Well, we haven't blogged in quite sometime, so we scrounged around and came up with some random interesting tid-bits...

Here is a picture of quality cultural immersion. People are a little leery about buying English Muffins. They are a not so common food here so at times one may see advertising to encourage people to buy these delicious breakfast treats.

Directions:

1) Cut the muffin into two pieces.

2) Toast the muffin.

3) Butter and eat.

4) Yum! (our addition)

Since the supermarkets depend on the buyer's demand we are constant buyers of these yummies. We wouldn't want these delicious breakfast items to disappear from the store shelves. This being said, when selecting a package we often exlcaim rather loudly, "Delicious," and various other words to let other shoppers know the truth of these great English Muffins.

Here we have a picture of a picture of us!! Surprisingly, we discovered that we were in the newpaper over a year ago (yes, it seems that bulletin boards are not often updated as in other places we know...). In this picture we are playing a traditional Japanese drum at an event we went to with a couple of our students. Being the only obvious foreigners there...........

This weekend we ventured out to watch the school cheerleaders, many of which also participate in English Club, at the Cultural Center.

Goooo TooooGijuku!!!!

Spare Time?

Due to our cabin fever we had ample time to entertain ourselves by making a music video. Of course, we couldn't make a music video to just any old song- we had to go with a classic. So, we hope you all enjoy it, because we definitely enjoyed making it (maybe a little too much!)

Scouting Tokyo

We decided to take a mini trip to tropical Tokyo, well at least much warmer than the distant lands of Hirosaki. We welcomed in the New Year in Hirosaki with 3 feet of snow--smothering cars but definitely not stalling traffic...

We learned a new trick from the locals to shovel snow...use your car to push the snow, or ram it so you can park your car, after which you repeatedly back-up your car to pack the snow down--efficient? Well, it doesn't help us since we are on foot, although Travis has nicknamed himself Billy the Dozer as he pushes the snow around with his not-quite-so-nice black boots since nobody seems to want to shovel the large quantities of snow.

Anyway, Tokyo was quite delightful besides the fact that we were running around the city trying to take all the sights in. Our mission was to scout out Tokyo for the coming of Angie's mom and aunt this spring. We came up with some nice ideas.

Tokyo has a huge fish market that boasts masses of tuna and other strange edible...things.

We also got to spend a stupendous day with a friend of ours in Yokohama!! The second of the three days we were in Tokyo we spent in Yokohama just hanging out and having fun. We visited Saori's home and she took us on a tour of her school, which is located on the top of a mountain. Yes, literally the top of a very steep mountain which she must walk up every day to get to school. Although it is a difficult trek, the view is quite incredible.

Of course all outings together call for some "purikura" which is the oh so famous photo booths. As you can see we threw off all our worries and enjoyed looking ridiculous!!

We continued our joyous activities at a karaoke box singing our hearts out for 4 hours. We were quite amazed with Saori's Michael Jackson impersonation of which she sang, nearly all memorized. All the favorites were had: Chicago, Billy Joel, The Bangles, Cyndi Lauper, Coldplay, and even some Lady Gaga and Madonna.

After filling ourselves with the 4 hours of karaoke, we ventured off to fill ourselves with some amazing food. Although not tempting in America, TGI Friday's is unbearably tempting in Japan where food like this is quite scarce. We had all the fixin's: quesadilla's, mac-n-cheese bites, buffalo wings, BBQ-ed pork ribs, a HUGE sandwich, and even some dessert.

Since it was Saori's birthday, well actually it's in about 3 weeks but hey this is the only time we got to see her, she got a free banana split and they even sang to her!- which is quite unheard of here.

We followed dinner with a stroll around the habor area taking pictures and just chatting. We decided that Yokohama is much better than Tokyo, but that might be because Saori is a really cool friend. We really enjoyed our trip to Yokohama and hanging out with Saori. We are definitely looking forward to our next trip to Yokohama to finish seeing everything we missed, but more so to spend more time with Saori. So Yokohama is definitely a must see for Angie's mom and aunt.

Our last day in Tokyo we spent shopping and visiting some popular temples. At this time of year the temples are overflowing with people coming to pay their New Year's respects so it turned out to be an interesting event to watch. The rest of the time we spent wandering the streets of Ueno taking in some interesting sights.