Saturday Nov 28th

We finally went to sushi today! 105 yen sushi, whooo! Three of us ate for under 20$. There was this awesome toy machine that had little Wii toys: a mini wii, mini wiimote, mini wii games…I WANT THEM ALLLLLL.

While waiting to go into the restaurant, since it was a bit busy, we ran over to the bookstore nearby. WHERE THERE WAS A NEW YOTSUBA BOOK. I about died of happiness. I also got the new Potemayo book and finished off my collection of Chi's sweet home. Brad got Tsubasa book 28.

Went to a party at Julie's house, had lots of fun and lots of food.

Sooo, my birthday is next Wendesday, but I dunno how it's going to go. Doubt there'll be a party or anything. Ah well ^_^

That's it for now! I'll go over Ise once I get internets, so I can show PICTURES!

On Japanese food and other stuff

Japanese food is very interesting. It seems to be a bit hit or miss. For example, the milk here is incredible as is most of the candy, meat and crackers. But then there are some wierd soggy crackers that worry me.

But what I really want to talk about is the salad dressing. Specifically the roasted sesame salad dressing. You know that amazing dressing that some Japanese restaurants have in the states that you wished they put MORE of on the salad and when you finished the salad you were all, damn, I finished it? That's this dressing. And like many Japanese candies, it's apparently filled with CRACK. Because seriously, I can't stop eating it. Even more than usual, I look for an excuse to eat salad. BRAD looks for any excuse to eat salad. This stuff is ADDICTING. And delicious. And AWESOME. Also, the "M&M's" here are very much like the British Smarties, only the candy on the outside is sweet. YUM!

Japanese Television is pretty interesting too. Part of me was surprised that there isn't a channel that plays anime all the time, but then I realized that we had to pay for that channel. Ah well, at least I caught Laputa on TV and Detective Conan. And Fairy Tail. And Brad saw Bleach the other day. There was this one ad though that sticks with me...

It's a Christmas ad. And there's a cat and a duck on the roof of a house. And they dance, then they slip! And fall off into the snow. And then out of the snow pops…

A cat duck. (nekoda-ku!)

Yes.

Apparently it's an aflack ad.

Ah yes, we watched the news and there was this bit where some guy was apologizing about pensions failing or something. The News reporter said: Nihon Kokuu. Now, for those of you who don't speak Japanese, Nihon is Japan and Koku is country. (not Kokuu, keep in mind). So Brad and I, hearing "Kokuu" think "The country of Japan?? The ...pensions are failing? Why us the head of a company telling us that?" Then we realized, oh KOKUU...AIRLINE company. JAL is losing pensions. Oh Japan and its similar sounding words. Like, shinju and shinjuu. One is pearl, the other is double suicide. Whoops!

But yeah. So things are going well, classes are getting better. I hope they keep going well!

Thursday 19th

Last night we had a very nice night out with a friend of Thia's and a student. We went to a restaurant that is very new age and not tooo Japanese (a bit like brewed awakenings). We had croquettes and "pizza." Also, tasty garlic fries with KETCHUP. God, I hadn't realized how much I missed ketchup. They also had Tom and Jerry cartoons playing on a screen (the old ones). It was fun to watch them again.

Today, we went to lunch with the owner of the Okazaki juku at a place called "Louisiana Mama" which was a place with Italian food and a southern American atmosphere. Very weird combination, but GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD pizza. And they have fondue, which I MUST try next time. After, we stopped by a candy store and I tried to get candies I've never tried before, so I could try them out.

Then we got a call from City Hall.

WE HAVE OUR ALIEN REGISTRATION CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!

We ran straight to Softbank to get the iPhone, but they told us they they've been out of the cheap phones for a WHILE now. (jerks for not telling us). So we went over to Docomo, as out next cheapest option is now the google phone, cheaper than the cheapest Softbank phone. They took our info and have to run it all (to make sure we're not sketchy or some crap) and then they'll call us back.

And then we got our phones. Google phones! Woo hoo!

A few things...

So a few things over the last few days (aside from mostly taking Sunday off to draw and watch terrible reality shows and some anime).

At Lawrence, the tornado alarm would go off at noon every Saturday, as a test. We took to calling it "happy noon" and whenever it went off, we would all yell "happy noon!"

Japan sorta has the same thing. In Okazaki, there is a siren that goes off at 9pm for a minute or so, so I whisper to myself "happy 9pm" and Nishio has a little tune and announcement that plays at 5, which, as I've mentioned, Brad and I have yet to decode (it's very echoey), which has become "happy 5pm". Heheh.

One of the kids at Okazaki (it's the oldest class, essentially seniors in High school) is kinda…not the best behaved. But when I was telling them my favorite food was soba, he yelled out "You're not American, you should like HAMBURGERS" which explains OH so much about the stereotypes in hetalia ^_^;;;;

We recently got "4.4" milk, which I'm assuming is 4.4% milk, but I could be wrong. In any case, it is very delicious. YUM!

We went out to okonomiyaki at a local place and *DROOOOOOL* it was AMAZING. And totally awesome to watch them do it (we sat at the big main grill and all). It totally brought back memories of Ranma 1/2 and Ukyo ^_^

Today, I went to a student's house to teach, she lives a little way away, so Brad and Thia took the car (Thia went with me to check that I knew the way) and they went shopping while I was in class. Then when they came back, Brad presented me with some flowers he'd bought while he was out! How shocking! It was so surprised ^_^

I've been feeling a bit drained lately, but I suspect anemia is the culprit, so we had meat for dinner. We'll see if I can actually get out of bed tomorrow morning (unlike this morning). Hopefully, internet at some point soon. We either need alien registration cards to get it, or a phone line. We have access to a phone line, but might need to pay for it. Soooo, we'll see. When we get it, hopefully I'll be able to put pictures up for you all to see! I have some great pictures of the amazing spiders that live in Japan. They're frikkin' giant and have the weirdest shapes and the oddest colors. As long as they stay OUTSIDE, I think we'll get along just fine.

That's it for me!

A bunch of days

Otherwise title as, "boy, I need internet"

Tuesday:

Well, Hiromi took us shopping in Okazaki at this HUGE mall called Aeon. No relation to the English teaching company. We got the last few things we needed, including a vacuum cleaner, and then rushed back for class at one. At 8:30 I went with Julie to Okazaki juku (cram school) for classes, which will be once a month. However, it was POURING the whole way there and back, and it was night, so I didn't really learn the way ^_^;;; Thia and I got hungry on the way back, so we stopped by Moss Burgers which, well, lets just say they love their tomato sauce. And onions. Great fries though.

In other news, there are STILL mosquitoes and they find me delicious. No seriously. We've had two in the apartment so far and I have 4 bites and Brad has…you guessed it, NONE. GRRR. Stupid bugs. I'm reacting to the bites a little worse here than at home, maybe b/c the mosquitoes are so damn HUGE here.

Despite the lack of an alien registration card, we've at least decided on what phone we're getting and what company we're going with. Each company has the exact same prices for everything, so really it's about choosing the phone we want. Docomo has the google phone, which is cool, but it's not for free. Not like the iPhone. Softbank has the iPhone and, with this new deal they have, the 8gb phone is FREE. And I don't mean, free on the spot, but you pay for it over your contract, no, totally free. Which then lead to the following statement: "well, if we want the cheapest phone, we should go with the iPhone." Which really amuses me, especially since the iPhone is so expensive at home. But here, totally cheap compared to the other phones. We're really tempted by the google phone, but it does cost money and we're pretty positive we can hack the iPhone so we can take it home and use it with AT&T.

Wednesday, we hope to get to the bank (which we can do with just a passport: hurrah!) Turns out, with the dollar being so weak, investing in Yen is the right decision now ^_^

Anyway, that's it for Tuesday!

Wednesday:

It's still raining and I'm still itchy. Japanese pens are great though! So thin and easy to read when you write with them.

It took a while to get bank stuff worked out. First we went to the Nishio Bank (nishishin) but they wouldn't give us an account until we'd lived in Japan for 6 months. Which is bullshit, of course. So we went across the street and asked to get an account at THAT bank. All they needed was proof of residence, so we went back to city hall (begged them to get us the alien registration card earlier) and got the paper. I then went to class and Brad worked out the bank stuff. We now have a bank account and Cash cards! (essentially debit cards). Two of the girls at the school have the swine flu, so they didn't come for classes which meant I had to fall back on flash cards. Then, the Okazaki juku class was a bit…rowdy. I hear Thursday's is even worse. Joy.

Thursday, is driving time. Well, that's it for now.

Thursday:

Went driving. AHHHHH. I think I'm doing ok, I'm mostly staying on the correct side of the road…I did hit a curb though T_T

We went to the book-off. Some of the Conan books are 105 yen, but the others are 250. So, I think once I get my paycheck, I'll go to the book off, grab them all for 105 yen, then go to the book store near us, who sells them for 200 yen, and get the rest. Ha HA! My clever plan. Otherwise, just classes and the last Okazaki class for today left. Things are starting to follow a pattern. Hopefully we'll get TV soon and internet (very important!).

Anyway, that's it for today, will post more later.

Monday again

Is has been a week! Wowza! here's monday's report:

Got up, hung around, read some manga. Then we went cell phone hunting with Hiromi. Annoyingly enough, (as we suspected) we will be unable to get one until we get our alien registration card. And that goes for pretty much everything else important.

Afterwards, we went to the mall and picked up some groceries. May I just state that JAPANESE MILK IS AWESOME. It's just like milk in Europe, so extra deliciously creamy! We stopped by the bookstore so I could pick up a few books that I couldn't find at the used book store. There a Japanese old lady walked up and said…something to us. Boy do old Japanese people talk funny. Didn't help that she was muttering. I suspected she was saying "is it ok, those books are in Japanese" but Brad thought she said something about it being cold out (I was wearing a t-shirt). Whatever it was, when she asked "daijoubu" (are you ok) we just answered "ee, daijoubu" (yes, we're fine) since we couldn't see anything immediately wrong with us, especially nothing she could help us with. I made a fool of myself at the bookstore, asking for some books, since I ran into the issue I always have when talking to Japanese people in Japanese: I freeze up and all my Japanese goes out one ear. I can understand them, I just can't TALK to them. Is very frustrating. I've finally gotten used to our landlord and his wife, so I'm able to remember more grammar around them and not totally freeze up. I guess I'm just so eager to NOT butcher their language that my brain starts yelling "DON'T SAY ANYTHING! IF NOTHING COMES OUT, YOU WON'T SAY ANYTHING STUPID!" But then I look like a moron, nodding away, but not saying anything. Ah well.

Class went well tonight. One of the students (a high schooler) LOVES detective conan! We chatted about it and about how they butchered it in the US. Perhaps I can work in detective conan into lessons :P For the doctor's class, they asked me to give them vocab that is good for ordering in resturants, for introducing patients to doctors in other countries and "date vocab". The last one should be fun. But any ideas? I was thinking "I'd like my meat medium well" or something, since that's not something you hear in Japanese resturants. Mostly, I need answers to common waiter questions. I'll probably come up with more when I'm more awake ^_^

Well, that's Monday, on to Tuesday with LOTS of driving.

First full weekend in Japan

So, Friday was full of many things, but nothing too dramatic. We finally bought a blanket big enough for the futon (warm and TOASTY!), we bought hanten (traditional coats for inside…or outside maybe) and I picked up some Japanese Bubblicious bubble gum which tastes exactly like the ramune candy. Also, hilariously, the wrappers say "Cadbury's" on them which totally confuses me (bubblicious = American gum, Cadbury's = British chocolate). Yeah. In any case, got some time on the internet and grabbed a few shows that I missed in the states for watching later (wooo) and then went strait into classes starting at 1. BOY that was a trip. Classes from 1-2, 4:30-6:30, 7:30-9:30 (there are many classes in there, I'm just giving you the blocks of time I'm at the school). Luckily it turned out that two boys didn't have class, so we were able to run out and grab dinner (my first REAL ramen!). After dinner, we ran to the cake shop and I grabbed a slice of strawberry shortcake. Good, but not as tasty as Mitsuwa (I don't think they put kiersh in the cake. Sad times!).

Saturday we offered to help Sheon and Naomi, Thia's daughters clean out their father's house where they'll be moving in. It's VERY cluttered, but they said we're welcome to anything they can't keep and I figured, why not help out in exchange!

It was very fun work and their father was kind enough to treat us to lunch midway through. We managed to get two bookshelves and an electric bike out of it all, so all in all, a good day. There were also highly amusing moments like taking doors apart and smashing down a wall. We came back home eventually and had dinner and then watched stuff. Nice slow day compared to the weekdays ^_^

Sunday was another shopping day. We ran all over town trying to find a not OUTARIOUSLY overpriced TV. (most places had 19 inch screens for 800-900$. It was ridiculous!) We finally found one, a 22 inch for 300$, not bad! Now comes the joyous fun of trying to connect to the local television programs. Wheee.

We also went to the local used bookstore: right across the street! I must also mention that that's a DANGEROUS place for it to be with me and my book buying habit. Brad's making me wait until I get my first paycheck to buy them out. Heh, no, just kidding. But yeah, I still really want all the rest of Detective Conan. That's 44 books, or so, so about 60$ probably (the old books are only 100 yen each.) But it's better to buy them in yen instead of dollars converted to yen, so we don't lose money. Thus, the waiting (even if they have SOOO many other books that I want!).

Sunday night there was a party for us at the school. We met soooo many nice people and ate sooo much awesome food! (This one lady made the BEST chocolate cake.) Monday we plan to practice driving (EHEHEH ack) and perhaps go ask about cell phone contracts (we really need our own!) We also need a bank account. Hopefully our Landlord can help us find out what we need to do about that. Mostly, so we can pay him! Then, I teach classes by myself. I hope I do well!