Birthday

So we went to Tokyo today to get my birthday present, wander, and go for dinner. We had planned on picking up a bass for me to practice on here even before leaving Canada, but nothing was really available in our initial price range. While looking in Tokyo earlier this week I found a 5-string Ibanez SR305. It was outside of the range, so Laura got it for my bday present (which kicks ass as I had no freakin' clue what I might want. An extra bass string hit the spot just right). Anyway, here's a pic (click for full size).

It may look black but its colour is 'Iron Pewter'. It has flecks in the finish that don't really show in the pic.

We also went for dinner at the Australian Outback steakhouse. It was quite satisfying to eat a steak. It's not very doable outside of a steakhouse seeing as beef is bloody expensive here (pic below-click for full size). It was actually cheaper for the whole meal than just the steak below.

Laura rocks!

Update

'Sup? Things are good here. Got my car this week! Very exciting. I actually really enjoy driving in Japan. I HATED driving at home, but I find driving on the left side very natural. Brian is sure I'm going to kill myself or my car, but I'm confident in my driving ability. I'll post pics of our cars soon. Mine's cute, but weird. It's super tiny, which is awesome cuz roads are super tiny as well.

As I write this, I'm sipping on a peach wine cooler. It's freakin' amazing. They have SO many different coolers here, which seem to be constantly changing. I understand why Japanese peeps are alcoholics, the alcohol is tasty! It's really low alcohol % though, most drinks are only about 4%.

We went to Tokyo earlier this week, which was a blast! The first time you go, it's just exhausting because there's SO much to see. Your eyes never get a break. While we were there, we got cell phones. We had to pay for them up front because we're foreigners, but because we got a plan, they were only 1/2 price. Still though, I didn't expect to have to pay for 2 phones, which kinda sucked. Oh well!

We went to this fantastic store in Tokyo that sells are sorts of gimmicky things including costumes & electronic knick-knacks. I HAVE to get 1 thing, which is a "humping dog" for one's usb drive. Video to come shortly :). People, or I should say women, dress...differently in Tokyo. They go to this one district to strut their outfits, which are often outrageous. Short shorts & miniskirts are apparently all the rage, but cleavage is not so popular.

We're really stoked cuz we have some visitors booked to come see us. My parents are coming end of October, which we have off (for about a week me thinks). We're going to go to Disneyland, Tokyo, probably Kyoto. Don't know where else yet. And Shay's coming to visit us in the spring-yay! Hopefully we'll have some time off when she comes, but won't know for about another month. We will probably have two more special guests making an appearance in early December, but I don't know if they've booked their tickets yet.

It's starting to get chilly here. I don't know if it's actually getting chilly, or if I've just grown so accustomed to 30 degree weather that I think 18 degrees is cold. It's still humid though. It's weird, you can't really "drip dry" dishes here. And laundry takes 2x as long to dry (no driers here, everything is hung to dry).

We have our net now hooked up, it's supposed to be super fast. But what the hell do I know about the internet/computers/modems? Anyways, we have a Skype account, so feel free to msg me if you ever want to webcam or microphone it up. We have cells now too, which don't cost us anything when we're called, so let me know if you want our numbers!

We're going to Tokyo again tomorrow. It was Bri's birthday yesterday so we're going in to get his birthday present. Hopefully all goes well!

Take care!

To come...

Hey Guys! Sorry we haven't posted anything lately, we've been really busy. This week we went to Tokyo, got cell phones, I got a car and we both started teaching full-time. Busy, busy, busy!

We'll try to post something this weekend...though we are going to Tokyo again Sunday, which takes a day (trust me, it takes a day!). But we'll definitely let you know about our trips, driving, shopping, etc (including Bri's birthday present ;)) soon!

Cheers-
Laura.

Indian food.

So we went for Indian food last night. This was Laura's second visit to the restaurant, and my first actually eating anything (long story). It's very much on par with anything you'd find at home, though they have definitely altered their spice levels for the Japanese. 'Super Hot' was just right. It burned about as much as a medium to hot spice level would if ordered for take-out back home, and the people are really nice. Complimentary soup and dessert - dessert being the main reason for this post.

It was was a fruit and custard dish, and though it tasted fine, we both look at each other after the first bite. We both immediately knew that it tasted like something. I brought it up first (being the least tactful) and asked Laura if she knew what it was. She had a general idea, but didn't want to say. Thus, I was forced to say "It tastes like the smell of a mall bathroom." You know that sweet smell that you get from the deodorizers in a mall bathroom? The dessert had a slight essence of it.

We can now say that we know what the smell of a mall bathroom smells like. Yay, life experiences!

Earthquake

So as Laura mentioned we had an earthquake this morning. It MAY have been the second one since we got here, though I'm not entirely certain if what I think was the first actually WAS a quake or just a big truck goin' by.

Earthquakes here are measured on the Shindo scale (measure intensity) rather than the Richter (magnitude). The epicenter was a prefecture away (Chiba) and there it was a 3. By the time it hit us, it was a 2. Looking online, my best guess is it would be a 4-4.9 when describing it using the Richter scale. We looked at each other, half asleep, shrugged, and went back to bed.

The Last Week

Grrrr...I just wrote a long post and it somehow got deleted. I'm sure this one won't be near as good either.

Things are good here. I started teaching Tuesday, Bri started Friday. I really enjoy teaching, much more than I thought I would. One of my students the other day told me that he really appreciated my slow way of speaking, which I thought was funny. I guess I have adapted quite a bit, because I usually speak so fast that native English speakers can't understand me!

It's been really rainy the last couple of days. Luckily it's still pretty warm (mid to late 20s). We were supposed to get a typhoon on Saturday but no such luck. We did, however, have a pretty big earthquake this morning. Enough to wake both of us up.

What else...we're going to Tokyo on Tuesday! We have the day off so we're going to go a wandering. Hopefully it won't be raining. We'll hopefully get cell phones on Tuesday as well- so far, we haven't been able to get them.

That's it for now. I'll keep ya posted!!

Quick Update

Hey guys!!

I haven't posted in about a week, so I thought I'd give a quick update. My week was good, very busy. We're still observing other teachers, and we'll continue to do so until about the upcoming mid-week. I think teaching will be fairly easy but occasionally full of challenges. People learning English tend to have the same struggles: plurals, double meanings, etc. I feel really lucky to have learned English naturally, for it seems very difficult for most people to grasp.

So as I think I've mentioned, food here is tasty as hell. I went for Indian food this week, which I didn't have high hopes for (I think I've been spoiled living in the lower mainland of BC), but it was actually really great! Reasonably priced as well. As I think we've previously posted, buying liquor is super cheap (up to 1/2 the price of liquor at home). However, the drink prices in restaurants are the same. Quite the mark-up me thinks.

One of the schools I teach at has a traditional Japanese toilet. This is a bit of an issue for me. As a lady, I can't imagine using one-just doesn't seem comfortable/practical. If you don't know what a traditional Japanese toilet is, I recommend you Google it. Luckily, there's a convenience store around the corner that I can use...I've just heard so many disaster stories about women using the traditional ones, that I'm going to avoid it at all costs.

I'm not sure if Brian's posted about this, but it's insane how many people smoke here. It's like BC 15 years ago. Probably even worse. I HATE cigarette smoke, so it bothers me that I constantly smell it. A pack of smokes here is like $3, so it's easy to see why so few people quit.

It's still pretty warm-about early 30s and very humid. I FINALLY bought a blow dryer/hair straightener yesterday so I no longer have to look like a frizzy poodle. That's a good thing. Though it is so humid, my hair will go wavy right after straightening it. Oh well, could be worse!

I think that's it for now. Take care!

Just to clarify

We don't really have a room mate. Just on paper:) Too tired to post more, so check back in later. We have a couple days off, so who knows? I might actually spend time on the blog's look itself.

Dr. Pepper

So it's a bit odd when it comes to soft drinks here. Coca-Cola is king, and from what I've been able to learn, they seem to have a monopoly on the bottling rights in Japan. I noticed that it's VERY difficult to find Pepsi here, though both Laura and I have noticed it in at least two vending machines near two of our schools. That said, Pepsi PRODUCTS are readily available. The one's I've noticed so far are:

Mountain Dew
Gatorade (though it supposedly tastes like a salty electrolyte beverage, like all Japanese sports drinks)
Dr. Pepper

For those who know my taste in pop, I've mixed feelings about this. First, I much prefer Pepsi to Coke for everyday consumption, with the exception of drink mix and with sushi. It helps greatly that we've found those vending machines, but they're a ways out simply for a bottle of Pepsi and a trend in Japan is that stores change stock on just about everything seasonally. So if you love something, stock up as it may never be available again. Not sure how this works for vending machines though.

What really DOES help soften the blow is the dominating presence of Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. Now, you may be saying to yourself 'Those are Pepsi, damn it!' and you would be right. In a bizarre twist that actually seems at home in Japan, Pepsi has struck a deal with Coca-Cola to have Coke bottle and sell their products here. The reason for this (as far as I've been able to discern) is that Coke's similar products (like Mellow Yellow and Powerade) fail miserably here. Fine by me. Sadly, while Red Bull has been recently introduced here, my favorite energy drink (Coca-Cola's Full Throttle) is no where to be found. Neither is Mountain Dew's. Grape Fanta is here in full force, so at least Coca-Cola is good for something.

A wonderful twist with Dr. Pepper here are the cans. Compared to ours THEY. ARE. GORGEOUS. They have an amazing art display on the unlabeled side, and while I haven't purchased more than one can, I have been told that the art work does vary. Not sure how many variations there are or how often they come out, but I will find out as this has sparked my first Japan-centric hobby... collecting Dr. Pepper cans. What fun!

City Planning. Or: Not my fault.

Thursday, September 11

So we finally got the car last night, and while it will allow us to actually grocery shop and eat at home, it was far too late to hit up a grocery store with any real amount of time to both learn what the store has that we are somewhat familiar with AND make an educated purchase. Thus, dinner consisted of instant Ramen noodles (think Mr. Noodles but much more authentic), ready made hamburger patties w/Tonkatsu sauce, and grape Fanta. But before we could eat, we needed something to boil water in.

This meant a trip back to our old apartment to claim the dishes we had left behind. We were on the way back to the house when I had the good fortune to experience something I had noticed earlier: the craziness that is the Japanese traffic system. It's not that the Japanese are crazy drivers (though they are a little when it comes to the extremely narrow back roads, which are supposedly WIDE for Japan), it's that there are these delightful sections of road where the layout is ambiguous, misleading, or JUST PLAIN WRONG! I had seen this as a passenger earlier in the day driving to a school with the teacher I'm replacing. We were heading down a straight stretch of road, at least 3 lanes wide, and while crossing a major intersection, a lane simply disappeared, with no heads up. Suddenly we're in oncoming traffic and forced to wait while traffic let us back in, as well as the many native Japanese who were caught unawares as well.

Back to my experience. We're making a right hand turn onto a main roadway (keep in mind this would be a left hand turn back home), and as it's a fairly wide street, I wanted to ensure that I didn't drift into the lane that oncoming traffic would be turning left into. I did the obvious thing and followed the line painted on the road. Big mistake. Suffice to say, we ended up in oncoming traffic (which was stopped of course) and I had to dart through a small gap in the median to get back on my side.

Moral of the story? Don't trust the lanes painted on the road in Japan. *Sigh*

Burgers

Tuesday, September 9

Immediately after the move, Laura had to head to her school, while I had an hour to kill before being picked up and whisked away to the school I was teaching at. This meant lunch. With Lala Garden being only a 7min walk from the main office, I decided to revisit a burger place we had been introduced to earlier. Freshness Burger (mentioned briefly in the 3-day post summary I posted earlier). The initial reaction to this restaurant was:

At least there's a decent burger place here that isn't a fast food chain, but it hardly lived up to the praise we'd heard about it.

Well, 2nd time was the charm. The burger was so hot I couldn't hold it. I had a beer this time (I'm sure that helped improve its rating), remembered to order onion rings, and it was so tall (with two cheese-covered patties) that not only could I not fit it in my mouth, I had to severely rethink the entire eating process of this heavenly food-stuff.

It's not quite White Spot, but I am in love with Freshness Burger, and like another delightful food item here (which I will describe in a later post), I shall miss it dearly when we leave.

Moving stuff

Tuesday Sept. 9

So today was supposed to be our 1st car day; however, due to it also being the day to finally move the appliances from the apartment to the house, 1st car day has been bumped back to tomorrow. We left the house at around 10.20, had our friend drive us to the main office where we met up with the boss who was going to procure a truck to move the larger appliances. When I say larger appliances, keep in mind this is a relative term. We had to move the fridge, stove, washing machine, TV, its stand, a desk, and some miscellaneous items. I'm going to provide pictures, but they don't always give an exact representation of size. Here's a breakdown for ya:

Fridge - About 4ft tall, 17in across, 17in deep. It probably weighed less than my bass amp back home, which I'd guess is about 60lbs. Easily moved by one person, though a little awkward as it leaks if not kept upright.

Washer - around 3ft tall. At least 10lbs lighter than the fridge. About the same size in depth and width.

TV - Tube television. I want to say 27in screen. 30 - 40lbs.

TV Stand - About 30lbs. Fits the TV. 'Nuff said.

Stove - The stove's are hilarious. They're the equivalent of a hibachi. Gas powered, there are two burners, and a tiny little oven that looks more like a place to put an optical drive in a computer, though the depth of the cavity goes back a good 8-10in. You could cook a small steak, perhaps a chicken breast... the possibilities are endless! Suffice to say, we shall not be cooking a Christmas duck anytime soon.

This was all transported with the use of a Suzuki truck. It's a little flat nose truck with a bed in the back, the walls and tailgate being about 12in tall. The bed itself was about 4x5ft. Not a large truck by any means. This managed to fit everything listed above plus the microwave (which also function as convection and toaster ovens here), laundry detergent, and the desk (a 3 tiered Ikea special, only lower quality and most likely not Ikea) managed to fit around the multitude of items, as it was fairly open and not a mass of solid wood.

The REALLY interesting part about the truck is that it was not owned by either the boss, a teacher, a friend, or even a casual acquaintance. Nor was it a rental vehicle. It was owned by a hardware store. In Japan, hardly anyone owns a truck for personal use, so when shopping at stores that specialize in lumber, gardening supplies, etc. they LOAN you a truck so that you can transport your purchase home. If you keep the vehicle for more than an hour you're dinged with a fuel charge, but otherwise it's a 1hr courtesy vehicle. So instead of renting a vehicle, the boss went to the hardware/garden supply store and purchased ¥6000 worth of dirt (about $60), took it home, then swung by the apartment so that we could load it up. Dropped it off at the house, then returned the truck. Done.

Type of truck used. The sides fold down as well as the tailgate.

This post is long, but it's a few days' worth

A Few Days In

I'd first like let you all know that, while I tend to be a member of the grammar police in day to day life, that doesn't apply here. I type as a think, in a free-flowing, full of errors and strange tangents, manner. Hope that's not too annoying, because I'm simply too lazy to both write these blog entries and edit them...

So it's Friday the 5th here, and we've been fairly busy so far. Here's a rundown of the last few days:
WEDNESDAY was pretty much just getting here, meeting our American friend here who hired us and has been our guide, a bit of dinner, a trip back to our appartment (with a stop at the corner store nearby), and that's about it. Our apartment is pretty warm (temperature's about 29 degrees right now, and it's MUGGY. Reminds me of Montreal in July/August. We made a quick trip to the cornerstore to grab some drinks (Tropicana grape, water, and a happy little Star soda (pictures below). Laura crashed almost right away (about 8.30) while I tried to stay up a little longer trying to adjust my sleep schedule; I made it about 1 hr (cut me some slack, we'd been up for about 22 hrs). 10.30 came around and our doorbell rang. A LOUD DOORBELL. A household doorbell, that, thanks to our 200sq ft apartment was not even 12ft from us. I get up, go to the door, and there stands a 20-something Japanese fellow (I know, who'd-a thunk it?) and he procedes to explain to me that he's delivering the Japan Times and trying to collect for the subscription costs (this is all in Japanese mind you, though the paper's in English). I let him know that I have no clue what he's talking about, he points to a name on the subscription form (in Japanese), I further demonstrate my inability to help him and finally close the door as it dawns on him that he has no hope in hell of getting any money from me. Then we go back to bed.

Thursday: We woke up and left in search of breakfast, which consisted of Tonkatsu (breaded pork), hamburger (complete with processed cheese. YUM!), a strange hashbrown-like thing (tasted alright and still alive), rice, gyoza (pork dumplings), and a mandarin fruit cup suspended in jelly (it's still in the fridge). This was all found at... 7-11! Yes, Japan has an abundance of 7-11s here. The story we heard was that the company went bankrupt somewhere else, and felt that the Japanese market would welcome them with open arms. That, and they were cutting their losses by selling the signs and franchise rights in Japan.

After breakfast we chilled for a while until we were picked up. From there it was a multitude of errands. First we went to City Hall and filled out our Alien Registration forms. We met a couple of fellow Canucks. The woman has been here for 12 yrs, the guy 5. She's an admin for a school in Tsukuba, and he's a teacher at said school. They turned us onto a couple of useful resources, told us to meet up with them when we're settled, etc.

After this we went and met up with our friend again (someone else was helping us earlier). We went to the liqour store, where we purchased wine, spaghetti, sauce (meh), and a corkscrew. From there it was a quick wander through the mall, which included a gander in the 100 yen store (if you guessed that that's a $ store, give yourself a prize). THEY KICK OUR DOLLAR STORES' ASSES!

Had lunch at a burger place (very good), checked out the Capcom Arcade (mostly crane games and little kiddie gambling machines. They get them young here), and a bakery, where we picked up bread to go with dinner and what I've termed 'Pancake Buns' for breakfast.

Next on the list were cell phones. Softbank is the company the school deals with mostly, and while the phones tend to be a bit bigger than ours back home (I know! Who knew?!?), I think they're more streamlined and stylish. And, apparently, so does Cameron Diaz. She's everywhere a Softbank ad is. Turns out we won't have our phones for a while until our visas are dealt with. Sad, sad, Brian and Laura.

The rest of the evening was pretty much dealing with our house. The realtor's office took quite some time, and I was nautious by the end. Turns out friend's living with us (joke) as we don't speak Japanese. Should be fun. We then went for burger I mentioned earlier (sorry, I forgot about the realtor until now).

AFTER all that, we went and looked at the house. It's nice, though the staircase scares Laura. It CREEPS HER OUT. As do the shower room (not the toilet) and the Tatami rooms (two of them). She blames YOU Caitlin! The living room is fine though, which is where we'll be spending most of our time anyways. We have a tool-shed, and a bicycle. Both are the landlords, but we are free to use them, as well as the tools.

Dinner and bed.

Friday: We were picked up by Yoku, went to the bank with Ken, and found out that we couldn't yet open an account. Turns out we need our Alien Registration cards first. Went home and puttered. Our friend picked us up later and we went for dinner at his favorite Soba restaraunt. Good, but I wasn't quite in the mood for it. I'm sure I'll like it more next time. Though I wasn't overly thrilled with the Soba noodles, the Sake was GOOOOOOOD! I had cold sake, and what we were told just before leaving Canada really is true. Sake outside of Japan. Is. CRAP. It was one glass (about a shot glass and a half) for around ¥800 (just under $8) and though that may sound stingy, it was an excellent type of sake (very dry) and the way they present it to you makes up for the price. They bring the glass and a small wooden box. They but the glass in the center of the box, un-cork the bottle and pour QUICKLY. The sake then flows over the top of the glass, and fills up a good portion of the box. They do this to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are getting the full amount (the glass) that you paid for; and then some. I look forward to going out with him and exploring many varieties of sake, as he is well versed in the multitude of brands.

It's now Sunday, and all we really did was run errands. Laura has already posted about what we did Saturday so I'll skip those details. I'm going to stop typing now so that I can finally post this 3-day blog entry (both in what it covers and how long it actually took me in finishing it. Though to my credit, my laptop died on me and I lost Thurs. and Friday).

Cheers.

Randomness

Oh my God, so oodles of people in Japan carry dogs around with them a la Paris Hilton. These dogs are quite often dressed and totally spoiled, so spoiled that some stores have specific carts for dogs. See example A above. These dogs were dressed to the 9s, wearing jean miniskirts, cute little tanks and styling HIGHLIGHTS. For reals peeps, hair highlights. Of multiple shades, by the way.
Cafe close to the apartment. Apparently all Japanese people are alcoholic.
This was our next door neighbour while staying in the apartment. Friendly for sure.

Company Apt

These are pics from the company apt we stayed in for 3 days. Kinda tight for two ;)



Living Room

Kitchen



Bedroom

House Pictures

Living room

Downstairs bedroom

View from upstairs balcony


Our bedroom



Hallway Upstairs

In Tsukuba

Hey guys! Just wanted to leave a quick note to let you all know that we arrived safely in Japan. Things here are definitely different and not knowing the language is proving more difficult than we imagined. We moved into the house this evening, which is super cute. It's a bit far out from the happenings, but that's the price to pay for more than a 300 sq ft apt.

We also had our first day of observations today (for teaching). Japanese kids are so freaking cute, though they are quite shy around newcomers. All the teachers seem really nice and are quite a diverse group-coming from N. America, Australia, Singapore, Israel, etc...

Brian has adjusted really well to the time difference but I'm still struggling a bit. I'm still waking up at 3-4 am in the morning, but at least fall right back asleep. Food here is quite like Japanese food at home, today I went for ramen which was tasty as hell. We've been for sushi twice, which was good and rather cheap. We also went for soba last night, which I really liked. Brian had some sake, which is SOOO different that at home. Liquor here is ridiculously cheap, like a litre of Malibu is about 16 bucks. They also have crazy candy-like KitKat comes out with a new flavour every couple of months.

Anyways, that's all for now. I do have some pics which I'll try to upload in the next bit. Take care and more later!

Colors

Hi everyone. Some have been mentioning that the colors HAVE to be changed. Though I don't feel the need to bow to your demands (you all better get used to switching to 'Brian's sarcasm voice' in your head when reading, cuz it's gonna happen occasionally - like now. It's not mean sarcasm, just my usual playful sarcasm. Text just makes it sound mean, BUT IT'S NOT), I do agree with you 100% and had planned on doing so from the beginning; I simply had just enough time to create the blog name (and subsequently add this post). I can assure you that my inner geek will take over once we're settled in Japan and blog related maintenance will go from 'to do' chores to 'obsessive hobby'... But not until then.

Just a heads up, there's a good chance we won't have net for a week or so, so check in, but don't expect anything regular until mid-September.

Cheers.