Japan- The Good and the Ugly

Over the last week we have seen some of the great things of Japan as well as some of the not-so-great things of Japan. I suppose we should start with the bad and progress our way to the more positive things.

Probably the worst thing about Japan is the fact that they still love their cigarettes over here. This means when you go to a restaurant you want to die because the smoke is so thick, and it billows over the "wall" that they put up to separate the smokers and the non-smokers. For some reason, unbeknownst to us, these walls always only make it to about 2 feet below the ceiling and have a huge open door that allows all of the smoke to make its way out to the non-smoking customers. Anyway, this trend of smoking leads to some pretty ostentacious advertising that would NEVER be seen anywhere in America! It seems for the Japanese that smoking will cause you to form large muscles and look good in mini-tight-jean shorts (a.k.a. jorts)--soooo sexy, I better go buy me some Winstons!

Moving onto less uglier things, but almost just as frustrating as smoke.. .the elusive oven. Since our microwave/oven (though not really an oven) has slowly been diminishing in power, we decided to ask our school to buy us a new one, and they were kind eniough to give us the money to buy one. So, we went out and bought ourselves a "real" oven/microwave. Though outwardly it still looks like a microwave, it doesn't have the spinning circle thing that microwaves have, so it must be a real oven, right?! Well, we still can't decide if it's a microwave or an oven, but unfortunately we're going to have to go with the former over the latter, even though it is an upgrade from our last hunk-a-junk!

Finally, we have something in Japanese culture that is truely neat and has no ugliness about it- 1,000 cranes. These cranes took one of our students about 1 year to make, and she very kindly gave them to us as a gift because we were so mesmerized by the weight and uniqueness of this craft! Though the cranes are very tiny, when put together they're actually quite heavy. This picture just doesn't do justice for how neat it is! If only all things in Japan could make us as happy as these cranes and the student who gave them to us!

Birthday Blog

Well, this last weekend was Trav's last birthday in J-pan, so we tried to go out in style..

This included a total 30 mile bike ride on the backroads of Japan to Kuroishi (a small town near Hirosaki) and the kokeshi (wooden doll) museum. We've been wanting to go to the kokeshi museum for a long time, so we figured a nice birthday-bike ride would be a good time to go. However, upon our arrival, we realized the 3 1/2 hour bike ride to get there wasn't worth the rather small museum of endless kokeshi dolls on display. Once you've seen one wooden doll, you've seen them all. There were some cute tiny ones and some unique ones, but still, we quickly realized the journey was much better than the goal itself.

Of course after 9 hours on a bike, we decided to stay home for the night and make pizza and simply relax for the next day.

On Trav's official birth-date (Sunday) we had a picnic in the park with some Settlers, went to an Azelia Festival in Owani (though unfortunately they weren't in full bloom yet, but there was enough for it to still be rather pretty), and finished the day with some delicious pasta at a small local Italian restaurant.

All in all it was a rather good last birthday in Japan!

Happy Quince de Mayo!?

Yes, you read correctly, we had a Quince de Mayo party for our English club.. it was actually to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but we were a little late and had it on the 15th of May! None of our students have ever tried Mexican food, so we thought it would be fun to open their eyes to the deliciousness of authentic Mexican food (and by authentic we mean bought in a Mexican supermarket in Marshalltown, Iowa).

This was a shorter party, but we enjoyed the wonderful food, which included tacos, taco dip, spanish rice, mexican rice, rice pudding (alot of rice!), spanish peanuts, empanadas, pistachio gelatin stuff, and of course, it wouldn't be a Mexican party without Jumex!

The party was complete with Mexican music from Guadalahara (spelling?), the oh-so-famous telenovellas (Spanish soap operas), in which our students had to "translate" what was going on into English and perform their version of it, and of course the beloved game, Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Here is the winning skit for the telenovella (the winners won ring-pops, which in turn dyed their mouths blue and dark red!)

We finished the party with tie-dying our English Club shirts, which we will later decorate with puff paint.

Family Vacation

Well, for the last week and a half we have been sight-seeing the local area and Tokyo like new-born tourists to Japan because Angie's Mom and Aunt Marilee came to visit. We did all sorts of activities and ventured out to all the famous sight-seeing spots. Here are some of the high-lights, though these pictures don't even begin to describe all the fun, food, and aching feet and muscles that were experienced!!

Of course we had to go to school so our students could meet them!!


and we enjoyed the beautiful cherry blossoms in the morning, for o-hanami, and of course late at night!!


we spent a day in Aomori and went to the Jomon site, the giant Buddha, and the ASPM building


then in Tokyo we enjoyed the fish market, Tokyo Tower, Asakusa, shopping, many other things, and as you can see from the picture above, the Imperial Palace gardens


we even got to go to Yokohama and meet up with Saori where we rode the giant ferris wheel, went up the Landmark Tower, and had a delicious Japanese meal.. and tried "slurping" ramen.. needless to say a good time was had!