December 17-23, 2009
I have now been apart from my big sister for 25 painstaking weeks... but in 3 (please be short) weeks, I will be picking her up from the airport in Thailand :) I cannot wait, and I am so thankful that I don't have to wait very much longer!!!!!
We are also excited because this weekend will be filled with skiing :) The ski mountain will in fact be open!!!
On a side note: Many of you have asked me about how the school systems in Japan work. On my crazed job hunt, I stumbled across this website: http://www.tjf.or.jp/shogakusei/exp/exp01_e.htm If you are interested in the Japanese school system, feel free to check it out.
Friday was the final night of Hanukkah, here is a picture of Eric with our homemade Menorah!
Here is the progression of snow over the past few days, the photos were taken 1 day apart:
We finally got to go skiing!! We went up to the mountain on Saturday and although the snow wasn't great yet, Eric hit the slopes while I sat inside and observed the skiers coming down the mountain, I actually think watching them will help me get this thing down! I had a pretty funny Gaijin (foreigner) Moment at the ski mountain....
While Eric enjoyed the slopes, I sat inside the nice warm burger joint and in between the pages of my book, I watched the skiers come down the mountain. Everyone around me was speaking Japanese of course, so it was easy to tone them out to read... with the exception of 2. There was a young boy in the food line with his mother, he was clearly upset that she was going to make him eat a hamburger, all he wanted was french fries, no burger. He wasn't hungry enough for it, he wasn't going to eat it, and he shouldn't be forced to.... Her reply was that he should stop acting like a 3-year-old, and he should eat what he is told and act 7-years-old. His response to this was that she was being mean, and embarrassing him. The mother's response was that they were in Japan and no one could understand them anyway, so he should get over it... then the young boy pointed directly across the room, right at me and proclaimed, "Oh YEAH!!! White Girl." He then went and sat down with his sister, as his Mom had nothing to say to that. A few minutes later he got up to get a glass of water and when he came back his Mom met him at the table with his french fries, and the stupid burger... he placed the burger on his seat and proceeded to sit on it. - It was absolutely hilarious. Although the Japanese in the room didn't understand the whole fight, they definitely caught on that the white girl understood why the little boy was so embarrassed. I think we should all take a lesson from this kid and realize you just don't know when someone else might know what you are talking about!
After skiing we went to Hirosaki to find a bookstore that supposedly has a great English section; by great I think they meant 3 shelves instead of 1. Eric found a book written by a Japanese author and I actually bought a small picture book in Japanese! I'm determined to read it, the ensentive of adorable photos of snow monkeys should help! We were so hungry we decided to eat dinner in Hirosaki before our drive home, and we decided to try a place called CoCo's Curry House that we have driven past on many occasions. It was a superb choice! First we were greeted by 2 very friendly hosts who showed us to a table and handed us their special international menu, it is 7 languages!!! I was so impressed. I was also quite surprised to discover that of the 7 languages, Spanish was not one of them. Most of my life, anytime that I would encounter something that was multi-lingual it was usually English, Spanish, and then others. I realized just how different our world is here! So we sorted through the extensive menu of Japanese Curries and made our selections! They even have half sizes, so we tried a few! The most interesting was Okra and Tofu Curry. I don't really recommend soft tofu in curry, I also had a chicken curry that was delicious, it was much like chinease style crispy chicken, in curry. Eric's was the big winner, Beef cutlet curry! Imagine chicken fried steak, in Japanese curry! OISHII おいしい !! (delicious!) We will be returning to CoCo's curry house the next time we have an excuse to get to Hirosaki!
On Sunday we woke up to winter going full force! There is at least 6 inches of snow on the ground now! We drove rather slowly to our dinner date at Rachel's tonight... in fact we had to turn around and take a different route because our trusty little K-car does not like deep snow! It took us an hour and a half to get there, and we expected it to take about 40 min, but it was well worth it! She made us a delicious un-stuffed pepper soup that was especially fantastic after a long, cold drive! We enjoyed dinner, and each others company, and of course... phase 10. We are teaching everyone we know! I had no idea that so few people knew how to play my favorite card game! It snowed quite a bit while we were enjoyed our dinner, so prior to leaving Eric had the pleasure of digging out the car, and finding the one car door that wasn't frozen shut! When we finally got home, the parking lot was so deep we didn't quite make it all the way into our spot... but close enough! People make up parking spots in Japan all the time, just not usually at their houses. The treck into our apartment was fun, good thing it's short, as the snow was above my knees!! We crossed our fingers for an unheard of snow day tomorrow!
Monday, there was even more snow! It must have snowed all night long. I had my first encounter with a snow shovel today... twice actually. The first time I went out I re-shoveled the pathway that someone thankfully made from the door out to the parking lot and then I shoveled about 6 square feet of knee deep snow so that we would be able to get the car out tonight. I also did my best to get the snow out from underneath our car so that hopefully it would go in reverse! Of course as soon as I came back inside, it dumped another 4 inches! So after lunch, back out I went!
The 2nd time around was much, much easier. Shoveling throughout the day is definitely the way to go, thanks for the tip Lisa! This time I also shoveled a path big enough for our car, meanwhile thinking about how thankful I am that it is small, to get from our spot at one end of the lot out to the street. Finally we were able to get the car our, so we headed into the town of Gosh to buy our bus tickets to get to Tokyo for our trip to Thailand, unfortunately a lot of other people had the idea before us, so it was rather complicated and MUCH more expensive, but we found a way! We also took our treck out to Gosh as an excuse to enjoy our delicious Udon shop, and boy did we enjoy it!! We came home and watched Pleasentville, which we have decided is a highly under-appreciated movie. If you havn't really watched it yet, you should. I think we all have something to learn from this too.
Wednesday was the celebration of the Emperor's Birthday, therefore NO SCHOOL!!! It was so nice to have Eric home during the middle of the week!! We had a wonderful relaxing day watching movies and cooking lots of delicious food together. We had planned on skiing today, but when we woke and discovered it was RAINING, that plan went out the window. Eric proposed a new family tradition for our little family, The Eve of Christmas Eve Gift!! Although it was a perfect day, I was still feeling a little down; being away from family and friends is extra extra hard right now, especially now that all of our friends here in Japan have gone home to celebrate the holidays. However, Eric's new plan saved the day. The only stipulation for the Eve of Christmas Eve gift, is that it must be something the family can enjoy together and be something that will allow us to spend some quality time together. The inaugural gift was Monopoly!!! Not just any Monopoly game, but the bi-lingual Japanese- English edition!! It's very cool, and will always be very special to us, probably more for me than for Eric seeing as how, much like my father, he plays it to make me happy not for his own personal gratification. Thanks Eric! I love it!!
We are also excited because this weekend will be filled with skiing :) The ski mountain will in fact be open!!!
On a side note: Many of you have asked me about how the school systems in Japan work. On my crazed job hunt, I stumbled across this website: http://www.tjf.or.jp/shogakusei/exp/exp01_e.htm If you are interested in the Japanese school system, feel free to check it out.
Friday was the final night of Hanukkah, here is a picture of Eric with our homemade Menorah!
Here is the progression of snow over the past few days, the photos were taken 1 day apart:
We finally got to go skiing!! We went up to the mountain on Saturday and although the snow wasn't great yet, Eric hit the slopes while I sat inside and observed the skiers coming down the mountain, I actually think watching them will help me get this thing down! I had a pretty funny Gaijin (foreigner) Moment at the ski mountain....
While Eric enjoyed the slopes, I sat inside the nice warm burger joint and in between the pages of my book, I watched the skiers come down the mountain. Everyone around me was speaking Japanese of course, so it was easy to tone them out to read... with the exception of 2. There was a young boy in the food line with his mother, he was clearly upset that she was going to make him eat a hamburger, all he wanted was french fries, no burger. He wasn't hungry enough for it, he wasn't going to eat it, and he shouldn't be forced to.... Her reply was that he should stop acting like a 3-year-old, and he should eat what he is told and act 7-years-old. His response to this was that she was being mean, and embarrassing him. The mother's response was that they were in Japan and no one could understand them anyway, so he should get over it... then the young boy pointed directly across the room, right at me and proclaimed, "Oh YEAH!!! White Girl." He then went and sat down with his sister, as his Mom had nothing to say to that. A few minutes later he got up to get a glass of water and when he came back his Mom met him at the table with his french fries, and the stupid burger... he placed the burger on his seat and proceeded to sit on it. - It was absolutely hilarious. Although the Japanese in the room didn't understand the whole fight, they definitely caught on that the white girl understood why the little boy was so embarrassed. I think we should all take a lesson from this kid and realize you just don't know when someone else might know what you are talking about!
After skiing we went to Hirosaki to find a bookstore that supposedly has a great English section; by great I think they meant 3 shelves instead of 1. Eric found a book written by a Japanese author and I actually bought a small picture book in Japanese! I'm determined to read it, the ensentive of adorable photos of snow monkeys should help! We were so hungry we decided to eat dinner in Hirosaki before our drive home, and we decided to try a place called CoCo's Curry House that we have driven past on many occasions. It was a superb choice! First we were greeted by 2 very friendly hosts who showed us to a table and handed us their special international menu, it is 7 languages!!! I was so impressed. I was also quite surprised to discover that of the 7 languages, Spanish was not one of them. Most of my life, anytime that I would encounter something that was multi-lingual it was usually English, Spanish, and then others. I realized just how different our world is here! So we sorted through the extensive menu of Japanese Curries and made our selections! They even have half sizes, so we tried a few! The most interesting was Okra and Tofu Curry. I don't really recommend soft tofu in curry, I also had a chicken curry that was delicious, it was much like chinease style crispy chicken, in curry. Eric's was the big winner, Beef cutlet curry! Imagine chicken fried steak, in Japanese curry! OISHII おいしい !! (delicious!) We will be returning to CoCo's curry house the next time we have an excuse to get to Hirosaki!
On Sunday we woke up to winter going full force! There is at least 6 inches of snow on the ground now! We drove rather slowly to our dinner date at Rachel's tonight... in fact we had to turn around and take a different route because our trusty little K-car does not like deep snow! It took us an hour and a half to get there, and we expected it to take about 40 min, but it was well worth it! She made us a delicious un-stuffed pepper soup that was especially fantastic after a long, cold drive! We enjoyed dinner, and each others company, and of course... phase 10. We are teaching everyone we know! I had no idea that so few people knew how to play my favorite card game! It snowed quite a bit while we were enjoyed our dinner, so prior to leaving Eric had the pleasure of digging out the car, and finding the one car door that wasn't frozen shut! When we finally got home, the parking lot was so deep we didn't quite make it all the way into our spot... but close enough! People make up parking spots in Japan all the time, just not usually at their houses. The treck into our apartment was fun, good thing it's short, as the snow was above my knees!! We crossed our fingers for an unheard of snow day tomorrow!
Monday, there was even more snow! It must have snowed all night long. I had my first encounter with a snow shovel today... twice actually. The first time I went out I re-shoveled the pathway that someone thankfully made from the door out to the parking lot and then I shoveled about 6 square feet of knee deep snow so that we would be able to get the car out tonight. I also did my best to get the snow out from underneath our car so that hopefully it would go in reverse! Of course as soon as I came back inside, it dumped another 4 inches! So after lunch, back out I went!
The 2nd time around was much, much easier. Shoveling throughout the day is definitely the way to go, thanks for the tip Lisa! This time I also shoveled a path big enough for our car, meanwhile thinking about how thankful I am that it is small, to get from our spot at one end of the lot out to the street. Finally we were able to get the car our, so we headed into the town of Gosh to buy our bus tickets to get to Tokyo for our trip to Thailand, unfortunately a lot of other people had the idea before us, so it was rather complicated and MUCH more expensive, but we found a way! We also took our treck out to Gosh as an excuse to enjoy our delicious Udon shop, and boy did we enjoy it!! We came home and watched Pleasentville, which we have decided is a highly under-appreciated movie. If you havn't really watched it yet, you should. I think we all have something to learn from this too.Wednesday was the celebration of the Emperor's Birthday, therefore NO SCHOOL!!! It was so nice to have Eric home during the middle of the week!! We had a wonderful relaxing day watching movies and cooking lots of delicious food together. We had planned on skiing today, but when we woke and discovered it was RAINING, that plan went out the window. Eric proposed a new family tradition for our little family, The Eve of Christmas Eve Gift!! Although it was a perfect day, I was still feeling a little down; being away from family and friends is extra extra hard right now, especially now that all of our friends here in Japan have gone home to celebrate the holidays. However, Eric's new plan saved the day. The only stipulation for the Eve of Christmas Eve gift, is that it must be something the family can enjoy together and be something that will allow us to spend some quality time together. The inaugural gift was Monopoly!!! Not just any Monopoly game, but the bi-lingual Japanese- English edition!! It's very cool, and will always be very special to us, probably more for me than for Eric seeing as how, much like my father, he plays it to make me happy not for his own personal gratification. Thanks Eric! I love it!!
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