May 10- 16, 2010
Tuesday night was date night. I ditched drum practice to spend some quality time with my husband! We had planned to go to Hirosaki so I could follow up with the dermatologist and decided to turn it into a fun night out. So after the doctors appointment we went to CoCo's Curry House for some scrumptious Japanese curry and then we headed to the movie theater and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D.
The special effects were very cool and I enjoyed the movie for the most part but was overall a little disappointed. I felt like they could have done a lot more with an already creative story and the amazing new 3D technology. If were up to me, I would have left Johnny Depp out of the movie as well. I know the Mad Hatter is supposed to be a little strange, but he took it to the next level and he was a little too creepy for my liking. I do agree with my sister though that Helena Bonham Carter did a fantastic job as the Red Queen. It was definitely worth seeing, it just wasn't one of the greatest works of all time, like I had anticipated. After the movie we started the long drive home in the pouring rain!! As we got onto the mountain roads the fog set in and we had about a foot of fog dancing on the road and the heavy rain pounding on the car and worst of all, the frogs! There were thousands of them! Some were as small as grapes and couldn't really see them, and some were as huge as grapefruits. I felt bad because I'm sure we murdered quite a few, but I did my best not to. It was the grossest thing I've ever seen and I was so happy when we got away from the river, and therefore escaped the frog migrations.
Ever since we saw a movie for the first time in Japan I have wanted to record two things from the movie theatre to show you, and I finally did it, and I did a terrible job. Part way into filming I apparently stop paying attention to the camera and it slides down and I miss the whole movie screen! The first is the clip telling people not to record the movie with their camera or they will be arrested, I only got the top half of the screen so I'll try again. I tried to be really discrete about my recording of the "Warning, no recording" video, and it shows. The other is the popcorn commercial done by the Looney Tunes characters who are speaking Japanese! It's really long and the best part is actually about 2 minutes in, but I didn't record that far, the clip of the first 30 seconds is below:
Thanks to the heavy rain on Tuesday, we were graced with the most wonderful aroma of Rain I have ever experienced. The normal fresh rain smell was touched with the scent of the Cherry trees and it was truly spectacular. Too bad we don't have smellivision yet, I would have loved to share it with you! We met up with Genevieve after work for Ramen & Onsen. It was so nice to soak in the hot water in the beautiful wooden boat outdoors while the rain was misting our faces. It was definition of relaxing.
Look! Our plants are growing,
we will soon have Cilantro and I am SO excited because we can only buy Coriander here.
On Friday Night we met up with some friend at Freaks- Cyber Cafe for Karaoke and an unlimited ice cream bar!! There was unfortunately some confusion about which Freaks we were meeting at and one of our friends was meeting us late, and didn't have his cell phone with him, so he drove all the way there and then missed us :( We felt absolutely terrible. The Karaoke was cheap and fancy, and the ice cream was unlimited, there was also a massage chair in our room, personally I'm not sure how relaxing a massage is in the middle of karaoke, but it was still a nice feature. We'll be back for sure, it's just a matter of how soon, this time we'll make sure everyone goes to the correct location!! I took mostly video, which I unfortunately promised not to post but here are some photos:
On Sunday Eric had the ultimate Japanese experience. Planting rice in the fields with some of our Japanese friends. I was originally going to go to but I chickened out, and I'll probably regret it. The fields supposedly have quite a few snakes, which I am absolutely horrified of. I thought I could be brave enough and handle it with big thick rubber boots and Eric by my side, but on Friday I found out we would be barefoot and I got a little nervous. Then on Saturday we were driving to Hirosaki, to retrieve the cell phone from the Karaoke club oops!, and I had to swerve on the road to miss a decently large snake. The snake survived and my bravery did not. So, Eric went alone. When he told our friend why I was not there he was surprised and said we probably wouldn't see any and was extremely surprised we saw one on the road and when Eric told him how big it was he was even more surprised... so that made me feel much better about things and he invited us back next year, and I will go then!
This is the field that Eric was working in. Mt. Iwaki is in the distance. The view from this area is incredible!
The rice is initially grown in a green house and then they take the small plants and transplant them into the wet field. After all of the plants are in they raise the water level up to the top of the plants so that they do not blow away in the wind. Here Eric is washing the trays that the plants were on in the green house. 
Earlier in the week I was re-reading the first week of blogging and it made me realize just how much we have grown, learned and adapted to our life here since we arrived! Here is a short list of SOME of our lifetime firsts we have experienced since we moved to Japan:
-E: Teaching/ working in a foreign country
-M: living near the ocean :)
-M: having snow at my house... this was first that lasted from Nov 1- April 28th! Just a few days shy of 6 months!
- Using a heater in May!
- Not having a dryer :/
- M: Experiencing all 4 seasons in the same place .
-Married life :)
- M: Learning to cook
- Learning Japanese and using it everyday! We've become quite used to being illiterate.
- Driving on the right side of the car and the left side of the road
- M: harvesting apples
-E: planting rice
- M: Having a White Christmas, oh yeah and a white thanksgiving, new years, valentines day, birthday, Easter, and spring break....
-Taiko drumming
... the list goes on and on....
Japanese Looney Tunes Popcorn Commercial Intro
On Monday I had my final exam in Organic Chemistry. I am so relieved that it is over!! Now I can study for the MCAT and nothing else. That test is sure sneaking up fast! It's pretty intimidating. The test covers General Biology I & II, Physics I &II, General Chemistry I&II, Organic Chemistry I&II, incorporates a lot of Math and has 2 writing samples. It's like preparing for 9 finals, some of which are for classes you took 4 years ago. I feel a little bit like I'm training for a marathon. Thank goodness that when it's done, I can spend a day with my husband in Tokyo Disney to celebrate our very first wedding anniversary!
Tuesday night was date night. I ditched drum practice to spend some quality time with my husband! We had planned to go to Hirosaki so I could follow up with the dermatologist and decided to turn it into a fun night out. So after the doctors appointment we went to CoCo's Curry House for some scrumptious Japanese curry and then we headed to the movie theater and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D.
The special effects were very cool and I enjoyed the movie for the most part but was overall a little disappointed. I felt like they could have done a lot more with an already creative story and the amazing new 3D technology. If were up to me, I would have left Johnny Depp out of the movie as well. I know the Mad Hatter is supposed to be a little strange, but he took it to the next level and he was a little too creepy for my liking. I do agree with my sister though that Helena Bonham Carter did a fantastic job as the Red Queen. It was definitely worth seeing, it just wasn't one of the greatest works of all time, like I had anticipated. After the movie we started the long drive home in the pouring rain!! As we got onto the mountain roads the fog set in and we had about a foot of fog dancing on the road and the heavy rain pounding on the car and worst of all, the frogs! There were thousands of them! Some were as small as grapes and couldn't really see them, and some were as huge as grapefruits. I felt bad because I'm sure we murdered quite a few, but I did my best not to. It was the grossest thing I've ever seen and I was so happy when we got away from the river, and therefore escaped the frog migrations.Ever since we saw a movie for the first time in Japan I have wanted to record two things from the movie theatre to show you, and I finally did it, and I did a terrible job. Part way into filming I apparently stop paying attention to the camera and it slides down and I miss the whole movie screen! The first is the clip telling people not to record the movie with their camera or they will be arrested, I only got the top half of the screen so I'll try again. I tried to be really discrete about my recording of the "Warning, no recording" video, and it shows. The other is the popcorn commercial done by the Looney Tunes characters who are speaking Japanese! It's really long and the best part is actually about 2 minutes in, but I didn't record that far, the clip of the first 30 seconds is below:
Thanks to the heavy rain on Tuesday, we were graced with the most wonderful aroma of Rain I have ever experienced. The normal fresh rain smell was touched with the scent of the Cherry trees and it was truly spectacular. Too bad we don't have smellivision yet, I would have loved to share it with you! We met up with Genevieve after work for Ramen & Onsen. It was so nice to soak in the hot water in the beautiful wooden boat outdoors while the rain was misting our faces. It was definition of relaxing.
Look! Our plants are growing,
we will soon have Cilantro and I am SO excited because we can only buy Coriander here.On Friday Night we met up with some friend at Freaks- Cyber Cafe for Karaoke and an unlimited ice cream bar!! There was unfortunately some confusion about which Freaks we were meeting at and one of our friends was meeting us late, and didn't have his cell phone with him, so he drove all the way there and then missed us :( We felt absolutely terrible. The Karaoke was cheap and fancy, and the ice cream was unlimited, there was also a massage chair in our room, personally I'm not sure how relaxing a massage is in the middle of karaoke, but it was still a nice feature. We'll be back for sure, it's just a matter of how soon, this time we'll make sure everyone goes to the correct location!! I took mostly video, which I unfortunately promised not to post but here are some photos:
On Sunday Eric had the ultimate Japanese experience. Planting rice in the fields with some of our Japanese friends. I was originally going to go to but I chickened out, and I'll probably regret it. The fields supposedly have quite a few snakes, which I am absolutely horrified of. I thought I could be brave enough and handle it with big thick rubber boots and Eric by my side, but on Friday I found out we would be barefoot and I got a little nervous. Then on Saturday we were driving to Hirosaki, to retrieve the cell phone from the Karaoke club oops!, and I had to swerve on the road to miss a decently large snake. The snake survived and my bravery did not. So, Eric went alone. When he told our friend why I was not there he was surprised and said we probably wouldn't see any and was extremely surprised we saw one on the road and when Eric told him how big it was he was even more surprised... so that made me feel much better about things and he invited us back next year, and I will go then!
This is the field that Eric was working in. Mt. Iwaki is in the distance. The view from this area is incredible!
The rice is initially grown in a green house and then they take the small plants and transplant them into the wet field. After all of the plants are in they raise the water level up to the top of the plants so that they do not blow away in the wind. Here Eric is washing the trays that the plants were on in the green house. 
Earlier in the week I was re-reading the first week of blogging and it made me realize just how much we have grown, learned and adapted to our life here since we arrived! Here is a short list of SOME of our lifetime firsts we have experienced since we moved to Japan:
-E: Teaching/ working in a foreign country
-M: living near the ocean :)
-M: having snow at my house... this was first that lasted from Nov 1- April 28th! Just a few days shy of 6 months!
- Using a heater in May!
- Not having a dryer :/
- M: Experiencing all 4 seasons in the same place .
-Married life :)
- M: Learning to cook
- Learning Japanese and using it everyday! We've become quite used to being illiterate.
- Driving on the right side of the car and the left side of the road
- M: harvesting apples
-E: planting rice
- M: Having a White Christmas, oh yeah and a white thanksgiving, new years, valentines day, birthday, Easter, and spring break....
-Taiko drumming
... the list goes on and on....
Japanese Looney Tunes Popcorn Commercial Intro
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