Merry Christmas!!

Hey peeps, we're heading out tomorrow morning to Sendai and won't be back until the Saturday, so I just wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!! Or as they say in Japanland, happy Christmas! Apparently they've adopted the British ways of Christmas.

I'm really missing everyone right now, more than I thought that I would. But anyways, have a GREAT holiday and make sure you take some time out for yourself and relax. I think people sometimes get so wrapped up in doing stuff for Christmas, that they forget it's a holiday! I myself will be having one of the laziest holidays in recent past-lots of sleeping in and watching movies. That said, we are going away for 5 days and are planning trips to Tokyo & Disneyland.

Anyways, have a Merry Merry Happy Christmas. I'd LOVE email updates from everyone I haven't talked to in awhile if you have the time. Cheers!!!

We're Really Bad Bloggers

Hey kids! Sorry for the lack of postings, we've been rather busy the last couple weeks! Ashley and Caitlin were visiting us for a couple weeks so we were busy having a jolly time. We've also been really busy at work-there's been some staffing probs, so we've been working more than usual. And of course, we're doing report cards before holidays and we had Parent's Week last week. The good news is that we have two weeks off starting next Tuesday so we'll finally have some R&R time!

We've decided to go to Sendai for Christmas. We really didn't want to stay and home and do nothing, so we'll do a little travelling instead. Sendai is the biggest city in the northeast part of Honshu Island (the island we live on). It's really famous because it has one of the 3 most scenic views in Japan. It's called Matsushima, which are 260 tiny islands covered in pine trees. It's supposed to be beautiful. In Japan, Christmas isn't actually a family holiday (or really, a holiday at all) but a day for couples. It's apparently the most romantic day of the year.

So we'll be in Sendai for about 5 days over Christmas. Other than that, we don't have any specific plans, we'll probably go to Yokohama (Chinatown) one day and Disneyland another. We're just really happy to relax!

Anyways, I'll be sure to post in the next week. I have a lot to talk about, but it's almost my bedtime. Luckily, I'm totally done my Christmas shopping (yay!). It's much easier when you only shop for one. Not as fun though :(

Take Care!!

Update

Sorry sorry sorry for not posting lately. Things have been piling up (post-wise) and every time I think to actually do one, I'm either too tired or have no internet (we get a lot of down time at work, but the school doesn't know its access keys to their own wi-fi. Sigh).

Things have been fairly uneventful as of late. I FINALLY managed to get our second parking spot. We can now park the Toyota Hilux (Japanese name for 4runner) and NOT have Laura meet me at the nearby company apartment and drive to our house five minutes away.

Japanese lessons have been going well. Starting to actually understand how the language is structured, though translating is still a little tricky. Example: 'This present/gift is for you' literally translates to 'this is a small feeling'. Go figure. At least I can pick out food items and generally know what I'm eating.

That's about it for now. I still have pics from the Tokyo Game Show (amongst other things) to put up, but I have to go through them and weed out the bad shots. What can I say, I'm just too damn lazy.

Hey!!

Sorry, we know it's been ages since we've posted. My parents were here for a visit, which was great! We went to Nikko for a couple of days which was beautiful. It's a really small mountain town about a 3 hour drive away. We spent the first day going to Shinto Shrines and the second day we drove up the mountain to go to this lake/falls area. It was about 120metres about sea level. The drive was crazy, super windy switchbacks and sooooo beautiful! Click here to see the pics from Nikko (you don't need a f/b account) and here for the ones from Lake Chuzenji. So beautiful, we had a great time. Really cold though!

We also went to DisneySea, which is like Disneyland but I guess more oceany. It was really nice, lots of fun. There were some great rides, though I really wanted to go on the Tower of Terror, but the line was way too long.

Next time! We also checked out the largest free standing statue in the world, which is about 20 mins from our house. It was...well, big!


The pic doesn't do it justice though, it's unbelievably large.

We're really excited cuz Caitlin & Ashley are visiting us in a couple weeks-yay! Unfortunately, we have to work, but we do have mornings off which will let us hang out a bit.

What else...Bri bought a truck, but I'm sure he'll post about that later. The weather's been gorgeous, it's almost 20 degrees Celsius today! It's ridiculously cold at night though, just crazy!

I think that's it for now, I'll try to be more regular about my postings. I miss everyone at home, so please send me emails!! If you don't have my email, just leave a post and I'll send it to you. I'd leave it on here but I don't know if Blogger sites get spammed. Sayonara!

Ramblings of an Exhausted Woman

Sup ya'll? The last week has been really busy. Last weekend, Bri went to the Tokyo game show, which I'm sure he'll tell you all about. We've been trying to get the house in order, which we finally accomplished today by going to Costco & Ikea. It's funny, in Japan, Ikea is pronounced E.K.ya. It was great, most people spoke English so we were able to get everything we wanted and even got delivery service to our house. We FINALLY got a bed (yay!) so that'll be here mid-week. No more sleeping on the floor. We also got towels, kitchen stuff, etc. We also got curtains, which hopefully will help me sleep better.

So I've been having reeeeeal difficulty sleeping. Well, we both have really. Because we work nights, we usually don't go to bed until 1 or 2, which shouldn't be a problem. However, there are a few things that prohibit us from sleeping in. Number 1-driving advertisements. So apparently it's totally normal for trucks with speaker phones to drive up and down roads all day every day announcing various shit, like who to vote for in the upcoming election or what's been lost & found. For reals, people. It's LOUD and sooooooo obnoxious! Yesterday morning,we woke up to the sound of a very loud one and I couldn't believe that it was 8 o'clock already. Yeah, it wasn't. It was 6-freakin-30!! Can you imagine!! I was IRATE.

Anyways, that's just the first problem. The second problem is the abundance of birds that seems to enjoy tapping on our window as soon as the sun rises. The third problem is perhaps the most annoying of all. So our neighbour has a dog. That likes to bark. Starting, oh, around 5:30am. And they just let him bark all freakin' day! WTF! I get so mad, cuz I'm really tired and just want to sleep. Brian and I have resolved that we're just going to start going to be as soon as we get home and then getting up around 8. Of course, there will probably still be barking dogs and loud-speaker trucks waking us up at 6am, but what can do you, right? Good lord.

So that's my rant. Hmmm...what else is new? We also went to Costco today, which is SO much like Costco at home. We bought stuff like chili in a can, muffins & pita chips. Very easy. Plus everything's in English, which is a bonus. Just as an aside, I can hear one of those loud-speaker trucks right now. It's about 7:30pm on a Sunday night. Oye.

Last night, we went to a friend's going away party. He's been in Japan for many years and is actually from Washington state. He's really nice, it's too bad he's leaving. Anyways, we had a potluck at his girlfriend's restaurant. It's weird, Japanese potlucks are quite literal-everyone brings something and it all goes in the pot. Very yummy! They gave us SO much food when we left, so now our fridge is packed.

It's funny, Japanese women like to pet me. Especially when they drink. They pet my hair, hug me and call me pretty. Very interesting I think. It's probably because I'm so white and Japanese people apparently really want light skin. Which I find ironic, because white people usually want to be darker! It's really cute though. I was also wearing puppy headgear (pics to come later), so they thought I was especially cute, lol.

My parents will be here in less than a week, so we're super stoked! We're going to go with them to Nikko for a few days which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in Japan. The weather here has just been incredible the last month. Very warm during the day, with a light breeze. And it doesn't rain! I think it's rained maybe 4 days since we've been here. People always make fun of Vancouver for having such rainy weather-I never thought Vancouver was especially rainy before living somewhere else. It's SO nice not having everything wet all the time.

Anyways, I'm going back to hanging curtains. Talk to you soon!

Tokyo Game Show On Sunday!

So one of the cool things about being in Tsukuba is that we're within 45mins of Tokyo. The Tokyo Game Show is currently happening and while the first few days are for members of the video game industry, the last two days are open to the public. I'm going Sunday with a couple of friends on Sunday as we work Saturday. It'll also be the first trip to Tokyo by means other than train, with (hopefully) a Costco & Ikea run too.

Though L.A.'s E3 is the industry standard platform for most large announcements (it's half way between holiday seasons) TGS is actually the world's largest video game expo. As you can imagine (myself being a through and through gamer), I'm quite excited. If pics are allowed, I'll post 'em Monday.

Traditional Japanese toilet.

So Laura mentioned she has one of these at one of the school locations she teaches at. I do not. I had to pick her up and felt the need to view this Japanese facility. I also felt that I HAD to grab a pic or two with my cellphone camera. Laura also mentioned in an earlier post that she had to use one at the Kimono festival, but descriptions don't quite to the trick, so here's a pic. I put my foot next to it just for size reference. Enjoy.

Also, I've posted a few entries at once. Please scroll all the way down to make sure you've read Laura's posts. Don't want them to get buried.