Things we love about Japan!

Though we have been rather busy and not been able to blog, we have not been up to anything too exciting, so we thought we would show you some of the things we love about Japan!

First, we have *all of the best American fast food restaurants:

These are the only American restaurants so we must be happy with what we have.

In Japan, or at least in Hirosaki, there are miirors at the corners/turns of every road so you can see if a car is coming around the corner.. . it may seem silly but it has probably saved our lives many a time while riding our bicycles!!

As you can see if you look very closely in the mirror on the left a big bus was coming our way, and seeing it in the mirror we were able to dodge it!

Almost everyone rides their bikes so there are always huge parking spaces for bikes, and they are always at the front of the store.. . talk about rock-star parking!

You have to take your shoes off whenever you go into a nice restaurant, store, or any house.. makes picking out your shoes easy since you won't be wearing them anyway

And last, but certainly not least, they have monopoly, in Japanese/English! It's not quite as good as Settlers, but we will have to make do for now :)

Well, we will blog more later when we have some exciting news to share or just to share some more of Japan with you! We love and miss you all very much!

A Day in the Life of Angie & Travis

We thought you all might like to see a "normal" day in our lives, so here it goes...

We have to dress all professional of course and hurry up so we can catch the 7:30 train.

While on the train we spend some time listening to our music or watching clips of the office on our Zun since it’s about a 25 minute train ride.

We finally arrive at the school (To-o-gijuku) where we have a most wonderful view of the mountain (this is from our cafeteria window).

We have chapel every morning and this is the chapel where we will be giving our sermons to over 1,000 students/teachers!! Kind of scary! But very exciting!

We may have to go to the bathroom a few times throughout the day.

At the end of the day we get back on the train at the station by the school and head toward home.

Everyday we pass this wonderful shrine next to our apartment and finally arrive home.

Our apartment's name when translated to English is called, "the shrine apartments"

We usually put some rice on and let it cook for an hour while we run some errands on our bikes. We may have to go to the local grocery store, go down Dotimachi to get to the 100 yen shop at Joppal or to Ito Yokado for some crepes.

This is Dotimachi street, the biggest street in Hirosaki, Ito Yokado and Joppal (the main department stores in Hirosaki)

Then, we come back home, eat some supper (we don’t always eat with chopsticks!)

And maybe end the night at Mister Donut!

So, that is a "normal" day for us! Hope you enjoyed :)

Sakura Party

This weekend was the start of the cherry blossom festival in Hirosaki. It is famous in this area because Hirosaki used to be a castle town a long time ago. Thousands of people come to see all the pretty cherry trees and to eat lots of food...seems familiar...however there were a few noticable differences...

Yummy!! octopus tentacles on a stick!! Along with snail on a stick!

Mini-octopus!!

And of course fried fish on a stick!

We tried to stick! with the better looking foods!

Chocolate Banana!!

Oh yes, we have decided we won't be losing any weight while living in Japan. They enjoy their sweets even more than Americans!

But this is really what Sakura is all about!!

Sakura means cherry blossoms but viewing the cherry blossoms has a special name: hanami. Hanami looks a bit like this...

And of course a festival wouldn't be a festival without some tulips!!! Reminds us of home :)

Breaking news!!!

Our first real Japanese meal....

This was the first of many parties to attend this month for the new school year. This night we went to dinner with the first year teachers. A rowdy bunch as you can see especially with the saki :)!

A round of saki to start off the night.

First course was a dish of sashimi otherwise known as raw fish!! Yes, Angie tried them all! There was tuna, yellow fin, and scallop. Surprisingly they all tasted pretty good minus the raw texture!

Next was the grilled hatsumashi, a local only fish. Yum! Yum! Travis did eat most of it. A bit like bass...

And to finish it all off a live concert of shimasen which is kind of like a three stringed banjo. The guy is one of the best in Japan. He got 2nd last year in the national competition and is expected to get 1st this year. The shimasen body is made of dog skin, but in our area it is made of cat skin! The instrument costs a total of 200 million yen or 2 million dollars!! Here's a clip of his music.

Some Good Shots!

Look! our new apartment! Isn't it nice and cosy. We love our new home except for the fact that they don't insulate their buildings so it is always rather chilly...to the point we can see our breath--inside our house!

Here is our beautiful mountian from the eyes of our own camera. Check in this weekend to see "hanami" or cherry blossom viewing. And see we are determined to reach the top of that mountian!

This is a view of the city from Ito Yokado, one of the bigger department stores reaching 8 stories. The Japanese don't have malls; they have very tall department stores with every thing you can find: 100 yen shops (a dollar store! but even betterbecause they have literally everything and everything is really a dollar!), food, grocery, arcade, high end clothing, picture booths (whole sections of them!), kimono shops, and our favorite--thrift stores! And better yet--thrift stores with imported used american clothing! Unfortunately, Travis has not found a Member's Only jacket...at least not in a color he doesn't already have (they had green, gray, and blue!!!!).

Here we are sporting our main mode of transportation. Although dangerous due to insane drivers, we can get lost almost everywhere since we haven't figured out the crazy maze of streets!! Thanks to the Armstrongs who left these golden oldies behind for us! Sweet baskets!

We have our home address so if you want it just drop us an email: appelgates@gmail.com

Hope you enjoy this episode. Stay tuned for "A Day in the Life of the A-Team" and "Hanami Picnic Party."

Naked Bath Parties

Hey everyone, Sorry for not blogging lately but we just got internet today so now we will blog more often with less long blogs.

We had our first days of school last week! Things went well but we only introduced ourselves so no biggy. The students are very nervous to speak english so they don't speak much. Our challenge will be to get them comfortable instead of teaching them english!! We also are helping Haruna with the english club. Just tonight we had a party at our apartment with the five girls in english club and Haruna and Ako. It was really fun!! They showed us how to make curry and rice, and we taught them cool music like N'sync and Hanson. We hope to cook them an American casserole in the future. Angie is also helping with the Cheerleading club and is very, very excited!!

(notice how everyone is doing the peace sign!! very cool in Japan!!!)

Haruna and Seth (her american husband!) took us to a hot spring, which is really a public bath. Yes, you bath with strangers and yeah we hang out with our coworkers naked. But!, the bath we went to is seperated by sex. However, there are coed baths...not for us!! They are really nice though and are very popular in Japan. It really isn't as awkward as it seems once you are there!



Today we got a visit from an unlikely stranger...can you guess...they come to your door and may try to entice you with pamphlets so they can go to heaven...Yep!! The Japanese Jehovah's Witness!! Angie was home alone but Travis came home just in time to "witness" the event. He didn't speak much english unfortunately and we didn't get any pamphlets!--boo! Also, there can be seen wandering the streets Mormons and they also go to the Japanese class we go to!! Looks like we got some competition here as well :)

We are really beginning to enjoy our new home. Life here isn't so bad once you tone out the mumbling of japanese you can't understand and find some food to eat (for lunch today we had pancakes and rice with sugar on top! and once we burnt a pizza in our mini oven fueled by kerosene). It is definitely not boring iowa with corn fields forever. We have a volcano to wake up to every morning. It is HUGE!! and very cool. someday we are going to climb it hopefully this summer!

Mmmmm, burnt pizza!!

Can you see our oven, yeah i can't either!!

Here are some more "fun" things we are getting used to!

• You get gifts for everything! When we signed up for our bank accounts the bank gave us gifts. Travis got dish soap and Angie got some food wrap and a magnetic pen/pad set :)


• People talk to each other according to gender. Males talk to males and females talk to females. It is very funny and can sometimes be awkward!

• When the Japanese people want to tell you not to do something they will often tell you that you "won't be popular" if you do it, rather than just saying, hey you shouldn't do that.

• You can buy beer and cigarettes in vendy machines! How convenient :)

• Everything in Japan comes in mini-sizes, mini cars, mini ice cream cones, you name it, they have it in a mini size!!

Well that is all for now, we will post soon! Please keep us up to date on what is going on in your lives! We love you and miss you!