these forms, pleased with my unrivaled ability to spell my own name in two languages when, out of no where, this old man runs up making an "ooooh!" noise. He then proceeds to watch intently as I write my name (there were a couple of forms and i already did the address stuff). He tries to read my name and then claps with glee when I spell it phonetically. No, I'm not making this up. He tells me I am very excellent at Japanese. Skill-full, that's me! The lady at the window and his wife just smile apologetically, but in the words of Tony Soprano, what are you gonna do?

So after I sit down and wait to be processed, the old guy sits next to me and we chat. He declares that I am highly skilled at Japanese. Weird! Only in Japan...

Anyways, it's weird how different the mindset is in Japan vs America. In America, if you come into the country, you are assumed to speak English no matter your original nationality. It's just expected. And if you don't, you are called stupid and looked down upon. In Japan, if you are foreign, it's assumed that you don't speak Japanese at all. But, if you speak even a little of Japanese, you are considered a genius. It bizarre and kinda sucks that both countries have these attitudes.

note: I'm not saying everyone in America feels that way, but it's a definite overall attitude that the country tends to have.

Anyways, I did get my bank account closed with no problem. On Monday, I took our change bowl in to get counted and put in my account. It was awesome. It turned out to be 4732 yen in change! Awesome, considering that it was mainly 1 and 10 yens. Woot! I had so much change that it kept jamming the counting machine. Woops. It seriously took like 30 minutes for them to count all my change. I almost broke the machine because I had accidentally left 2 nickels, a penny, and a quarter in the jar. Oops.

Let's see...what else? Heh...I seem to be getting everything out of order.

Monday morning was kinda a bust for Nishi. I got up early and biked all the way over there. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed riding in the sun and getting some exercise. I even wore a cap and everything. Unfortunately, when I got there...Rika came up to me looking very, very...abashed. Apparently...my class had been canceled AGAIN but she forgot to let me know. Doh! Oh well...at least it got me out of the house. If it were rainy or windy, I probably would have been upset...but I really wasn't. It was just a nice day.

On Sunday, Chris and I had a nice day. We went to Matsue in the afternoon and I got a new purse of bigness! It's really big! I like it though. I can fit almost everything in it! I can carry my text book and all kinds of things. It also has a smaller bag that I can snap on and off of it with it's own strap. It's really neat.

After we got back from Matsue, Jason came over to play some games and watch American Idol's Idol Gives Back performance show. It was really nice. We had yummy pizza and everything!

So things have been going good. We have two smaller boxes that we will ship off soon and that should be the last of our shipping stuff. The next step becomes organizing things and seeing what we want to sell and want we want to pack. Most of the stuff in our apartment will be sold. I imagine that a lot of things will be given away as well. Like toilet paper or food. I kinda expect Jason to come raid out cabinets, which is fine. I actually hope people want the stuff because we won't need it.

Huzzah! Have a great week! (wow! It's already wednesday! What a quick week)

Ho Hum...

Ok, so maybe Japan isn't all bad. I just had a couple of bad days last week with stupid things happening. But, we are just a little homesick and it's getting even worse since we are so close to leaving. By my last reckoning, it's about 66 days or so until we leave. I dunno...my counting is bad I think. ANYWAYS, it just makes it harder and us long to be home more.

July 26th is the date people. We will once again be living in our mother country. Hooray! I'm not being creepily patriotic...I just miss Wal-mart and Applebees and Red Lobser and soup in a can and frozen dinners and fat-free/low-fat food and people who obey traffic laws and family and speaking English to anyone and everyone and volumizing shampoo and radio and being able to have a meal for less than $5 and doctors who can cure problems and not just treat the symptom so the problem is never solved and cheap movies and candy bars that aren't tea flavored or bean flavored and...and...and...lots of stuff. Do you know they don't really sell vanilla ice cream in tubs? It's annoying!

Anyways...that's that...now I should repeat "Japan isn't all bad." I miss a lot of things, but I am sure there are things that I will miss from Japan. I won't make another list...that gets monotonous. I'm sure I will be whining about it when I get back home. Things that I don't even realize I will miss, I will miss.

So lets tell some happy stories, right?

On friday, the day of the crappy time at the Post Office, Chris, Jason, and I got together to have some ramen at the nearby ramen place (ramen! That's something I will definitely miss). We were going to meet up with some other people and have a monopoly night but we wanted to snag something to eat before we settled in to play monopoly. Anyways, I was ranting to Jason about the bad time at the PO when they served us our food. We were the only people in the restaurant at the time and the lady handed Jason is food and his set. Chris and I had just gotten ramen and nothing else. Well, all of the sudden, the lady hands us an extra full plate of gyoza (Japanese dumplings) and says that they were good and we had extra so they were on the house.

Awww...seriously that was such a nice thing to do. Whenever we go into that store, they are so nice to us. And we've given back to them as well. We go in at least once every two weeks to get ramen and we have introduced many people to the restaurant so we've given them business. But, it's always like they know when we are feeling grumpy and they do something like comp our sodas or give us some free gyoza. Such a nice restaurant. Jason said I should blog about it so people could see that Japan doesn't suck, just sometimes sucky things happen (like anywhere) and there are a lot of cool people and things that happen every day.

Really, I love that little ramen restaurant and mainly because the owners are so nice. I will miss that little store. I feel like I should get them a little gift to give them on our last day we eat there (which will very likely be one of our last days in Japan) because they have always made us feel welcome. Good people!

Yesterday was pretty good, too. Chris and I got up early and met some other ALTs at a big park. The high school ALTs were having a picnic for some of their English club students. It was a lot of fun (if a little rainy!). There were quiz games, three-legged races, playing on a playground, Bilingual Japanese-English Apples to Apples, and tons of snacks. The two hosts, are really great people. They are both from England and the personification of 'genki' (genki is a word that means 'lively, energetic, healthy, etc.' but the conotations carry more, think of little Casey...he's a great example of genki in dog form(actually, all dogs are usually 'genki'). Anyways, great people and they did a great job organizing the picnic.

It did sprinkle a bit, but we found a little covered pavillion to sit under so it was all good. Oh! We even learned how to do "poi" which is a maori dance-type thing where you swing 'poi' around in artful movements. It's hard to explain...google it for a better definition. But it's how you see fire dancers (usually they light the poi on fire and it's gorgeous to see at night!) dance. Of course, we did it sans fire, but it was still really interesting to learn. Sam, the New Zealander is very good at poi and fire dancing so he instructed us in it. Chris did a couple of magic tricks to the squeals and delight of the Japanese girls. Heh. Nothing better in life than making a herd of Japanese girls squeal in delight, fascination, and disbelief. I think Chris loves it.

So, good stuff. The rest of the day was uneventful but still pleasant (even though we couldn't get vanilla ice cream to save make sundays for a tasty dessert treat while watching American Idol).

Oooh...American Idol! How could you guys let Melinda get voted off! She's the best, HANDS DOWN! Nooo! I miss her already and we are 2 and a half weeks behind you guys. I will just have to savor her next perfomances. Shame shame America...for letting this one go. Idol Gives Back is what we are seeing right now. I'm interested to see the big hoopla show tonight. It should be interesting. I already know that twist (no one gets voted off! gasp!) and who gets voted off in the subsequent weeks, but it's still fun to watch. Good times.

Ok...now it's time to find some not-curry lunch. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

28,300 yen

28,100 yen. That's currently $233. However, since 100 yen spends more like 1 dollar than the 80 cents that the exchange rate would have you believe, it feels like $281.

So...$281. That's a lot of scratch. In fact, that's more than my entire paycheck from Nishi that I got today.

However, apparently, that's how much it costs to ship a box that's 22.2 kg to America. Ah, but see...that's how much it costs to send it home via EMS or express mail which will get it home in a week. It's only 11,000 yen ($110) to send it by ship. Less than half. Awesome, right?

Well...it would have been, except for no apparent reasons, you can't send a box bigger than 2 meters in volume on a ship. Why? I have no clue. You would think that they would rather send the bigger boxes by ship instead of airplane. I mean, aren't we always hearing about how much fuel costs for airplanes so they keep trying to reduce weights on all flight? Grrr....

If you haven't guessed, Chris and I went to the PO today expecting to spend $110 on a package to America. Instead, when we get there, this really snippy woman snaps that my box is too heavy to send. I just blink at her. We JUST set it down on a counter, not a scale. There is no way that she knows how heavy it is. But she just keeps telling me it's too heavy. "We can't ship anything over 30 kg!" she keeps barking at me. I frown and snap back that it's only "22.2 kg". She gives me a super skeptical look and checks her computer again.

Then she gets a satisfied look on her face and snaps that it's too big. I have to say, she looked a little pleased to defeat me. She measures our box and it's over the 2 meter limit. So she runs and gets a little form for EMS and says that we have to send it this way. Apparently it's the fastest way to ship things (which sucks since we were all for the slowest way possible). She gives me no other options and doesn't even let me ask about the other types of shipping. By this time, Chris and I just give up and fill out the form. At the moment, we have no idea how much it will cost but assume it's going to be twice as much. We also are trying to send a box of books home (which come in nifty mail bags, this one is extra nifty with buckles and stuff...looks like an army duffel bag) so we just fill out both of the forms.

This takes forever as they fart around in the back room doing who knows what. The rude lady has passed us off to another employee who looked like he hadn't a clue about what's going on. He comes back with a number on a little scrap of paper. Then he says the total "san man yon sen hyaku en" and looks at us expectantly. That's 34100 yen ($341). We were boggled but by this time we've been standing in the hot post office for about 40 minutes and just want to go. Luckily we have just enough (seriously, I had $291 and Chris has another $50 in his wallet so we could afford the ridiculous price.

And you, the biggest suck factor in this whole story is that I think we got ripped off because we are foreign and no one wanted to take the time to talk to us like we were real people. Usually we don't have much problems regarding this, but it was really bad today. The woman was so hostile to me from the very beginning and treating me like I was stupid. Lame! That really really sucks.

Bah! This has not been a good week for living in Japan. Seriously. We are definitely ready to come home, if you can't tell. And we only have one more box to ship (which we will NOT be using the Post Office for). Hopefully there won't be many more annoyances before we leave.

Grumpy!

Sad Susie is Saaaaaaad

I'm so....sad. My soul has been crushed. I don't know how to come back from that.

Let's give a little back story. Every week, I have to work late on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Usually I find something quick to make so when I come home, we can eat quickly an done day a week we have 'find your own food' day. This has become my day to get curry. I really love curry. It's my favorite food here. In fact, I specifically love Coco Ichi Banya Curry House curry. It's just the best food in the world to me. It's definitely not a stretch to say it's one of my favorite things I've eaten.

Anyways, I usually get curry once every week or two (Chris only kinda likes it, so I usually just get take out and he eats something I'm not that into). Last night was an ok day. My class was tough and I had to set a kid into time out. I don't really enjoy my Wednesday night classes because I have such a young class and then I have a one-on-one class with a 11 year old which is also tough.

My one bright spot was that I knew I was going to get curry on my way home. Mmmm! Curry. Chicken Cutlet Curry, 200 grams of rice, level 2 spicy with cheese topping. It's what I always get because it's like perfection. I bebopped home listening to Linkin Park and with a rumbly tummy.

I'm semi-paying attention. I mean, CocoIchi has a huge yellow blinky sign so it's really hard to miss, right? I pass right by it on my way home. So I get into Izumo and suddenly I realize that I've just passed the library which means I've missed the turn into CocoIchi. Hmph. I figured that I was just really into my music. Woo. Linkin Park!

So I shrug and make a big circle to drive by it again. Remember, it's 8:00 by this time so it's really dark (plus, Japan is sparse on the streetlights so it's hard to see). I drive and drive and suddenly I'm at the bridge that takes you out of the city. I feel my heart droop a little. I know what this means. This means the lights weren't on. But maybe it's just closed for the night.

I turned around (again) and drive back this time paying close attention because I know where it is. I get to cocoichi and...it's closed. Not for the night. They have scaffolding up and the signs have been taken down.

Sad Susie is Sad.

No more Coco Ichi. No more favorite restaurant. No more curry. Japan...what have you done to me. You've crossed the line this time. You suck Japan...:-(

Ooo...yay!

Yesterday, guess what happened?! Only, like, the best thing ever!

After FOUR YEARS Linkin Park finally released their 3rd album. Huzzah! (The remix albums, the live albums, etc. don't count). It was a very exciting day for me. I've been waiting on this CD for a long time. Waiting for Linkin Park to get their silly little solo projects out of the way (Fort Minor? Really? More like Fort Whiner!). So hooray for that.

Well, the CD releasing was exciting. It was actually a gigantic pain in the, um, knee. You see, I am in foreign-land where CDs cost about 3 times the America price. Plus, we were releasing a day later in Japan (boo! Linkin Park). However, I use iTunes to download stuff now and I had pre-ordered the CD like a month ago. FYI, don't pre-order anything from iTunes. They haven't got all the bugs worked out. I was never allowed to download the CD. The pre-order never kicked in (well, not soon enough for impatient me). So I had to cancel my pre-order and just buy it instead. It's weird.

So I got the CD! Hooray! Thanks iTunes! But wait...why can't I put it on my own not-iPod mp3 player? Hmmm...why do all the files have little pictures of locks on them? What do you mean it's to protect against pirating music? You mean, the files that I legally bought and downloaded INSTEAD of pirating them (which I easily could have, btw...it's around and free that way) is locked and not mine to do with what I want? (*cough* I don't think that sentence is grammatical, but shh...it's almost artful!)

Stupid iTunes! You have to have an iPod to listen to the music you bought from iTunes on an mp3 player. Apple has their own file type. They save as mpeg4 instead of mp3 and only iPods will play that. LAaaaaammmeee.

Anyways, this sent me into a bit of a rage. I actually already knew this pre-buying my shiny happy new CD...but I forgot. :-( Chris has an iPod, but it's his and not something I want to carry around. I don't have an iPod. I've been boycotting them, actually. I think it's unfair that I have to have an iPod to listen to the music I legally bought and paid for. I should be able to do what I want with it! I refuse to pay too much money for an mp3 player with a happy little Apple logo on it. It's a scam, is what it is! Chris and I actually had tearful words about my stubborn refusal to buy an iPod. But come on, they are over-priced (not the video ones, but the shuffles and mini ones)! I have a perfectly fine $40 mp3 player that I use. I shouldn't have to buy a $150 iPod because apple is afraid that their customers are going to pirate their crap.

Way to go Steve Jobs! You suck! (Mr. Jobs is the Bill Gates of Apple)

Anyways, there IS a way around this. I could burn it onto a CD. Take the CD to Kisuki and make a tape from the stereo there. Also, if I make a CD, I can rip the music from it using Windows Media Player and get it in mp3 form! Hoorah! Expect...Apple really wants me to have a meltdown before I'm done with things. I searched around and bought a cheap blank CD. I popped it in to burn the music I had just bought onto it. Stupid Apple. It decided my CD wasn't formatted so after 30 minutes of trying, it pops out the disc with a message saying "your disc hasn't been calibrated. Would you like Apple to calibrate your blank discs from now on?" AND! And and and! It ended up breaking my cd! It recorded 48 minutes of silence onto the disc. Nice job guys.

By this time, my excitement of finally having the new Linkin Park CD wore off and I was tired and weepy. The CD that iTunes broke was the only blank one in the house and it was too late to get another one since I had to leave for work. I might have cried a little. What crap!

Life is such a trial sometimes. *dramatic sigh*

Well, today I got the CD burned, re-ripped and put onto my mp3 player. So it's all good today. But still...iTunes sucks!! Well...it doesn't if you are downloading TV shows or movies or you actually own an iPod. It's actually a kickin' program and really useful. Especially for people like us who are in a foreign country and can't get stuff here. PLUS, they tend to release TV shows episode by episode so you can keep current with some stuff in America if that's your fancy (Chris and I prefer to wait until the entire season is released).

Anyways, about the CD. It's....well...different. Oddly different. And not just different from the other two CDs, but there's 12 (13?) different songs on the album but like 5 different genre. In some of their interviews, the band said they were looking to do something completely different than the previous stuff and I guess they achieved their goal.

Only 2 songs sound much like their old stuff. 1 song sounds just like something from the Fort Minor album (the rappy guy's solo project) and is so angsty it makes my teeth hurt. There are like 4 love songs. Love songs! Very slow and poppy. There is a chant song that drives Chris nuts because it was obviously written to be a song played at concerts to frenzy fans. And the rest are combinations of all of the above. So...very different stuff going on.

Chris and I agree that a lot of fans will be disappointed. It's kinda poopy to get a CD expecting to hear a certain sound only to find that it's constantly changing. I am fortunate that I tend to like most music, regardless of genre so I think it's a good CD. But I think a lot of other fans are going to be upset since the songs are so inconsistent. Rock fans aren't going to want to hear the rap songs or pop songs. I dunno...I'm interested in what the concerts would be like. Some of these songs are major downers when it comes to tempo, beat, and excitement. Usually at a rock concert you want music that you can jump around to and stuff. Half of this CD is the opposite.

That being said, I'm not disappointed or surprised. They said they wanted a different sound and that they decided not to be 'trapped by genre convention'. I like the CD. I will probably listen to it too much and drive Chris a little nuts with it.

That being said, I do have one major disappointment with the CD. F-bombs! They are dropping the F-bomb all OVER the place. Now, as saintly as I am, I don't actually mind hearing the F-word all that much, especially not in music. But in their previous records, Linkin Park didn't swear. This was so it was accessible for all-ages and they said they didn't need to swear. That it was artificial emphasis or something. Anyways, they use the F-word in a LOT of their songs on this CD and it's disappointing. It's like they are trying to compensate for the lack of swearing on the other two CDs that they felt the need to put it in every song. Bleh. It's artificial and a little bit disappointing.

In other not Linkin Park but still music news, Chris has been practicing the guitar for a few months now. I am impressed at his improvement. I think it's because he studied music for song long that he's easily able to put things together once he's shown the proper techniques. He actually bought a guitar (which he is going to have to sell in a couple of months) and has been practicing a lot. It's kinda funny because he tends to follow me around the apartment while playing his guitar. Makes me feel a little like Brave Sir Robin (think about it, that's a funny joke!).

He's actually learned some bizarre songs. He plays some Backstreet Boys to get a giggle out of me. He has a nifty Johnny Cash-esque version of Gnarl's Barkly's "Crazy". He also has some more normal songs. He does a very good job playing "One", "Hotel California", and "Country Roads". Heh. Actually, he had to learn Country Roads as his first song. Japanese people really like the song. I think it was in a Miyazaki film (Miyazaki being the Walt Disney of Japan). It's all good stuff.

And that's that for music news. I hope you guys are having a lovely week. Happy Hump Day!

As The Days Go By

The days just keep bleeding by and our time keeps shortening in Japan...and that's a good thing. A classmate of ours also did started JET when Chris did so he's been here as long as we have, and he summed it up the best. "Japan is fun, but it isn't that fun." We've had a really great time here, but now we are ready to come back home to cheap food, easier communications, school, full-time jobs, etc. Anyways...

Here's my time line I have right now if you want to keep up with what's going on:

• June 25th: Last Tutoring Session
• June 28th: Susie’s last day at Kisuki
• July 13th: Susie’s last day of classes (tentative)
• July 23rd: Chris stays home to help pack and get ready
• July 24th: Chris’ last day of work
• July 25th: Leave Izumo for Tokyo
• July 26th: Leave Japan, arrive in Atlanta
• August 17th: Move to Bloomington

How fun! It's only 2.5 months left until we go home, so I'm started to get fidgety (which is driving Chris absolutely nuts). This afternoon we are going to fax our lease back to the apartment complex in Bloomington. Woo! So, it's all set and done with apartments and I don't have to worry about that. We have a 22kg box sitting in our 'other room' waiting to be shipped. It's filled with winter clothes, some DVDs, some games, and stuff like that. It's going to be a beast to ship. Something like $110...but it's got to go. We also have a much smaller book box waiting to be shipped as well. What is it waiting on? Well...I've been waiting on my tax refund to send the stuff out (and muscle-man Chris to help carry the 50 lb box).

But enough of that.

Yesterday was Mother's Day! It was Mother's Day in Japan as well. It was kinda amusing to see how it worked. It really seemed like it was more of a "Mom's day off" day rather than a family day. There were lots of kidlets running around with Daddy yesterday. Men don't take care of the kids in Japan. Sunday is the day they spend with their families (they usually work Mon-Sat) and do stuff, but it's always the Moms' responsibility to take care of the kids that they don't bother Dad too much I think. Because it really is his only day off. Or something. But yesterday, there were lots of overwhelmed looking Papas around with their kids. They were evening buying gifts for Mom and having them wrapped (talk about waiting until the last minute!). You really didn't see a lot of women. I can only imagine that they were at the Onsen (Hot Springs) and relaxing. At least I hope so! We went out to eat last night and the restaurants were CROWDED! Dad doesn't cook, so it's the best way for Mom to get a break.

Ah...Mother's Day. I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day.

On Saturday MTV showed the 2006 Video Music Awards so we watched that. And it was very depressing! You wouldn't believe all the music we don't hear over here! They really like Hip-hop so we get a lot of the rap stuff (go away Akon, I hate you and your misogynistic songs!) and we get some pop stuff. Most of the stuff is boring British bands. So watching the VMAs let me see a LOT of songs that I had completely missed from 2006! They seemed like good songs too.

Most American Rock or Alternative music is just not brought over. Big names or soundtracks come, but not much else. It's really weird and disappointing since that's really my favorite genre of music. Beyonce who? She rarely gets played here. Really...she has put out like 4 or 5 songs in the last two years and I haven't heard any of them except the Pink Panther song. Shakira is also a no go. Her Hips Dont Lie or something, but I wouldn't know since we didn't get that song. Weirdly, they play the Beyonce/Shakira duet song a lot though. It's just weird.

Oh...and one more thing. Panic! At the Disco and Fallout Boy. Are they the same band? Different band? Combination band? Insanely similar? I can't figure it out! I can't tell them apart (except Panic! tends to enunciate more that Fallout Boy). It's weird. Seriously, someone should clue me in as to what is going on with these bads. Oh yeah, Fallout Boy is popular here but not Panic! At the Disco. I love that Fallout Boy music video "[This Ain't a Scene] It's an Arms Race". Funny stuff.

Ok, enough of that stuff that no one cares about. I really think that's all that's been going on lately. Oh! My stupid high school class keeps getting canceled! I haven't been since before I got sick. Thursday will be my first day back in like a month. It's really annoying. I like my high school classes. They are having midterms this week! MIDTERMS! I have seen each of my classes twice and they are already having midterms! I am not sure how this happened. It annoys me a bit.

I want to finish this entry on a big hearty congrats! Congrats to Jon and Abby Rogers! Yay! Jon and Abby got married last Saturday. It's a very happy thing. Being married is a lot of fun. I hope they enjoy every minute of it. :)

Ok, that's all for me today. Sorry I'm kinda rambly and not very interesting...but that's what happens when all my classes keep getting canceled!

A Day for Errands

I had a lot of errands today. That's a little unusual I think.

Let's see, first I had to send a whole bunch of money home. I swear, it's way easier in America! First of all, you have to send money via the post office, not banks. I don't think you can send money from banks easily. Also, they only accept cash. You can't get a bank note or something, you have to give them cash. So…sending a bunch of money home, results in yo wandering around with a fat stack of cash in your purse. We sent 500,000 yen home, which meant I had to carry 50 10,000 bills around with me. Yikes! I know Japan is really safe and stuff…but if you lose that…it's gone! Bleh.

Actually sending the money took me over an hour to do. You see…everything has to be PERFECT. It took about 20 minutes for my number to be called, so when I finally got to the window I was already a bit cranky. After that, we jabbered a little bit in Japanese/English combination and I was handed a form to fill out. In Pen. So I filled it out, but I mistakenly didn't do a letter in capital letters so I went back and wrote a capital letter over it. OH NO. That was a mistake. Apparently, they don't accept forms like that. ONE LETTER. Bah. So, after waiting another 10 minutes to get back to the window, the guy just gave me the stink eye and had me fill out the form again. This time stressing that no mistakes can be made. Bah!

So it takes another 10 minutes and I fill out the form slowly and carefully so as to not make a mistake. I get to the "Reason for sending money" box and I think 'ah-hah! Sneaky post office…Chris always has trouble with this one, but I know the secret code that worked last time!' So I write "Savings" in the box and get prepared to define "savings" as "life money" when asked about it. Because that's what Chris had to do last time and everything was fine.

I hand him the form for the second time and he checks it over. He makes a disturbing and confused sound. He sighs and tells me that my reason for sending money is strange. I proudly state "raifu mane" and smile at him. Because it's the magic words. Right? Brzzzt! Not right.

He just blinks at me for a few seconds and tells me that I can't send the money as "Life Money" this time. I frown, furrow my brow a little, and try to look questioningly. He says something that I didn't understand. Then he asks what 'savings' even means. First of all, as Chris reminded me, they have a big sign hanging from the ceiling that says, in huge letters, "SAVINGS" over his little window. I didn't think about it at the time...but come on! So I grab my new electonic dictionary (it's a really good program for the DS with an awesome Japanese/English dictionary that I love to use) and tap out savings and show him. He almost gets a look of comprehension in his eyes and says the word in Japanese. I gleefully agree that's what I want. Then he shakes his head and says we can only do it IF I say it's Savings for Susan, since I was sending it to this Susan person. I was practically hopping up and down in frustration when I half-yelled that I am Susan and it's my savings so it should be fine. He just blinks at me and frowns. I guess whatever I said got through because he let me give him my ID and wait another 15 minutes to give him to 50 10,000 bills I have so he can send it, only to wait another 10 minutes to get that processed and pay for the actual transaction.

Woosh...so stupidly complicated to do anything in Japan. Really. The sad part is that we are going to have to do this at least once more before we leave. And they will be just as confused as they were today because something will change and it will be complicated!

So that was my first errand. This afternoon, I took some old clothes to the Off-House. The Off-House is a used goods store. I wasn't sure they would take my stuff, but they did! I sold 13 pieces of clothing, all nice and in good shape because I refuse to give the crappy stuff (seems rude). I made a whopping 600 yen from it! I guess it's way better than having to pay to throw the stuff out. I found a NICE used Mah Jong set for about $150...so pretty! However, I am not dumb or irresponsible so I found a second used Mah Jong set for $30. I didn't buy it, but I am lusting for it a bit. Probably won't get it since I don't know how to play...but still....pretty!

That errand did take a bit of time since the lady had to go through each piece of clothing and try to figure out whether it was man's clothing or woman's clothing. I think she marked my pants as man clothing (probably because of leg length) which amuses me a little. I mean...some hip young Japanese dude could buy my pants and wear them around thinking he's all cool. Heh. Funny.

After that I really didn't do a whole lot since I had to leave for Kisuki at 4:00. Kisuki was alright today. My first group is my best group and they are progressing nicely. They read the word "phone" today which is pretty significant since I JUST introduce the "ph" reading today and the magic 'e' form last week. Cool. My next class is a little bit of a pain. There are 3 siblings and another girl. We played this really stupid game of Bingo that the littlest one wanted to do and it sucked. There was 8 spaces to the board...two rows of 4. But there were like 40 words! It took 30 minutes. And to make things worse, when someone finally got Bingo, it was 3 people at once. The girl who didn't get Bingo BURST INTO TEARS AND SOBBED. Ugh. That's never pleasant. I just cheated and found the card that gave her bingo. Then I gave everyone a couple of stickers. She was still unhappy, but not crying anymore. I shooed them on their way.

I hate when kids cry. And really, this is probably the first time I have been the sole person in charge when I kid cried which made it my responsibility to get her to stop. Annoying!

Speaking of annoying things. I found out today why I haven't received my tax return yet. *sigh* You see, one of the biggest problems Chris and I have had is names. Problems because Japanese people can't tell what order our names are supposed to go in. Problems because they won't accept that Susie is a form of Susan. Problems because we are married but our last names are different. Problems because no one has a middle name in Japan. Problems because filling out forms require us to fill out our names a certain way but then it doesn't match up with our IDs and we have to redo everything. Problems because every ID seems to have a different format for our names. Problems problems problems!

So, of course, it all comes down to the name thing. Nishi has my name as Susan Willis. My bank account is under Susan Diane Willis. Nishi filled out my tax for their way, so my tax slip says Susan Willis. When the tax people tried to deposit my money into my bank account they found that it said Susan Diane Willis. The Diane threw them. Because they don't have middles names in Japan so they can't really figure it out. Sometimes they want our names and sometimes they don't. But it's random! So it's difficult. And that tax people were upset.

So they called Mihara-san and asked her. She had to verify that I was both Susan Willis and Susan Diane Willis. And thus, they will send my money. Only it's taking forever and I hope it gets here soon! I want to use it to send some heavy heavy boxes home. Boo for the tax people.

Oh well...what can you do? I think Japanese people have troubles when they come to America and have to go through the name thing. Stupid names...why so complicated?

Anyways, so look! I had a busy monday! And in better news, we got all four tires replaced on our car. AND, it didn't cost us a dime because of the way our lease works in Japan. Sweet!

I think tomorrow will be less adventurous, so I think that means laundry and cleaning. Yay! Wish me luck!

mata ne!

Hisashiburi!

Well, the vacation week is winding down. We didn't do a whole lot, but it was still a nice vacation. I did have to work this week, so that was kinda poopy. Chris and I would hang out, but then I would have to disappear for four or so hours. I think Chris would get bored when I was gone.

Let's see...what did we do? I know, lets go from start with the most interesting parts!

On Friday, Chris and I went to Yonago to see Spider-man 3. Ooooo. It was a pretty good movie. Not as good as 1 or 2, but still an excellent comic bookmovie. Way better than Fantastic Four, X-Men 3, Hulk, Ghostrider, etc. It's kinda on par with X-men 1. It's a little too long and some scenes go on way too long. Still, it's a good movie and I feel like I got my $18 dollars worth (stupid Japanese movie ticket prices).

Anyways, heading home is where this story gets really interesting. We were 20 minutes outside of Yonago, just be-bopping along when our car shudders and starts driving really funny. It sounds like we are riding on a piece of highway were they are doing construction and it's really ridgy and makes that loud noise and the car is hard to control. The car behind us was flashing it's light so Chris decides it's probably not the road (which is normal and not constructed on at all) and pulls over.

Smoke curls up over the left-front wheel well. I get out (remember, opposite sides, passenger sits on the left in Japan) and look. Our tire has pretty much exploded. It had three huge holes in the side of the tire. Not the tread, where they normally wear out, but the sides! The holes look like someone slashed our tires. Scary! Even scarier is that we already had a flat tire this week, but it was on a completely different tire (though we got it plugged and didn't have to change it or anything). It kinda implied that our tires were old as Moses and probably set to detonate at any point in time.

Anyways, Chris is the hero of the piece. He calmly get out of the car and looks at our stupid blow-out. He calls Mihara-san but doesn't get an answer, so he does what any good man would do. He rolls up his (metaphorical) sleeves and sets out to change our tire. So manly! I think I almost swooned. It was my job to hold the lug nuts. I'm such a girl. So he changed our tire like the champion he is. I should mention that we were on a highway were people are going around 100 km/h so he was having to do this with cars zipping by (although, the flat wasn't on the side closest to the highway, it was still freaky). Poor dear, his hands got all mucky and his palms are bruised from loosening and tightening the lug nuts. I just pranced around with tissues wrapped around everything so my hands were fine.

So he changed our tire. Yay, and we got back onto the highway. But it's the highway where everyone wants to go fast, but we wanted to go slow. Highways are two lane in Japan, how lame is that? So we quickly got off the road as fast as we could and limped back home. Yay! Now, we are waiting for tomorrow to get the tires changed. I am adamant that all four tires get replaced because the ones we have are old and dangerous. We were very lucky that even though our tire essentially blew out, Chris never lost control of the car and we could safely pull off into the pull-off area and change the tire. I am not riding in that car until the tires are changed! Hmph!

Yesterday, I made my husband his special dinner. We had chili cheese dogs. Hooray! It was very tasty, I might say. I even fried up some french fries for him. That was his tire changing meal.

Also yesterday, we went shopping! Hooray! We bought things that we didn't need but wanted anyway. For Chris, we got him a small magic trick that will BLOW YOUR MIND. I don't know how it works. He won't tell me. For me I got...well...let me show you...






Petite Jenga! It's so small! It comes in a little carrying case that you can clip to your keys (though that seems like a great way to break it or lose pieces). It also comes with a little poking stick! You have to use it to poke out the pieces. It's really hard to play because it's so light you kinda just push the entire tower around. But still, it's cute and was only $5 so what the heck, right? It's a cute gag that I can freak people out with. Jenga on the go!

Also, we got another dexterity game. It's called Tumba. At first glance it seems like a Jenga ripoff, but it's by far a much better game. You stack multicolored bricks by matching colors. I have some pictures. Have a look!







This is several games and shots of Tumba. Chris took all but one picture. I'm sure you can figure out which one that is. Haw. It really is a fun game and I will probably make you guys play with us.

It gets hysterically tense. More so than a really tall tower of Jenga. It just gets so wobbly. Chris and I were suffering from the giggles and having difficult times placing the pieces. You see, you have to place them so the colors match from top to bottom (side to side doesn't matter). So looking for a place and trying to keep physics in mind is a trip. It's even trippier when you balance a block that should not be able to balance according to all laws of man and nature.

Good times, man, good times. Who would think that such a simple game would be so fun.

Also...we got whipped cream! So I'm going to go have some Chocolate Milk and whipped cream so we can play some games!

Seriously, that's about all we have done. We got some ice cream from Baskin Robins. Bought some boxes. Watched a lot of stupid Grey's Anatomy. Cooked meals together. Nothing super interesting. So that's that.

Too bad you guys couldn't have had awesome vacation like us, eh?