Japan Week 34

March 22- 28, 2010

This week got off to a nice start with Eric having Monday off! In Japan the Equinox's are a national holiday and if they fall on a weekend you get the following Monday off! It's especially nice because it means we have a 3 day weekend in the middle of our birthdays, it will work out that way next year too!! We were a little sad that we didn't think of this sooner because with 3-day weekends comes cheaper Shinkansen tickets so we should have taken a birthday trip south to escape the snow, but we didn't, so now we just have to save it for next year :)

We spent Monday at home relaxing, which was much needed, and a good option since the weather was crummy. It's still snowing, I can't believe it! This is the road that leads to our house

We watched a TERRIBLE movie on Monday called 34 Bullets. We rented it from the movie store in our town despite the fact that neither of us had heard of it; now we know why we haven't heard of it. . . and we are left wondering how the heck the movie store has it! You cannot find it on www.imdb.com or on www.gooogle.com that's pretty rare. It seemed like a home-made film, and come to think of it at the beginning of the movie there were no company slogans like you would normally see. There were 3 or 4 instances where the exact same footage was used and the lines were different, but it wasn't even a subtle scene, there were specific events that didn't make sense with the second usage. There were also times when they wanted to show a skyline type image a big city but they obviously didn't have the funding for a helicopter fly by, so they were resourceful and help up a postcard instead. It was quite comical. We kept saying we should give up on the movie and shut it off, but it was SO bad that we actually wanted to finish it, fortunately it was only about 70 minutes of our lives. So, long story short... don't rent 34 bullets, if you can even find it.

Tuesday I finally got to visit the dentist and have my teeth cleaned! I'm a little abnormal (okay I know I'm actually really strange but just go with me) in the fact that I LOVE to go to the dentist. I love brushing my teeth and having that wonderful clean teeth feeling, so having it done professionally is all the better. Our dentist speaks English very well so it was a breeze :)

Wednesday was Eric's birthday! We're officially in our mid 20's. . . weird. Poor Eric not only had to work on his birthday (I guess that's part of being a big kid) but he also had to go to the doctor on his birthday. We got the results of his CT Scan on his jaw and the surgeon said that although the surgery will be necessary in the next few years, he thinks that Eric can and should wait until we are back in the states to have the tooth extracted from his jaw bone. Because they have to break the jaw, and because it sits on a nerve Eric will be hospitalized for a few days when they do the surgery and if we can avoid that in a foreign country it would be ideal. So, although Eric had to go to the doctor today, it was fast and painless, and good news. For now he will continue the electrolysis on his back to manage the headaches. We made the most out of our trip to Hirosaki by finally checking out a sushi restaurant that comes highly recommended from a few of our Japanese friends. Eric loved every bite of it, and since the restaurant was so slow because we were there in the early afternoon, the chef even had time to whip me up some non-sushi options including a delicious salad. I did eat Squid Sashimi, and I am not a fan. We also visited the book store and pizza hut :) I recently discovered that Pizza Hut has an additional option that's not on the menu... it's called the Basic Pizza and magically, it is EXACTLY like a cheese pizza from Pizza Hut in America AND because it doesn't have the "fancy" Japanese cheese or extra tomatoes, it's only 1600 yen and if you order before 7pm it's 400 yen off. Not only is it precisely what we wanted, it's around $12 instead of the $30 we paid to get the Japanese additions. With this new discovery, we treated ourselves to another pizza this week for Eric's birthday dinner :)

I forgot to take a picture of Eric's birthday cake before we began to devour it, but this was his Pineapple Upside Down cake :) Thanks again Mom and Dad for the birthday cake mixes, they really helped :)

Our dear friends Rachel and Charlie mailed us a birthday package with a new game in it. Eric and I are game addicts and we play at least one game per day, but usually more like 3 or 4. It's one of our favorite things to do together. Rachel and Charlie sent us this game called Banana Grams and it is so much fun! It is similar to Scrabble but you don't use a board and you don't take turns... you race each other. We really enjoy it, we've already played it 5-6 times (in 2 days).
Thank you Rachel and Charlie, it's a great addition to our little game collection here :)

Friday Night Eric had an Enkai (dinner party) for work. I took advantage of a few extra study hours and got some excellent studying in for my exam on Monday. When I went to pick Eric up from the Enkai I had an mildly unfortunate run in with a snow monkey. I walked out to the car in our pitch dark parking lot and put the key in the door as usual, i had to yank on the door a bit because it was nearly frozen shut. In the processing of breaking through the thin layer of ice it of course made a terrible noise, which startled the monkey sleeping on the other side of the car. He jumped and squealed and ran around the car, where I was, so I jumped and screamed. We both starred at each other and he ran off into the night and I, laughing hysterically, drove off to pick up my hubby. If only the cameras were rolling. . .

We had a very quiet weekend, I studied like a maniac for my exam and Eric was extremely helpful and supportive :)

And for now I would like to leave you with this:

You know you live in a small town in Japan when. . . There is a map of the houses with family names posted near the train station :)