(11/6) Friday- Eric made it to work today, and was able to stay the whole day! He is doing so much better :) He even felt like getting out and walking around after work today!
We went to the mall in Goshogowara to look for some warm winter boots for me since they are on sale this weekend. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful, mostly because shoes are my second least favorite item to shop for (after jeans) so I got frustrated and gave up. It's hard enough to shop for shoes in the states, let alone in Japan where I'm pretty sure the average shoe size is.... well tiny. We experienced a delicious new treat while at the mall... it's called Kakigori, and it's like nothing I have ever experienced before. We like to call "Space Cream", it's an Asian version of Shave Ice... not at all like ShaveD ice... somewhat like Shave ice. Imagine cold cotton candy, that's not sticky... i guess it's impossible to explain and I promise if you come visit we will take you to try it.Tonight was ladies night and I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it because it was an overnight event and I didn't want to leave Eric alone over night. The girls were enjoying a complimentary nights stay at the ski resort and it all sounded so fabulous! What is better than a free ladies night at the resort with unlimited use of the amazing onsen... well, when you're husband gets to come too! Late Friday night the girls called to say that quite a few people had bailed and they now had an entirely empty room so I should come and bring Eric! So we packed our bag and headed up the mountain.
Eric had planned on just hanging out in our room while I hung out with the girls for a few hours but they insisted that he hang out too. So it was me, Allison, and Katie and two of their Japanese girlfriends, and Eric. It was quite entertaining. The Japanese girls had never heard of the game MASH before (6th grade anyone?) so we had to teach them! In the process we learned that Eric didn't know what it was either... so of course we made him play too. We had such a nice relaxing, spontaneous, free, stay-cation. It was fabulous! We are pretty excited too because another free nights stay-cation awaits us! Eric bought a season pass to the ski mountain which comes with a free night stay! Woo Hoo! It will be nice to get out of the house for a night and be able to ski so easily!(11/7) Saturday- Today we went to a park that is about an hour away to look at the amazing fall colors one last time before it is all buried by solid white sheets of snow! On our drive we were reminded of just how much we should cherish it... they were setting up the snow/wind retaining walls and they look to be about 15 feet tall. Also, the reflector poles on the sides of the road to show you were the edges are have doubled in height, they are at least 6 feet tall now. Winter coming... fast! While at the park we took some time to soak in the beauty and play in the massive amounts of leaves! Since it is the end of the season, many of leaves have fallen already, which of course provides great piles of leaves for jumping in, when I get the photos from Katie I will post those too.
After our foliage adventures Eric and I ventured off to Hirosaki city. When Eric bought his skis we got $45.00 in store credit so we went on our free shopping spree! The Free Theme to the weekend has been quite nice :) We got him poles and a ski mask and I got an exercise ball and we both found nice winter fleece jackets in the clearance section! It was fantastic! After that shopping extravaganza we stopped into one of our favorite local restaurants... aka Pizza Hut and got a pizza to go and had pizza and a movie at home! We watched Narnia- The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I had never seen it before, or read the books and I thought it was truly fantastic!
(11/8) Sunday- We had a truly productive and lazy Sunday morning. It sounds strange, I know. But it all worked out somehow! Then we went back to Goshogowara to search for a Samurai sword and hopefully winter boots. And we found both! We went back to this great little recycle shop that we have visited before and we got a Samurai sword, a metal box filled with old traditional Japanese "dice" - they are flat sticks made from what we think is bone and there are colored dots on them, and we bought an old Japanese fan. We love the little treasures that we find! After that we headed into the mall with a little more motivation and I found boots, and they were still on sale :) Tonight for dinner we really wanted Thai food, which is unfortunately a lost cause in our area so we decided to make a traditional Japanese dish at home instead. I made Zaru Soba, the noodles are served seperately on whicker plate and the sauce is served in a small cup and you place the noodles one bite at a time in the sauce. It actually turned out quite well, was very simple and super cheap to make
(11/9) Monday- After a long, yet fantastic weekend, we had a nice quiet day at home. Of course Eric had to go to work today :/ I also remembered that in a previous package from Eric's parents they mailed us some yellow curry, all was not lost with our Thai food cravings... so we made some delicious Thai chicken curry at home. It got us even more excited for family vacation, the food is going to be sooo amazing!! I am determined to find a grocery store while we are there and stock up on some supplies!
(11/10) Tuesday- It was a gross rainy day today, which for us generally means we need to escape the house! Even though we have been out a lot recently... we went out again! We were finally able to figure out the movie times/language schedule, and it was the perfect day to do it because Tuesday is couples night at the theater so its only ni-cen-yen (2000 Yen or $22.64) for us both to see a movie. Now, in the states if someone told me to pay $11 for a movie ticket I would probably laugh and walk away.. but it was a very nice treat for us here! Our choices were "Good-Bad-Weird" which we had heard nothing about and "The Proposal" which we at least knew the title of. So The Proposal won! We also had popcorn and soda! Once inside the theater, if you looked past the Japanese subtitles.. it was easy to forget that we were in Japan. Especially because there were only 2 other people in the theater, and yes they were Japanese. As soon as the movie was over and we walked out and Japanese lady met us to sort our trash for us and throw it into the respective bins we realized exactly where we were again. It was such a fun experience! Fortunately the 2 English options don't change very frequently so we wont be tempted to over-indulge in movie outings.
(11/11) Wednesday- Today we got mail! Lots of it! We got a cute Frankenstein card from my dear friend Kristina and we got a package from Eric's parents... which lead to bean burritos for dinner! YUMMY! We also went to the onsen again, ok so I guess it's time to admit... we're addicted. This time we bought a 10 pack of tickets so it's even cheaper to go know. At least you don't have to worry about us being smelly :)
the pictures are amazing! so are the adventures! love you both
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