Admittedly we are not good at blogging regularly and not good at giving snapshots of our everyday life in Japan. Since Joe started his job, I've seen lots of updates on his Facebook from people who have just arrived in Japan. They are better at those updates than we are. Oops.
I realize it has been a long time since we updated, but the thing is, our everyday life in Japan is pretty unremarkable. We're in a new, foreign country across the world from St. Louis, but honestly, life is still pretty much the same. We still get up and go to work every day (well, I do at least, and now Joe will, too). We still play video games and watch Netflix together in the evenings. We still have to meal plan (or attempt to) and go grocery shopping and go get random things like cleaning products. It's interesting because so much of this big adventure is not adventurous at all.
Yes, our conversations with the people around us are very different now and I often learn new things about Japanese culture from them. Yes, we go out for ramen and okonomiyaki and super fresh sushi instead of Mexican food or American bar food. Yes, we go on fun excursions on weekends and have exciting plans to travel all around Japan in the next 8 months, seeing and experiencing lots of new and exciting things. But, overall, day-to-day life hasn't changed very much.
I hope that if you are considering possibly moving abroad at some point in the future (I'm looking at you, Rachel and Kaila), that you find that comforting. I know that I do. If I want an adventure, it's always there waiting for me (i.e. we are going to a cat cafe tomorrow), but if I want to just have some time where things are comfortable and familiar, it is always there.
Soon to come (maybe this weekend, but no promises) is a post all about my second favorite store in Japan: Daiso (a.k.a. the 100 yen store). I took a TON of pictures to give you a virtual tour. :) Also to come, adventures at the cat care and in Okayama.
And next month... TOKYO! :)
P.S. The title of this blog is a reference to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n3OAc5TgrY It has been on my mind lately when I get sentimental about home and especially about Supercamp.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Sunday, August 9, 2015
People keep saying I need to post a blog update...
So I will. Writings about the past few weeks will be up here, pictures from the last few weeks at the bottom of the post.
Things have been really good lately. Like I hit the rock bottom of feelings about the move across the world when I wrote that blog post a month ago and things have just gone up and up since kind of good... well, all things except our roach problem buuuut we'll get to that joyful tidbit later.
I THINK I mentioned that Joe accepted a job teaching English in Okayama. If not, he did. He starts training one week from today and he is excited and ready to start. I am still loving my job every day, whch is a huge blessing. I'm starting to feel more confident with it and I feel like I'm "getting the hang of things" as far as being an English teacher goes. I think (hope) my lessons are getting better and I am getting better at coming up with and finding new ideas for games and activities to do with the kiddos.
Two weeks ago we went down to Hiroshima city and went to CostCo. Not a joke. We bought some (much-needed since it's hard to come by) cheese and Nutella and some other random stuff. We also went to Hiroshima castle, which was cool. After that, we went to watch the fireworks at the summer festival in Hiroshima. The Japanese do not play around when it comes to fireworks. It was an hour long fireworks show with awesome fireworks that I have never seen before. We loved it. We get to see more next weekend at the big Fukuyama summer festival. We also ate a lot of delicious festival food, as always. I'm not sure how we'll survive without festival food once they end next weekend. We seriously go almost every weekend to the small street food festival in Fukuyama that takes place every Saturday. やきそば, かきご... おいいし! (Yakisoba - fried noodles, kakigori - amazing sno cones with sweetened condensed milk poured over the top... delicious!) Seriously, though, guys. Japanese festival food rocks my world.
Anyway, last week we had our first visitor! :) Hailey came to visit us for a week. She got to come to school with me and see all my little cutie pie students. We also ate a ton of different Japanese foods. Her favorite was okonomiyaki, which is my favorite, too. It is the bomb dot com (what does that even mean?). We also went to several places around this area of Japan. On Friday I took a vacation day from work and we went to Kurashiki. In Kurashiki there is a historical district that has original rice warehouse buildings from the Edo and Meiji period of Japan. It is so beautiful. I wanted so badly to just walk along the canal while wearing a gorgeous kimono and then sit in the Japanese garden and drink green tea. But seriously, that's really how it made me feel. It is cool to see a little of old Japan since where we live is very modern Japan. We took a boat down the canal in super tourist fashion, sat in the Japanese garden, and shopped in all of the little unique shops (like the one that was completely dedicated to cat merchandise and even two real cats in a big glass thing where you could watch them. We bought a really pretty wall scroll to brighten up the walls of our apartment and Hailey found some fun souvenirs.
After that we went down to Tomonoura and Sensuijima again (I have posted pictures from there before) in order to go camping on the island. We were ill-prepared for camping... for some reason, we thought we might be able to rent bedding of some kind... I don't really know what we were thinking. Anyway, we brought pillows but no bedding of any kind so we just laid on the tatami mat and covered ourselves with extra clothes. It was ridiculous, but actually not the first time I have had to do that (I'm looking at you, Phi Lamb officer retreat). We froze at night because we didn't have blankets, and then the next morning we went hiking to the top of the mountain on Sesuijima and sweat so much we could have filled a kiddy pool. That's a disgusting mental image, but sadly accurate. After that, Hailey and I went to the beach and went swimming. It was super fun. Joe was too scared of jellyfish to swim with us (in his defense, we did see a giant one as we were getting off the ferry). Then we went home and napped before going to get festival food. The next day we went to Hiroshima city again. This time we went to Peace Park and to the Atomic Bomb Peace Museum. It was very heavy and very sad. We "enjoyed" our visit (as in, it was sobering and enlightening and we were glad we went) but it was very emotional. After that, we just walked around the city and spent a lot of time shopping in awesome stores (like the giant Pokemon store, this fantastic store with tons of character merchandise [think Disney, Winnie the Pooh, Japanese cartoon characters, etc.]). It was super fun. Hailey found lots of Anpanman things, which is a terrifying Japanese T.V. show character who is ridiculously popular here. Seriously every single kid loves him. It's an old T.V. show that started in the 70's (I think... Hailey would know, she researched it) and still plays current episodes I think. HE IS EVERYWHERE. My school has Anpanman dishes for lunch, playground equipment outside, tatami mats, etc. Hailey loves him. I still am unsettled by him (especially because HE FEEDS HIS HEAD TO CHILDREN - he is made out of bread, by the way) but Hailey helped me come around to him a teensy bit since she made me watch the show, ha ha. We also popped by Hiroshima castle, but unfortunately we couldn't go to the top because it was closed.
Sidebar: Here is Anpanman in all his glory:
Anyway, we had a great time with Hailey and all too soon it was time for her to go home. :(
This weekend we have just been relaxing and enjoy some down time. We have Skyped and called lots of people back home, and this morning we went with our new church to Sensuijima again because someone was being baptized on the beach. We didn't get to stay long, but we will probably go back to the beach to swim one more time next weekend before they are closed for the season (due to jellyfish). We FINALLY bought our own tubes and mat to sit on, after failing to do so three different times before, today included. So next weekend, we will be prepared. I have Thursday and Friday off for holidays so we will probably go on Thursday. We also have plans with the teachers from one of my schools to go to the beach, BBQ and watch the fireworks on Saturday.
In unrelated news, I keep tricking people into thinking I speak Japanese. It's a good feeling. AND I had an exchange with someone in which I was able to respond TWICE in Japanese. That was also a good feeling. I am now taking Japanese tutoring once per week. My tutor is super nice and is a great tutor. She taught Japanese in Russia for three years, from ages 23-26 (she is 29 now), so she knows how I feel here in Japan. She also likes cats and sent me links to a cat cafe near us (where you can go order drinks and pet cats - I can't wait to go!) and a display at the art museum of famous cat pictures. She's super sweet and I'm really enjoying my lessons with her. She is teaching me a lot of useful Japanese.
This is a ridiculously long blog post. If you made it through all of it, thanks for caring so much about our lives. Now you can flip through our pictures. :) Pro tip about the pictures, again: if you clip on one, it will maximize it and then you can flip through with the arrow key on your keyboard.
Until next time, っまたね!
Two weekends ago in Hiroshima:
Things have been really good lately. Like I hit the rock bottom of feelings about the move across the world when I wrote that blog post a month ago and things have just gone up and up since kind of good... well, all things except our roach problem buuuut we'll get to that joyful tidbit later.
I THINK I mentioned that Joe accepted a job teaching English in Okayama. If not, he did. He starts training one week from today and he is excited and ready to start. I am still loving my job every day, whch is a huge blessing. I'm starting to feel more confident with it and I feel like I'm "getting the hang of things" as far as being an English teacher goes. I think (hope) my lessons are getting better and I am getting better at coming up with and finding new ideas for games and activities to do with the kiddos.
Two weeks ago we went down to Hiroshima city and went to CostCo. Not a joke. We bought some (much-needed since it's hard to come by) cheese and Nutella and some other random stuff. We also went to Hiroshima castle, which was cool. After that, we went to watch the fireworks at the summer festival in Hiroshima. The Japanese do not play around when it comes to fireworks. It was an hour long fireworks show with awesome fireworks that I have never seen before. We loved it. We get to see more next weekend at the big Fukuyama summer festival. We also ate a lot of delicious festival food, as always. I'm not sure how we'll survive without festival food once they end next weekend. We seriously go almost every weekend to the small street food festival in Fukuyama that takes place every Saturday. やきそば, かきご... おいいし! (Yakisoba - fried noodles, kakigori - amazing sno cones with sweetened condensed milk poured over the top... delicious!) Seriously, though, guys. Japanese festival food rocks my world.
Anyway, last week we had our first visitor! :) Hailey came to visit us for a week. She got to come to school with me and see all my little cutie pie students. We also ate a ton of different Japanese foods. Her favorite was okonomiyaki, which is my favorite, too. It is the bomb dot com (what does that even mean?). We also went to several places around this area of Japan. On Friday I took a vacation day from work and we went to Kurashiki. In Kurashiki there is a historical district that has original rice warehouse buildings from the Edo and Meiji period of Japan. It is so beautiful. I wanted so badly to just walk along the canal while wearing a gorgeous kimono and then sit in the Japanese garden and drink green tea. But seriously, that's really how it made me feel. It is cool to see a little of old Japan since where we live is very modern Japan. We took a boat down the canal in super tourist fashion, sat in the Japanese garden, and shopped in all of the little unique shops (like the one that was completely dedicated to cat merchandise and even two real cats in a big glass thing where you could watch them. We bought a really pretty wall scroll to brighten up the walls of our apartment and Hailey found some fun souvenirs.
After that we went down to Tomonoura and Sensuijima again (I have posted pictures from there before) in order to go camping on the island. We were ill-prepared for camping... for some reason, we thought we might be able to rent bedding of some kind... I don't really know what we were thinking. Anyway, we brought pillows but no bedding of any kind so we just laid on the tatami mat and covered ourselves with extra clothes. It was ridiculous, but actually not the first time I have had to do that (I'm looking at you, Phi Lamb officer retreat). We froze at night because we didn't have blankets, and then the next morning we went hiking to the top of the mountain on Sesuijima and sweat so much we could have filled a kiddy pool. That's a disgusting mental image, but sadly accurate. After that, Hailey and I went to the beach and went swimming. It was super fun. Joe was too scared of jellyfish to swim with us (in his defense, we did see a giant one as we were getting off the ferry). Then we went home and napped before going to get festival food. The next day we went to Hiroshima city again. This time we went to Peace Park and to the Atomic Bomb Peace Museum. It was very heavy and very sad. We "enjoyed" our visit (as in, it was sobering and enlightening and we were glad we went) but it was very emotional. After that, we just walked around the city and spent a lot of time shopping in awesome stores (like the giant Pokemon store, this fantastic store with tons of character merchandise [think Disney, Winnie the Pooh, Japanese cartoon characters, etc.]). It was super fun. Hailey found lots of Anpanman things, which is a terrifying Japanese T.V. show character who is ridiculously popular here. Seriously every single kid loves him. It's an old T.V. show that started in the 70's (I think... Hailey would know, she researched it) and still plays current episodes I think. HE IS EVERYWHERE. My school has Anpanman dishes for lunch, playground equipment outside, tatami mats, etc. Hailey loves him. I still am unsettled by him (especially because HE FEEDS HIS HEAD TO CHILDREN - he is made out of bread, by the way) but Hailey helped me come around to him a teensy bit since she made me watch the show, ha ha. We also popped by Hiroshima castle, but unfortunately we couldn't go to the top because it was closed.
Sidebar: Here is Anpanman in all his glory:
Anyway, we had a great time with Hailey and all too soon it was time for her to go home. :(
This weekend we have just been relaxing and enjoy some down time. We have Skyped and called lots of people back home, and this morning we went with our new church to Sensuijima again because someone was being baptized on the beach. We didn't get to stay long, but we will probably go back to the beach to swim one more time next weekend before they are closed for the season (due to jellyfish). We FINALLY bought our own tubes and mat to sit on, after failing to do so three different times before, today included. So next weekend, we will be prepared. I have Thursday and Friday off for holidays so we will probably go on Thursday. We also have plans with the teachers from one of my schools to go to the beach, BBQ and watch the fireworks on Saturday.
In unrelated news, I keep tricking people into thinking I speak Japanese. It's a good feeling. AND I had an exchange with someone in which I was able to respond TWICE in Japanese. That was also a good feeling. I am now taking Japanese tutoring once per week. My tutor is super nice and is a great tutor. She taught Japanese in Russia for three years, from ages 23-26 (she is 29 now), so she knows how I feel here in Japan. She also likes cats and sent me links to a cat cafe near us (where you can go order drinks and pet cats - I can't wait to go!) and a display at the art museum of famous cat pictures. She's super sweet and I'm really enjoying my lessons with her. She is teaching me a lot of useful Japanese.
This is a ridiculously long blog post. If you made it through all of it, thanks for caring so much about our lives. Now you can flip through our pictures. :) Pro tip about the pictures, again: if you clip on one, it will maximize it and then you can flip through with the arrow key on your keyboard.
Until next time, っまたね!
Two weekends ago in Hiroshima:
Adventures with Hailey:
Kurashiki city
Children's Peace Memorial
All of these are paper cranes!
Phone dump:
This is what a typical lunch at school looks like for me. Well-rounded and delicious! That bowl is basically a stir-fry of vegetables, tofu and pork.
Pizza at CostCo, hollah!
Hiroshima
Running errands on a typical Sunday - walking to the grocery store and 100 yen store for household items
My cute bento things! Forgot to mention that we had a bring a bento day at work... my lunch paled in comparison to the lunch the children brought (see next few pictures).
Sushi with Hailey - her first time!
Cat store
Fukuyama's mascot - so cute!
Park near our apartment
Our grocery store and 100 yen store (it's a small mall with many stores)
There is a DELICIOUS ramen shop literally two doors down from us.... it's dangerous.
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