March 1st, 2006

Many things have happened since I last updated. All the weirdness from the day (where I thought I offended two people because of language problems) has been cleaned up and ironed out.

We had an exciting Saturday though. Not last Saturday, but the saturday before that (Feb. 18th). It started out really slow. We had gotten curry for lunch and came home and showered and cleaned the curry smell off. I managed to take a really nice a fizzy bath for about an hour. I had just gotten out of the bath and I was combing my hair when Chris decided to have a glass of milk. Of course, I am a terrible housekeeper so all our glasses were dirty. So Chris grabbed a dirty cup and started to clean it. Well, unfortunately our glasses are REALLY thin and break easily (I had already broken three (two just days before) cups). Yeah, you know whats going to happen. Chris stuck his hand in and was a little too vigorous with his scrubbing or something and the glass shattered...which resulted in Chris slicing his right hand pretty badly. There was about 30 seconds of pure panic and yelling. Then I called Lisa. Lisa is our hero. She speaks Japanese at an almost fluent level (she failed the fluency test by 3 points) so she took us to the hospital. She really helped us out. She went in the exam room wtih Chris and helped translate. She didnt stay for the stitching because she has a weak stomache but she was really great. Im gushing arent I? I really like Lisa if you cant tell. ANYWAYS, Chris has had a bum finger for almost two weeks. He went to the doctor's last friday and got his stitches taken out. Chris gave me a funny look when I told him his finger looked like it got attacked by a zipper. IT was icky! Now, its doing pretty good. He's probably got another week of healing time. He still cant really bend his pinky but he is doing more with it. Poor guy. I have pictures of his wounds, but I am going to attach them at the bottom to protect the squeamish. Dont look at them, they are kinda gruesome but I wanted to share anyways! So that was that!

Today was my last Super English class. We have a super english assembly on Monday and Tuesday of next week but then Im really done. Its kinda sad. I will definitely miss my Nagahama class. I will miss my Kandogawa kids a little I think, but not so much. They are still pains in my ass. So thats that. I probably wont do that again because I want a full time job (or at least a job that pays more than $15 a day). So wish me luck!

Last night Chris and I celebrated Shrove's Tuesday with Ang, English Mark, and Irish Mark. It was fun. We made thin pancakes and ate them with lemon juice and sugar. Ang also taught me how to flip pancakes by tossing them. Heh, my pancake was ugly. Chris took a picture of it, but he forgot to email it to me. So you cant see! Just know it was tasty. It was also funny talking with the Marks. They are funny guys. Plus I got to learn all about Shrove's Tuesday which I had never heard of. I think I like it better than Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras. I dont drink and dislike tons of people and I REALLY like pancakes. So Shrove's Tuesday for me!

Now for pictures! The first batch are from Chris's camera phone. I adore the camera phone pictures because I never have to resize them. Plus you can take the most random pictures this way. You will probably see a lot of them from now on. Chris can just email them to me and I can put them on here. How fun!

Camera Phone Pictures





This is the wall menu at Mcdonalds. Thats pretty much what it looks like. We have seen that poster many many times when we go into McDonalds but we never noticed the little blurb in the corner. If you look above the french fries, you will see some japanese writing with a '0' circled. What that says is 'smile'. :) So, just so you know, McDonalds sells smiles for 0 yen. Hee. How cute. We wanted to share.



This is the beautiful and lovely Lisa. I dont remember why she was posing like this, but I think it looks like she's taking a picture with her spy camera in her glasses (think James Bond). Its a cute picture. This was taken hile we were waiting for Chris to go into the exam room to get his hand sewn up. Heh, Lisa is funny.



This is the King Parfait that you can get in the Saty mall. I dont know if you can accurate see the size. Chris titled the camera so it looked upright, it was actually laying on its side. This is a food model, by the way. Its huge! There are slices of cake stuck on the side. If you look at the sandwhiches behind it, you may realize how big it is. Its huge. We have never had one, but they are funny to look at.




Does this look familiar? I almost bought it because I had to have it. Sanrio rereleased its older cartoons like Kimba the White Lion and even better, Unico! I still want a copy, mabye we can go back and buy one later. Its japanese only, no subtitles so thats a hindrance. :) I wanted to share with you guys. I knew you would get a kick out of it!




This is just a bizarre videogame we saw in the used game store...I still have no idea what its about. It just made me and Chris giggle.




This is a nashi pear. They are HUGE here. They are the size of a grapefruit. They are very tasty, like a mixture of a pear and an apple. Chris always peels them for me though, because the skin is really tough and bitter. Isnt Chris a sweetie?!




Do I really need to comment on this? There are fish all over the supermarkets just like this. Always whole fish. Just gross. Always staring at you when you walk by. Ick!




Just a pair of shoes we saw when I went shopping for school shoes. Arent they awful? Japanese style is really really bad! (Is it bad that I kinda like the green pair)?

Digital Camera pictures now!!




This is the puzzle Chris bought me for my birthday. I set up the second Kotatsu and used it as my puzzle table. I have another puzzle, but I havent started it yet. I just really like my birthday puzzle. Its just so elegant. Japanese puzzles are very expensive though. Its common to frame them when you are done. In fact, my puzzle came with glue and a spreader so I could glue it for framing. Spiffy!




This is Izumo taisha. This is a picture from December when Chris's parents were with us. I just never pulled it from my camera to show you guys. The snow was so pretty. It just gave the entire place a very ethereal feel. Ive been reading up on Shinto and shrines so I should be able to talk more about shrines soon. Im hoping that I can convince one of my coworkers to go to Taisha with me and explain everything in deatil. She's really likes the shrine and enjoys teaching me about Japanese gods and goddesses. She's excited that I am so interested, I think she may be willing to go with me. :)




Chris took me to Hinomisaki one day during the New Years break. Here is a view from the cliff that Hinomisaki stands on. It was so windy that it was crazy! The other picture is of Chris trying to hold his scarf on. The wind almost took both our scarves from us and it was relaly hard to stand. The ocean was absolutely gorgeous though. We managed to get there right at sunset, hence the odd color of the sky. It was so pretty, I would like to go back sometime in the summer during the day. But it sure was pretty. I think it snowed on the drive home.



This is the bike parking for the Karaoke place next to our apartment building (next to, attached, whatever). There were so many kids there when I went by this day that I HAD to take a picture for you guys. It was during a school day too. I think the highschoolers got out early that day or something. But there had to be abotu 100 bikes there. You cant see the ones around the corner. Just alot. Sorry its a shoddy picture!



And here is the last picture. Chris, Rusty, and I were invited to an English lunch thing for some graduating middle schoolers. They wanted to know a little about America. So Chris and Rusty drew a map...and then kept adding details. It was hysterical. I think the kids where really confused, but Chris, Rusty, and I had a really great time drawing it. See if you can figure out what everything means! I will try to explain sometime if you dont get it. Its funny though!

Ok, now for the gruesome pictures. Im putting them at the bottom so the squeamish dont have to look at it. It really isnt that pretty. So thats your warning!

Are you sure you want to see?




This is Chris's finger after it was cute. You can see our ruined towel with the blood. Chris bled a lot. The cute doesnt look so bad in this picture because its really blurry (I took it and I suck at pictures). Also, the cut was odd shaped. It was like a "V". The glass went really far into his finger. Really gross.




This is his huge bandage that he got after his stitches. He had two other stab wounds on his hand where the glass hit, but only one was stitch-worthy. Thats a good thing. This is a nice picture, not icky.

This next picture is really ooky.



This is Chris's stitches. The doctor cleaned the actual wound, but he didnt clean the area around the wound. So when Chris changed his bandage, his hand was still covered in dried blood from hours earlier. Thats a big 'ew!'. The poor man got 5 stitches in all. It was a very stressful day. We threw away those glasses and bought thick glasses so they wont break so much. Hopefully we wont have any more accidents.

So thats that. I hope you enjoyed this really loooong entry!