Last and Late Valentine's Day Party

Though we were a few weeks behind, we had our annual English Club Valentine's Day party last Saturday. This party was a little bittersweet because it is our final holiday party for our English Club. We'll be having a "Good-bye" party in a few weeks with some of our English Club members, but this was the last official English Club party.

Of course we ate lots of delicious sweets, including raspberry chocolate mousse, oreo pudding, strawberry cake, strawberry cheesecake, and a peanut butter cup dessert cake.

The festivities included a rhyming/unscramble the letters to make a word game, some lovey dovey related skits to commemorate what Valentine's Day is really all about, and of course, it wouldn't be a Valentine's Day party without some Spin the Bottle!!!! Before you start freaking out and think we forced our high school students to kiss one another, you must realize that we would never do that!! We ingeniously swapped kissing for asking questions! Now we said any question was okay, but the students still related all of their questions to love, friendship, or Valentine's Day, so we got some pretty interesting questions, such as, "How will you treat your girlfriend when you have one in the future?" or "What did you and your boyfriend do on Valentine's Day?" Though these seem like harmless questions, to Japanese high school students these are cheek-turning-red questions, even if they aren't the ones answering them!

All in all, it was a great final Valentine's Day party, and to make the day even better, it was followed up by a night at the movies watching the newest Narnia (Voyage of the Dawn Treader) in 3D!!!

31 on 31

On Friday we celebrated 31 days until we leave Japan and head for home. As we were walking to school exclaiming that we only have "31 days!!!" Travis decided to use the Japanese pronunciation of 31 that goes something like, "Sati won (31)!" which, unfortunately reminded us of Baskin Robbins here in Japan. We say unfortunately for 2 reasons:

First: Baskin Robbins' official name is "Baskin Robbins" NOT "31"

Second: IF you are going to call Baskin Robbins "31," you should atleast do it in correct English, not in Katakana (the Japanese pronunciation for foreign words) English!

In spite of these disturbing factors for us, we decided the best way to celebrate "Sati won" days until we go home was of course to go to "Sati won" (Baskin Robbins)!

6-Day Party!!!

We are currently in a 6-day weekend (yes, we can just say we have a week off from school, but 6-day weekend sounds much better!) due to a public holiday and testing at our school for the junior high students who want to attend To- O Gijuku next year. Luckily, the winter festival fell at exactly the same time as our holiday, so we got to spend Thursday night with friends marveling at all the amazing snow sculptures, eating yummy festival food, and riding down a snow-slide for kids!

Since we had a whole 6 days off, we thought we had better do something even more special, so we headed to Tokyo on the night bus.

On Saturday we spent our final day in Tokyo in our favorite place, Minato Mirai in Yokohama, with Saori. We did some random shopping and then headed to our special place- TGIFriday's to gorge ourselves! You see not only is this our special place where we always eat together when we come to Tokyo, but it was also a special occasion this time. Last April, the day after we returned from visiting America, we went on a morning run because we felt so gross from all the traveling, and upon our run, we happened to come across a bill laying on the ground! This wasn't just ANY bill, it was a 10000 yen bill (equivalent to a $100 bill)!!!! Well, after much deliberation and talking with friends and family, we decided to keep the bill and spend it on something special during our last year in Japan. And what better way to spend it than with one of our closest friends at our favorite restaurant!

Needless to say, by the end of the full-course meal- appetizers, burgers and fries, and 3 desserts- we were too stuffed to even talk! Eventually we made it back to the train station to head to our hotel where we rested up for the following day's adventure- Tokyo Disneyland!

We met two of our old students, Rei & Mizuho, at Disneyland bright and early and had a fun-filled day of rides, attractions, chatting, and delicious food! Some of our favorite rides and attractions were Big Thunder Mountain (an awesome roller coaster which was so good we had to ride it twice), Winnie the Pooh Honey Hunt, a just-opened attraction Mickey's Philhar-magic, and both the day and night parades!

We finished the night exhausted, yet greatly satisfied! It was nice to get to spend time with some of our old-students/friends as this will be one of the last times we'll get to see some of them!