There is more to come but it’s getting late so I’ll post more later.

In order to protect my husband and my privacy I’ve nicknamed us K (my husband) and B (me).

January 2007

Yay, K, the kitties and I made it to Japan all in one piece. We figuring things out, and don’t got a place yet, but we’ll have one eventually. I gotta learn to drive on the left side of the road XD That might be interesting. And people are real nice and helpful. We should have a real fun time.

———————————————————————————————————–

Well, we don’t got a place yet, but hopefully we’ll have one by this evening. We got an appointment to go look at some houses. A bunch of places here have heated floors, like this one restaurant we went to, it’s soooo comfy to sit on the floor when it’s all warm ^^ Plus it’s down in the high 30’s in the evening, so it’s especially nice too warm up the toes after being out and about. OO, and heated toilet seats are so nice.

Hmm.. lets see, well, English phrases are pretty popular on everything, like tee shirts and for restaurant and store names, and just like how we like Chinese symbols on stuff for decoration, which we have no idea what it means, it kinda works like that here too, except most just slightly understand English, and not much English grammar, so it makes for interesting English sayings. There is a restaurant named “Cow Beer” guess what they sell ^^ Yep, steak and beer. At this one mall there is a places called “The Earth ship that walked” They sell clothes there, and I really have no idea where the store name came
from. lol

Well, I gotta go take care of some stuff. Sayonora

———————————————————————————————————–

Looks like we’re gonna get to move into a place on tomorrow, but our furniture won’t be in until February. The kitties are hanging in there at the kennel, and I’m sure they’ll be happy to have a place to run around. We got our licenses yesterday and we purchased a car, but won’t get it until Monday. I got to drive on the left side of the road for the first, which was interesting. I kept hitting the windshield wiper instead of the turn signal since it’s on the opposite side then we’re used to in the U.S. lol.

We’ve gone to so many different restaurants in the last couple days. The food is awesome, lots of spices I’ve never had before. The Japanese that we’ve encountered so far are very patient and polite. I’m guessing they’re used to Americans coming to their stores and not knowing what to do. Like money is never given to a cashier directly, it’s placed in a tray located near the cash register. But the cashier will hand you your change. We were eating at this one restaurant, and got this dish that they brought out on a mini stove thing that cooked on our table, and we didn’t realize that you waited until they came back and served it to us, so we started ladling it out, and the waiter came over very calmly and said no, and placed the lid back on the pot. Very polite, and calm. Everyone is very very polite and courteous too. We’re picking up a couple words here and there, like common phrases to use at restaurants and stores. We’re gonna start a Japanese class in 2 weeks at the college here, so that’ll be nice when we can actually start interacting more with people.

Oh, on the crazy English translations, we watched a show today called “To knock on a Jumping Door.” It was a skit comedy show, and while we still can’t understand what they say, you can keep up with most of what is going on. I’m not sure if it’s a reoccurring skit, but they had the “Running Band”, which is exactly what it’s called. They had all the guys dressed up in high school girl uniforms and running on this giant treadmill that fit 10 people. They all had instruments that they were playing like a trumpet, a sax, drums, etc. And they had to run on the treadmill and play a song all the way through without someone making a mistake. If someone made a mistake, they had to stop, and start all over again. It was hilarious, and they had run for over 10 minutes, and had to try 6 times till they got it right. I can’t stop laughing about it.

Well, I’ve proly bored you all by now, so signing off.

———————————————————————————————————-

Whee internet, lol, we haven’t had internet access for a week or more now I think. The withdraw isn’t too bad since we got so much going on. I don’t have much time today, so I just saying hi, and I’ll compose something between now and the 24th since that’s when our dsl will be getting hooked up in our place. We got nice neighbors thankfully, they’re letting me check my mail and accounts and stuff so I can see how much money we got left until the 1st. Not much anymore unfortunately ; ;, moving is a giant sink hole for money. I’m glad I started saving as soon as I found out we were coming here. Oh, and I got a car and have been driving everyday. I’m doing pretty good, but it think it’s because speed limits here are way slower then in the states. Max on base is 50 kph, and average is 30-40.

———————————————————————————————————–

Well, we’ve been here 3 or so weeks now. We’ve only managed to go out and about in the city by ourselves once now, but work is keeping me busy with getting all the paperwork and stuff I need to initially do done. I should have more down time once I get done with every thing, in the mean time, I’ve managed to catch a cold; so we didn’t get to go out this weekend since I was resting at home trying to get better.

Poor K has been stuck at home alone week days without internet for over a week. I can tell he’s getting restless since he doesn’t have classes to go to during the day and I take our only vehicle with me to work. Monday we went to our first Japanese class where we’ll learn basic Japanese and Hiragana. Speaking of which, I got homework I should be doing, lol.

Japan is cute stuff heaven. I think it’s good that we’re low on money right now, or else I would have bought every cute thing I’ve seen so far. Hello Kitty is everywhere of course, and they really love Disney stuff here. Lilo and Stitch, Pooh, Nemo and the like are all over the place here. Plus, from what I’ve noticed, children are, hmmm, I’m not sure what, but they’re kind of held in a place of not esteem, but lenience. I guess what I’m trying to get at is, young childhood is held as time when everything is new and exciting, and so they pretty much let kids do what they want, sort of, it’s difficult to explain. Plus they have tons and tons of amenities for them, and for their mothers, like nursing rooms, which I’ve really never encountered in the states.
Well, I gotta get back to work.

———————————————————————————————————–

New things I’ve found during the last couple days…

McDonalds here is a bit different, but still good, and in fact, it’s the best service I’ve ever had at a McDonalds. We ate it at a mall, and there was a line, so they had a person come out and ask for everyone’s orders that was waiting in the line, so when they got up to the counter to pay their food was finished just as they got up there. Very efficient, and the food really looks like it does on the menu, not just a piece of meat falling off the bun with a single pickle and a tiny piece of lettuce. Oh, and they have these Teriyaki McBurgers that rock. They obviously have a teriyaki sauce, but it also has a horseradish kinda mayo that makes it so yummy.

We’re gonna go to a “cake house” this weekend, or maybe even tonight, the cakes they make are so delicious and cute looking. They really do look like they show them in the animes.

There are KFC’s here as well, and when you go KFC, it’s usually some sort of special event or day, cause it’s treated as a super special treat to get KFC. But the chicken isn’t exactly like we’re used to it, it’s more of a tempura then our normal recipe, and if you can believe it, it’s even more greasy then ours. It still tastes awesome though.

Oh, and I’m gonna try a sushi restaurant this weekend with some friends I made, and it has a belt thing that the sushi revolves around on and you pick off what you want as it comes by. It looks like its gonna be fun

Wow, that’s a lot lol

———————————————————————————————————–

Day 23

Well, supermarkets are cool. You can find sushi in every supermarket, and it’s really good. And when you check out they ring you up and put your stuff back in your cart or basket with some bags, and then you go over to these little stations where you pack your groceries yourself. It makes it very efficient so that you’re not holding up the line while they bag your stuff.

Also at stores, the people working there don’t come up to you like every 2 minutes and ask you if you need something. You’re free to peruse as much as you want, and then you can find a clerk at a little station in the area you’re in.

Oh, there’s a store at the mall called “Dental Clinic and Bank”, and guess what it is, lol. There are tons of places that combine things that you’d never expect to be combined.

Ooh, we went to a cake house today, the cakes were all so yummy looking so it was really hard to choose just one or two. Also at the supermarkets, most have huge bakeries that have tons of yummy stuff to choose from too, just not quite as pretty as the cake shops. But apparently anything put on bread makes an awesome sandwich here. Pizza, yakisoba (noodles), curry, etc in a sandwich. And you grab a tray like you’re eating at a cafeteria and a pair of tongs, and just put what you want on your tray and then go check out.

Hehe, horary for Vietnamese broccoli soup, lol, sounds tasty. And thanks for reading my crazy rantings everyone XD Everyone should come visit, it’d be a blast, though i’ll need at least a 6 months to gain back some leave since I just used up 15 days before we flew out.

———————————————————————————————————–

K and I went to an omelet restaurant called “Santa Baby” today, the food was really good. Omelets are interesting, they use sugar in them, and all sorts of food we wouldn’t think of putting in an omelet, but it’s so good. K got an omelet with Tuna and onions, and they asked if we wanted rice or toast with the omelets, we chose rice, and it turns out that they put the rice in the omelet and cook it that way. I got mine with corn and rice and it was really yummy. The restaurant is really cute and homey too. It’s got Santa figurines and stuffed Santa’s all over the place, and it’s nice and warm (it was snowing out last night) and the coffee was good.

———————————————————————————————————–

Sometimes it kinda feels like we’ve moved to a different world. It was kinda overwhelming at first cause there was so much to remember. It’s still a little intimidating to go to new places and restaurants without people who’ve been around a while and know the ropes. Neither of us can speak nor read Japanese yet, but we’re working on it. So at some of the restaurants, if they don’t have English translations for the menus, when ordering, it’s just point at what you want and hope the waitress speaks enough English to understand you want it well done, etc. But they’re kind of used to us Gai-jin (foreign people) running around and not knowing what is “correct”, so everyone’s pretty patient.

The people who’ve been showing us around said that we should check out the movie “Lost in Translation”. They said we will definitely be able to empathize with the characters.

———————————————————————————————————–

hehe, today’s adventure isn’t about Japan. Today’s is dedicated to my crazy cats, titled “Kitties in Kitchenland”.

Wednesday and Thursday all of our household stuff got dropped off, so we had movers in and out with the door open. So of course we were gonna throw the cats into a room so they couldn’t sneak out. On Thursday, the movers knocked, and K answered while I went kitty hunting. I looked in the normal haunts, under the bed, in the tub, in some random box, and they were no where to be found. I had been in the kitchen working on putting away stuff we had gotten the day prior before the movers showed up, and I had left a bottom cabinet door open without even thinking about it. It made sense that they’d get in a cabinet, so I looked, and the kitties weren’t there, so I go make the rounds again.

By this time I’m getting freaked out since the door has been open for a couple minutes, but not too worried, cause our cats are big scaredy cats, and they’d hide as far from new people as possible. But still, no kitties to be found. So I double check in the kitchen cabinet again, thinking maybe they just blended in well in a dark corner. I look in and no kitties, but I did notice that there wasn’t a board blocking the drawers from the cabinets, and a thought flashed through my brain, but I was like, “no way” . I grab the drawer’s handle and try pulling, and I was like “whoa, that’s really heavy”.

Now I start giggling like a mad woman, and try yanking on the drawer pretty hard and guess what is poking out. Yep, kitty hair. Now I’m rolling on the ground, and K comes in and is like “what you laughing about?” I’m barely manage to point to the drawer while I’m convulsing on the ground, and he pulls it out more and he’s like “holy $@^%, both the cats are in the drawer”. Now my laughing stops dead, and I’m like, “no way, that’s impossible” (our cats are 18 and 14 pounds, and are not tiny cats) and I get up to look, and both are really in this tiny drawer. Now we’re both on the ground dying with laughter.

After we managed to stop convulsing, we managed to get the cats out of the drawer, which wasn’t so easy cause we could only open the drawer about 2 inches. So I shoved my hand in and managed to push them out over the back of the drawer and back into the cabinet. We couldn’t stop giggling for hours after that. We’d look at each other and just start again. Ok, so I hope you guys can make any sense of this, cause I’m giggling while I’m writing this, but I wanted to share this story with you all.

———————————————————————————————————–

We got internet at home now, but our router we shipped with our household stuff died on the way here, and we bought a new one, but I think it’s flakey, that or we need to figure out how to change the frequency on it incase getting interference from something. What keeps happening is we’ll have connectivity at full for 10 minutes, and then it’ll drop to like 1 mps and then die for 4-5 minutes, and then get full connectivity again. And it’s doing it on all the computers.

———————————————————————————————————–

Yesterday we tried a spaghetti omelet, which is an omelet with spaghetti made into it along with the rest of the stuff. It was really yummy. I managed to confuse a clerk at a store this weekend while trying to ask what time they were open till, but all I managed to ask was “from too” instead of “from what time till what time” she just stared at me, and K had overheard my question, and managed to ask her correctly, and she looked so relived.

We didn’t do much this weekend though, since we got our furniture and stuff last week. We spent pretty much all weekend getting everything set up, and we’ve still got a ways to go. /sigh, plus we got class Monday and Wednesday nights, so we’re keeping pretty busy. The kitties are happy to have their things, especially their climbing tree. We’re happy to have our things too. K is definitely happy to have his computer back, and so am I, cause I want to use my laptop too.

I want to get back to exploring, but I think next weekend is going to be a chill weekend since things have been so hectic lately. Plus, I need a pair of snow boots before I do too much more traveling. It’s been coming down quite a bit and it warms up during the day and turns everything on the road and sidewalks to slush during the day, which makes for wet cold feet. I might try taking the kitties outside to see what snow is one of these days. But Ewok proly won’t like the cold. He’s taken to climbing under the comforter whenever he’s not eating or following us around and yelling at us for not feeding him. Ewok is so sneaky, he tries tricking K into feeding him. I usually feed the cats because I get up earliest, but if I’m not around after that, Ewok’ll chase K around and meow like he hasn’t been feed. I’ll get a phone call sometimes asking if I remembered to feed the cats before I left, or if I hadn’t, just to make sure we’re not double feeding the cats. They’re on a diet so they’re getting fed less, and they’re not very happy about that.

———————————————————————————————————–

Feburary 2007

So Valentines Day here is a little bit different then in the states. The tradition here is that females give chocolates to their boyfriend or a guy they like when they’re school aged. This is from Wiki and my source here said it was correct:

Those who work in offices end up giving chocolates to all their male co-workers, sometimes at significant personal expense. This chocolate is known as giri-choko, in Japan, from the words giri (”obligation”) and choko, a common short version of chokoreto, meaning “chocolate”. This contrasts with honmei-choko, which is given to a person someone loves or has a strong relationship with. Friends, especially girls, exchange chocolate that is referred to as tomo-choko; tomo means “friend” in Japanese.

On March 14, White Day, men are expected to return the favor to those who gave them chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Many men, however, give only to their girlfriends. Originally, the return gift was supposed to be white chocolate or marshmallows; hence “White Day”.

In the anime Fruits Basket, and I’m sure in many other animes they show Valentines Day and White Day, but I really like Fruits Basket, so I recommend watching it to see about Japanese holidays. They also show New Years and several other holidays.

———————————————————————————————————–

Restaurants here are a bit different then we’re used to in the states. Most restaurants are small with seating for up to maybe a dozen or maybe 20 at most. There are bigger chain restaurants, usually at the malls though. A lot of the small restaurants are the downstairs of their houses, where they live in the top half, or back if it’s not 2 stories. The restaurants are usually nice and cozy, very cozy in fact for Americans since they’re built for little tiny Japanese people. Sometimes it feels like we’re sitting at a kids table because the chairs and tables are so tiny.

The Japanese consider themselves to be built very small, but like us Americans, they love their fast food and snack and over the last decade or so they’ve been getting bigger. Not just wider, but taller too. But since its normal for everyone to be tiny, anorexia is a very common disorder here. I think it might be more of a social pressure here to be tiny since society here tries very very hard to fit into the norm. And if tiny is the norm…
I guess that is reflected a lot in FFXI with how there is “standard” armor for jobs. Like at certain levels you “have to” have a Habergeon for certain jobs, etc…

Well, back to restaurants, K and my favorite restaurant so far is Café Santa Baby. Like I said before it’s quite eclectic, the food is really good, and the dude who owns it is nice. Then there is this place called Ushino’s which is a Steak house, but there is only one chef, who is the guy who runs the place, and only 2 wait staff, his mom and dad. It’s in their house too, and they all live above it. The place is a hibachi set up, and only seats 12 people, with a small room off to the side that can be reserved for parties. It’s getting very popular, and you have to make reservations to be able to get a seat for any weekend night. Now the food is awesome, and I mean awesome, but the appetizers were kinda funny. It comes on this little tiny plate, and ours was a cherry tomato and a bite sized piece of meat loaf. It was really good meat loaf, but still about a 1 inch by 1 inch square.

Well, we’re going to a “Snow Festival” this weekend, and there is supposed to be a bunch of food vendors, so I’m hoping to try a bunch of different things. It’s supposed to be pretty too, with lots of ice sculptures and at night they light them up with colorful light. Apparently one of the highlights is to go to an “ice bar” and have a shot. They make whole buildings out of ice and supply it with electricity and serve alcohol, mainly Sake.

———————————————————————————————————–

I’ll give a brief break down of the history of some town names. Misawa, the city that we’re living in got its name from the three streams that use to begin here. Mi – (old Japanese) for 3, and sawa – streams. Now Aomori http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aomori_Prefecture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aomori_Prefecture) is the prefecture that we are in, and our Japanese teacher told us about how it didn’t used to always be an agricultural area. His words were “Aomori couldn’t be agricultural area because during the summer the “sea folk” or “sea fog” (I didn’t quite understand what he was saying) come in and cover the sky.” I think he was saying that during the summer they don’t get enough direct sunlight because of the cloud cover/fog that rolls in. So they couldn’t grow most things during the summer time.So then the westerners came to Japan, and they brought cattle with them. Even though they (the Japanese) had some types of cattle of their own, they didn’t have the big bovines and horses that we’re used to. Well, since they couldn’t grow much anyways, the made most of Aomori into a huge cattle pen. They built fences around a very very big area, and made a bunch of the cities into “gates”. Now the fences are gone, but a bunch of the towns have kept their name from them. Hachinohe is the 8th gate, Hachi – 8, and nohe – gate. There are I think 12 “gate” cities all together. Though we’ve only been to Hach. Now the ice festival was at a place called Lake Towada, or Towadako – Lake Towada. Towada means; To – (old Japanese) 10, and wada – peaceful rice fields. So Towada is 10 peaceful rice fields.

———————————————————————————————————–

A person from work went to the Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival, which is Japans premier spot for their Ice festivals. It’s in the Hokkaido prefecture, which is the most northern region of Japan. It is an almost artic winter there, but that being said, they have the most snow to have a Snow and Ice Festival at. Apparently though, this year they had the least amount of snow ever, and had to have dump truck fulls of snow trucked in so that they could make their sculptures. K and I didn’t go this year, since we just got here, but we are planning on going next year, or the year after that.

———————————————————————————————————–

Namahage Matsuri (festival)

The Namahage (called other things in different areas) is national scare the crap outta your kids’ festival. These monsters (Namahage) are virgin males dressed up in costume and roam their town. They enter the homes with children in them. Then they go to the kitchen and grab a knife and run through the house shouting “Are there any children here who don’t obey their parents?!?”, ”Are there any children here who are crying?!?” And the small children are usually so scared they go run and hide, but the Namahage find them and bring them into the living room. Then the parents reassure the Namahage that their children are well behaved and listen to them, and don’t cry. Then offer them refreshments (sake).

K said the news broadcast showed some kids who were being shouted at and they were so scared XD They were balling their heads off. I couldn’t imagine being 4 years old and being chased by a monster with a kitchen knife through my house. Mostly though this festival held in areas where the more traditional festivals are observed. They don’t do this in Tokyo and the like cause just like us they don’t really know their neighbors in big cities. It’d be kinda bizarre inviting a stranger into your house so they could grab a knife and chase your kids around the place if you didn’t know them. I think this is the greatest festival ever! Lol

———————————————————————————————————–

Well, I haven’t posted for a couple days, but I was waiting until after this weekend to post since we went on a trip. We went to Mount Hakoda and Aomori City. Mt. Hakoda is roughly 2 hours away from Misawa, and is mostly know for its snow activities, snowshoeing, snowboarding, skiing, etc. What we went to see was the scenery, and they had a ropeway that you could take to the top of the mountain and look around. It was really pretty, and it was an awesomely clear day, and we could see all the way to Aomori City. The ropeway was pretty fun, and was a really long trip up to the top. They crammed tons of people into the car and we could barely move, but it was a nice smooth ride.

They had a couple really long ski courses, one called the direct course and the other were numbered. We could see course 2 and it was insanely long. We could see people chilling on the side of the course halfway down because it was so long. The direct course looked scary, it was a straight shot from the top and I know even if I was an experience ski/snowboarder I wouldn’t be able to handle going down that. Then after we had our fill looking around, we headed back down in a completely empty car, since most everyone that went up was heading down the trails.

Then we headed to Aomori City, which is the capitol of Aomori Prefecture. We went to the ASPAM (dunno why it’s called that) which is a cultural/business center. Aomori Prefecture is known for its apples. So they had lots of apple products for sale like apple wine, vinegar, candies, ice cream, key chains, etc. We had a nice meal there and then looked around and then went shopping out in the city. It wasn’t a huge city, but it was nice. Lol, K and I agreed to head back there sometime ourselves and visit a couple other resturants that looked really good.

Today I had class before I had to head to work, and when we got out, it was really starting to snow. We haven’t had more then a handful of inches of snow in the past month, and that would melt by 10am. It was really starting to come down, and visibility was poop. So from when I parked, get changed and packed up, there was 4 inches of snow on my car already. It’s been nice warm spring weather for the last couple weeks, and then this. It was crazy windy too, making the snow come down sideways instead of straight down. The wind was bugging me all night while I was trying to sleep, making everything bump into things, and keeping me up XD I’m tired now and hopefully can keep myself occupied for the next 12 hours so I don’t get sleepy.

———————————————————————————————————–

27 March 2007

Snowmen are a common enough tradition in the states and here, but it had occurred to me that Japanese snowmen only have 2 sections, while we’re used to our 3 section snowmen. I had noticed this in games such as Animal Crossing and Katamari. I asked my Japanese instructor about Yukidaruma (snowmen) since I had just found out the name for them, and I knew that daruma is the name of a type of doll that has been in Japanese culture for a very long time. What I didn’t know was where the daruma gets its origins. If any of you are knowledgeable about Buddhism, you’ll know about Bodhidharma, the founder of Buddhism. For you that don’t know, it goes like this…Bodhidharma sat under a tree for like 8 years in order to obtain enlightenment, and did, but when he went to stand up, he couldn’t use his legs. Well, since they couldn’t be used anymore he chopped them off, hence, the daruma doesn’t have any legs. The same goes for yukidaruma, but I think now it’s more of a tradition to make 2 layered snowmen then in reverence for anything. Incidentally, the daruma has a reputation similar to the weeble, since it has a rounded bottom. There is even a reference to a 17th century children’s song about how the daruma rights itself on wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma

I know that’s a little morbid, but I found it interesting about its origins. I bet you’ll never look at a snowman the same again XD

So me and my husband are living in Japan for the next couple years. I’ma use this to write down about the trips we go on and things we’ve encountered that I think people might find interesting.

I adopted a Naruto chibi! ^.^
Name: Rock Lee
Likes: Training hard!
Dislikes: Being injured
Owner: Kawaii_Ninja

Click here to adopt your own Naruto chibi!

I adopted a Naruto chibi! ^.^

Name: Kiba & Akamaru
Likes: Puppies
Dislikes: Animal haters
Owner: Kawaii_Ninja

Click here to adopt your own Naruto chibi!

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging ^^