Takasaka Zoo

There's a little dry cleaning place that's right behind our apartment. That's where we met Ringo. She is a 17 year old junior in high school and wants to learn English. She works in the dry cleaning shop and was so excited to speak English with us whenever we went in until finally she asked if we could exchange letters, which turned into us helping her study for tests, to going out to dinner together with her and her family and finally going to the zoo. She is such a sweet girl and it has been so much fun getting to know her and her family since last spring!

Last weekend we finally made it to the zoo that is near our house. It's not a big zoo but I was surprised how nice it was and how many different kinds of animals it had. It was a really fun day!

From left to right is Ringo's mom Yayoi, her little brother Hinata, Ringo, and of course us. 

Brad and Hinata with a giant capiburra that Hinata liked. Hinata was a little shy since he doesn't know any English but it was still fun to talk a little bit. (Side note: we didn't see any capiburra but apparently they will be arriving in November once their hot spring enclosure is ready. Lucky animals!)

This little calf was only a week old. So cute!

This is a red panda which is the big attraction for the park. There were twin red panda's that were born in June which were so cute! 

Weird, big scraggly bird. It's the white Big Bird! 

Pretty fall colors!

Three toed sloth. They had this enclosure where you were basically on a bridge walking through their environment--no barriers whatsoever. You could almost reach out and touch the guy!

This little guy was my favorite. He was just taking a nap on a tree in the open enclosure. You can see with the picture of Brad that there were no barriers in the enclosure, but we still couldn't touch them. :( They look so cute and cuddly!

There were tons of kangaroos! And again, there was no barrier between us and the kangaroos...

This isn't a good picture but see how close you can get? Crazy!

Some turtles having fun...haha

These little pigs were in the petting zoo area. They were so cute! They had little numbers painted on top of them so you could tell them apart. 

Giraffes! They had at least 3 of them, and a couple zebras too.

So that was our day at the zoo. I'll try and post all of our pictures on Picasa soon, but for now enjoy!

And... HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I think Brad and I will go to the Hard Rock Cafe this weekend for their turkey dinner. Unfortunately turkey is pretty hard to come by here, but hopefully this will hit the spot. We will definitely be missing all the amazing home cooked meals and family this week!

Design Festa Art Show

We went to this huge art show called Design Festa a couple weeks ago held in Tokyo Big Site. Design Fest is put on twice a year by an organization that has a full time art showcase warehouse in Harajuku. We've been to the original building but it was cool to see the good and not so good art all in one place. This building is huge! When we left the art show it was really dark out so I couldn't get a good picture of it but I searched online and found this one. So if the Olympics are held in Tokyo in 2016, this is where some of the events will take place.

Tokyo Big Site (I did not take this picture.)

Like I said before this was a huge art show that showcased artists from all over Japan. They had paintings, sculptures, clothes, crafts etc. etc. so it took a long time to go through all the aisles of artists. Brad and I bought a few copies of paintings and some cards that will be fun to have up in our place some day. 

This is what it looked like inside.

Brad liked this one.

I thought this one was kind of pretty. Some of the art was really out there and not quite to my liking (i.e. a lot of it was more modern looking or was manga (comic book) style illustrations. 

A lot of artists painted huge murals over the course of the weekend. It was fun to see them paint!

I thought this one was really neat. She looked almost alive!

This one was my favorite from the whole day. It had so much detail in it! I'm not sure how they made it but it looked like the whole thing was done with a fine tipped sharpie. 

Anyway, we did a lot of walking and it was a fun day! Although I'm still working on appreciating some styles of art (maybe I'm just not creative enough to "get it") but it was a fun experience!

Japan Three Day March

Higashimatsuyama is home to the biggest march in Japan. I couldn't find anything confirming this online but one of my teachers said that between 50,000-60,000 people participate every year. And this is in our own backyard! School was closed and all students and teachers as well as people who traveled from all over the world and Japan to participate walked anywhere from 1-3 days and 5-50km per day.

It was a neat experience seeing our little town get all dressed up for the event. The march started on Friday so school was canceled so we could all walk. I ended up walking with one of my English teachers and a couple other teachers from my school. They asked me a while ago how far I wanted to walk and I told them probably only 10km. My English teacher said that's all he wanted to do too but then started talking about how funny it would be to do the 20km route and have a car waiting halfway to take us back to the start. I totally thought he was kidding until we did just that. No joke! I don't even know why it was a big deal because the race is kind of based on an honor system. They give you a piece of paper and you get a sticker at the start, the midway point and the finish. There are no prizes for 1st and 2nd place etc. I guess what I'm saying is it was a very laid back event in that it really was centered on walking. It was not to benefit any event or organization (although it is an official event for some international walking association, but whatever...) And I'm really not sure why we couldn't just walk the 10km route but I had no idea how the whole thing worked and really, I'm just along for the ride.

So we stopped and got some lunch on the way home. And once I got back to the start I walked around because they had a lot of tents with food and goodies to buy but I got hounded by some 7th grade girls from another school that had an assignment to speak to a foreigner in English so I spent about 20 minutes answering questions and signing my name and taking pictures. I guess the word got around (and I was one of few foreigners that were present at the moment) because I ended up having to leave soon after that if only so I didn't have to answer the question "when's your birthday?" one more time. lol!

It was a very nice day and it was fun to see my students and teachers outside of school for sometime. I didn't take too many pictures but here's a couple:

I think it's funny that the name is actually in English （スリー　ダイ　マルチー or surii dai marchee) instead of Japanese but it's supposed to be a big international event so it makes sense. 

These are the flags representing the different prefectures of Japan. 

Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! This year for Halloween I made our costumes--that's right I can sew! (Kind of--thanks Mom for hemming my pants when you were here! :) )  We went to a Halloween party at a bar in Koenji (near where Chris lives) and then did a little karaoke with some of his students after. It was a fun night! I don't have too many pictures though...

I hope you find this as funny as we did... :)

Chris is missing his headband but he's dressed as the owner of this fruit stand that is well known in his city. Apparently the guy is pretty loud...kind of like Chris. :) 

We hope you all had a great Halloween too. I can't believe it's already November! Our next project is finding a place in Tokyo that serves turkey and pumpkin pie for less than a million dollars. I don't want to miss my favorite holiday! Fun fact: the only place so far that we've been able to find turkey is Disneyland and Subway Sandwiches. 

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!