The Halfway Point

We first landed in Tokyo on February 1st, and besides a week long trip back home, we have now lived in Japan for 7 and a half months. Here are some things that I've learned:

• Always, stand on the left side of the escalator so people can pass on the right. 
• The only words I really need to know are "sumimasen" (excuse me/sorry) and "arigato" (thank you). (Seriously though, my attitude for learning Japanese is terrible...I have no ambition!)
• Never chew gum ( I haven't had a piece in over 6 months) because there are no trash cans here! And even more astonishing--it's way cleaner than any major city I've seen in the U.S.)
• Japanese people work hard and party hard, that's why whenever you go out you will always see someone snoozing on the train or falling off their chair at a restaurant from too many drinks
• I never want to drive a car again. I love taking the train and riding my bike.
• McDonald's is actually good (here)
• Amazon.com is my savior--I've actually been able to read for fun here!
• Earning money is also fun. It's a new, but nice feeling to support yourself for the first time.
• I love how polite and nice people are. I know this will be a culture shock when we get back to the US. 
• Hanging laundry out to dry isn't actually as bad as I thought it was. 
• A futon and a low table aren't that bad either, but I'm still excited to sleep and eat off the ground when we get home.
• I by far have the easiest job at my school. This includes both teachers and students. I can't believe how busy everyone is!

I'm sure there is a lot more that I'm forgetting and some that I've repeated from previous blog posts. 

Brad and I just started teaching again on September 1st after a 40 day summer vacation. The vacation was amazing and we got a chance to do and see so many fun things. However, we also had a lot more time to be lazy...in which we could dwell on things we missed. Which is bad. Really bad.

I had a dream one night of being in my parent's kitchen and being so excited to eat a bowl of cereal and a huge glass of milk. I don't know why that's so exciting to me but it is. I drink milk every day here. Maybe not as much as a I did at home, but every day at lunch we have a carton of milk. When we first got here I didn't think I would be able to drink the milk because it's thicker than what I was used to at home and it smells like eggs (yes, really) but I need to try new things and so now I have milk every day. They also have cereal here, but you only have a choice between a few, rather than a whole aisle. 

These are suggestions for how to eat cereal on the back of the cereal box: eat with tofu, or with soup. Granted they do have yogurt on their too, but never do you see it with just plain milk. 

I had another dream that Brad and I had finally come back to the U.S. but we waited almost 3 days to go to Chipotle. Even in my dream I knew how messed up that was! (For the record, we are planning on stopping at a Chipotle on the way home from the airport.)

For me food is the one thing that I get really homesick for. I know that sounds crazy and I really miss our families and friends, but Skype is a really wonderful thing. The days that are the worst are when we know that we're missing weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions. However, good old home cooked meals and restaurant favorites are hard to come by here. The grocery store near our house doesn't have a great selection of food and since I can't read a lot of the things, its hard to even experiment in trying to make a meal since I have no idea if they even have the sauces/spices that the recipe calls for. Not to mention that we only have 1 pot and 1 pan and our microwave is also our oven. My favorite thing to do is to go to the import store here, and its a really bad day when all Brad and I can think about is the amazing selection of food back home. Things we have been craving, for example: Chipotle, Beau Joe's pizza, good aged cheese, fat free milk, Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi (they only have Coke Zero here), oatmeal, Mexican food in general etc etc. We both really like the food here, but I guess the thing that is great about the U.S. is sheer amount and variety of different kinds of food that are available to us. Here, it is much more uniform. 

Japanese pizza: those would be mini sausages lining the pizza with mayo drizzled on top. It is also common to see corn on pizza. 

Brad and I are having so much fun here, and we've seen and experienced so many great things. Teaching is exciting but tiresome and sometimes very frustrating. But to sum it all up--we wouldn't change what we're doing now for anything, are excited for new experiences, and also looking forward to coming home...but not for another ~6 months. 

Koenji Festival

Chris works in Koenji and invited us to go to this festival (which is the biggest in Tokyo, maybe even Japan) the night before we went to Disney. Koenji is one of the major "suburbs" of Tokyo which means that it's pretty much closer to everything than where we are. This festival was so much fun! I loved the music that the bands played and it was so interesting to see how they danced. You will notice in the videos that they move their arms and legs at the same time, completely different than how you're supposed to walk. I posted everything on Picasa too, but here's a short selection, plus a bonus karaoke video... :)

DisneySea!

For one last summer hurrah Chris, Brad and I went to Tokyo DisneySea. Tokyo has 2 different resorts, Tokyo DisneySea and Tokyo Disneyland that we went to in February. We froze in the rain in February and this time we about melted away. It was so much fun though! This resort is only about 10 years old, so its fairly new. And it's beautiful! There are different themed "ports" around the resort with corresponding rides (it is not an aquarium like I thought at first). There is an American waterfront complete with a huge cruise like ship, a Mediterranean bay, a mermaid area (The Little Mermaid), an Arabian area (Aladdin) etc.

Disney truly is a magical place. When you get inside the park you really feel like you're transported to a different world. I remember going there with my family when I was in 6th grade about 10 years ago and loved it, but Tokyo is the only other time I've been to a Disney park. My favorite ride in Florida was the Hollywood Tower of Terror and I was so excited that they have the same ride at DisneySea.

The Tower of Terror and dead flowers in the lobby of the Tower of Terror

The volcano that is part of the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride--the only one that we didn't get to go on... :(

The Indiana Jones ride. I think it's pretty new because it's based off the most recent movie.

Part of the old town American waterfront. That ship is huge!

This was going into the Little Mermaid area. They had a really cool indoor play park which as proper adults we just had play sardine's in. :)

This is the Mediterranean Bay. It was so pretty! And we actually had some pretty decent Italian food for dinner there too. 

The Leonardo Divinci area

And believe it or not I really didn't take too many pictures. It was so hot, and we were all really just focusing on having fun. Chris has a couple of pictures of the three of us that I need to get from him and as soon as I do I will post it in here. I'll also post everything on Picasa if you want to see everything.

One more thing...after dinner we caught the end of the day pyrotechnics show. I didn't get any of my own video but here are some videos that I found online. It was probably one of the coolest shows that I've ever seen. First Mickey comes out on a boat (this is in the first video, so if you want to hear Mickey talk in Japanese, that's what takes up most of this clip) and then some cool water displays are made. In the second video the volcano erupts and a huge bird comes out of the bay and they start mixing in fire with the water. The third clip is the finale with a mix of all three. If you're going to watch anything, the 2nd and 3rd clips are the most interesting. Keep in mind that the whole park is situated around a bay, and the bay is where this show takes place. It is all completely performed over water. So neat!

Mickey and water performance

Volcano and bird emerging from the water

Grand Finale fireworks