My Parent's Visit

It has now been 9 months since we came to Japan minus the 1 week trip back home in March. That means Brad and I have spent more time in Japan since we've been married than we have in the U.S. Crazy! It also means that it had been 7 months since we've seen family. So of course we were so excited when my parent's decided to come and visit!

My parent's arrived on Brad's 24th birthday so we had 2 things to celebrate! It was so nice to hug my parents after such a long time! We celebrated with goodies brought from home and some yakitori (grilled skewered pork and chicken with miso sauce) from Hibiki and then I made a pseudo ice cream cake out of ice cream sandwiches for Brad.

This was Brad's "cake" that I made out of ice cream sandwiches. Cake and regular size ovens are hard to come by here and these ice cream sandwiches are delicious!

Besides yakitori we were both excited for the gifts brought over from family: most importantly Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, Reese's Pieces, oatmeal, Burts Bees chapstick, P90X, a cute shirt and necklace, and a video game. (****on a side note I'm excited to say that our grocery store is improving and as of last week now has its very own Mexican food shelf! Yay for not having to trek it a ways to get taco makings any more!****)

Since we didn't have that much time to tour Tokyo with my parent's we hit a bunch of sites on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we visited Asakusa, Akihabara, Ginza, and Shibuya. We saw the beautiful temple, tried some new "festival" food, and bought some souvenirs in Asakusa.

The souvenier shops you have to pass through on the way to the temple. 

There was a processional of children all dressed up for some kind of ceremony that paraded through the crowd. 

In Akihabara we tried onigiri (salmon mixed with rice wrapped in seaweed--it's a popular on the go snack item) and takoyaki (fried octopus and batter balls) and saw a lot of  what my parents call "Merry Maids" in Akihabara. :) Akihabara actually has a lot of maid cafe's or cosplay restaurants where women dress up as maids and refer to the customers as "Master" or "Mistress" and serve you food and drink. We have never been to one of these cafe's but women dressed as maids are always standing on the sidewalks advertising their cafe. If you really want to know more you can read about it here. 

I didn't take this picture but just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. 

Next we went to Ginza which is a famous high end shopping district in Tokyo. We looked inside Gucci, but alas nothing was good enough for our tastes. Haha, I'm just kidding!! I think that is the first high end designer shop I've ever been into and I couldn't help but feel like I was in a museum, and that the people shopping there were maybe just a little crazy for spending that kind of money. They did have some cute clothes though... :)

A bride and groom taking pictures in the cross walk in Ginza.

Next we went to Shibuya to relax at Starbucks and watch the busiest intersection in the world. I love doing this because it is so much fun to people watch! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, I let my Dad be the main photographer for the weekend. 

And then we met up with Chris and introduced my parents to the amazingness that is Japanese style karaoke. It was so much fun!!

My Mom and Dad singing a duet. I can't remember what song, but they rocked!

My Dad and Brad singing After Midnight by Eric Clapton together. Love it! 

So that was just Saturday... whew! 

On Sunday we went to Harajuku which is famous for it's shopping and people dressed up in crazy costumes. Brad always gets excited because they have a Doner Kebab stand there which is basically grilled pork and cabbage in pita bread with some sauce on it. So of course we had to show my parents it. Then we went to Meiji Shrine and saw a traditional Japanese wedding, some gigantic spiders, and of course the shrine itself.

I felt bad because there were so many people at the shrine and they were trying to take their wedding pictures in the midst of all of it. Very pretty though!

My Dad has some much better pictures but these spiders are all over the place! I don't know what it is but starting in July they showed up and they've been steadily growing bigger and bigger since then. They always hang upside down from their webs whether it be in the trees, power lines, outside your door etc. Ew! At least I've never seen one inside...

Then we went to Yoyogi Park which Brad and I had never been to before. It's a huge park right in the center of Tokyo and is popular for visiting on the weekends, first dates, seeing cherry blossoms and also seeing the Elvis impersonators. There were about 5 different groups of people out at the park just to dress like Elvis and put on a show. The funny thing about the impersonators was that they definitely put more effort into their costumes than actually dancing like Elvis. It was hilarious!

Watch and enjoy the craziness of the Elvis impersonators. 

I'm just sorry I missed taking a picture of the guy with hair that stood about 2 feet tall. Shoot!

We ended the weekend by getting some sushi at a conveyor belt sushi place in Shinjuku. Whew! We tried to pack in everything that we could and had so much fun playing host and showing my parents what we love about Tokyo!

From Monday to Thursday while Brad and I worked my parents went to visit Hiroshima and Kyoto using their JR passes and riding the shinkansen (bullet train). When they got back on Friday they got a chance to visit my school and meet some of my teachers. Then after a quick trip to Tokyo we had to say good-bye. It was hard to say good-bye but it was so much fun having them here and instead of it being 7 months with out seeing each other, now it will only be 5. We had so much fun with you Mom and Dad! Thanks for coming and visiting us!

Catching Up and Brad's Birthday!

Whew! This past month flew by!

After Octoberfest we went out to celebrate Brad's birthday by going to eat some yummy Frijoles and then stayed at a club all night until we could catch 1st train home. This was the first club that we had been to since coming to Japan and it was a lot of fun to just completely lose track of time and dance! It was funny though because I think there were more foreigners in the club than Japanese people. I'm always curious about where other foreigners are from, what they are doing in Japan etc. but unfortunately there seems to be kind of like an unwritten rule that foreigners don't really talk to each other here. I kind of equate it to the feeling of your freshman year in college. For example, you're walking around on campus and you walk past someone that you went to high school with. You weren't friends with this person in high school and have never really talked before. Should you say hi to them out of recognition? Or because you never talked to them in high school should you just keep walking? I feel kind of the same way walking around in Tokyo because, let's face it, we stick out.  But I guess nobody wants to be stopped every few minutes just to have the same conversation over and over again. But I do love how international Tokyo is! You never really know what language you're going to hear spoken each day. 

Anyway, we had some burritos, did some karaoke, went to a club, and had our only theft of the year--our umbrellas during a typhoon! We left our umbrellas where everybody else had left them at the club (in the umbrella rack where they want you to put them so you don't drip all over the floors inside) and when we came out ALL the umbrellas were gone, there was not one left. Haha! So we were walking though Tokyo in the middle of the night during a typhoon. Oh, I also forgot to mention that I had decided to wear my very cute, yet very uncomfortable black boots out and ended up walking through the busiest station in the world in my socks because I literally could not take another step in my very cute boots! :) 

Here's some pictures:

Yum! Honey Toast! On your birthday at the karaoke place that we go to, they give you free honey toast. Well, apparently they were confused when Brad was spelling his name for them so they decided to write it twice just to be sure... lol

When they bring the honey toast they also take your picture. This is a picture of a picture by the way...And that's Chris' very nice friend and coworker Aki in the picture with us. 

And that's about it for pictures that weekend...

Octoberfest

Last weekend Brad and I both attended our first Octoberfest. Japanese people really do have a great love of beer. I expected there to be a whole lot of sake when we got here but to be honest I think Brad and I drank more sake in the US than we have here. The drink of choice is definitely beer. A couple weeks ago they had the Japan Beer Festival (which we didn't go to) and now an all German beer Octoberfest!

That would be 1L of beer...

Notice the cool pretzel necklaces that Chris made for us out of dental floss. Everyone around us thought they were so cool and asked to take pictures with us. They also asked where they could buy them. Also of note--I'm jealous of the grocery store near Chris' house because those were the first pretzels I've had in 8 months. And next...what do you do when you have a beer and a pretzel necklace? You have a competition of course!

The authentic German band.

It's amazing how much more social people are once they have a beer (or 2) in them. Japanese people in general are pretty reserved so even if they are curious about where you are from or what you are doing in Japan, they rarely ask you about it. Not so here, everyone was coming over to ask about us, the pretzel necklaces, and to see if we were German and could translate the ditty the band played before doing a tent wide toast. And lucky for us we made friend with a German fellow (sitting behind me) who was able to help us all out. (By the way--the beer that I'm drinking there is probably the best beer I've ever had, but I can't remember what it's called!)

Next up: You can tell this is towards the end of the night.

I just think it's hilarious that we're in Japan singing along with a German band about West Virginia!

Who knew the conga line was a universal thing?


To say the least, this was definitely one of the best nights that we've had here in Japan followed by arguably the very worst morning ever!

A Japanese Mexican Festival

Like I mentioned in the last post, food is definitely the thing we're missing most here (except our grocery store is now finally carrying oatmeal and bratwurst! Just no tortilla chips and salsa...) So when Chris mentioned that there was a Mexican festival going on in Tokyo we had to go! The festival is held in Odaiba which is a man made island off of mainland Tokyo. I had never been before but for Chris and Brad it was a return trip. Odaiba kind of has a similar relationship to Las Vegas in terms of extravagant buildings and attractions, as well as some good shopping.

A replica of the Statue of Liberty with the famous rainbow bridge in the background. (Really colorful huh? I'm not sure why it's named that...)

The Mariachi Band

We were dancing to the music... 

After we ate at the festival we went and walked around the huge mall that was right next to us.

Creepy doll exhibit that was going on at the mall.

Then we headed to a huge Toyota dealership that's also attached to the mall.

Brad taking a reaction time test. The lights blink and you're supposed to push the button before the time runs out.

One thing that we love about living here and definitely will miss is not having a car!! I remember freshmen year I missed driving my car so much because that's the only place that I could sing. But now since we have karaoke, I don't have that problem. :) And it is so nice to not have to worry about insurance, gas, etc. And we don't have to have a DD. The trains are so convenient here and even when you have to be on them for a while the time flies by. Japan also has the cutest little cars! Everything is so much smaller here but there are really very few sedans on the road. There are either minivans (which are actually quite high tech and possibly even bigger than minivans in the US) or they are little hatchback sedan/mini suv type things (think Nissan Cube, Honda Fit, and Toyota Yaris--except there are way more models here than are available in the US). When we went to the Toyota dealership, which is more like an interactive museum/ shop, they had a test track, cars on a ferris wheel type thing ready to be tried out, and all the models of the cars open to sit in/check out, plus some futuristic cars...

Behold--the cars of the future....

I'll post everything on Picasa but it was a really cool place!

Next we saw our first monkey in Tokyo! Japan has monkeys all over the place but we had yet to see one...and we still have yet to see one in the wild. I think we'll need to wait until winter and then go to an onsen (hot springs) where they like to hang out. We have a few videos so if you want to check out the others just go to our youtube page. 

So it was a pretty good day. We got to have some Mexican food, see some cool cars, and see our first monkey in Japan! 

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