Summer Ikebana

Here are some pictures of my recent ikebana pieces from summer. Now that I'm teaching part-time, I can no longer attend ikebana class. Even though I love it and it's become a hobby of mine, I will have to make the sacrifice and give it up for a little while in order to teach. So these will be the last pictures of ikebana for a while!

Special K Bars

I have been addicted to peanut butter as of lately. My whole life I have hated peanut butter, but I woke up one day recently and was craving it (and no, I'm not pregnant)! I've developed a bad habit of eating heaping spoonfuls throughout the day, topped with chocolate chips. YUM! Anyway, since I had a few of the ingredients already, I decided to make Special K bars.

Karo syrup = 893 yen = $10.70
Chocolate chips = 600 yen = $7.19
Peanut butter = 650 yen = $7.80
Sugar = 230 yen = $2.75
Small box of Special K = 400 yen = $4.80

Grand total to make Special K bars: $33.24. It's was expensive, but worth every bite! The pan was gone in 2 days.

I will never complain about food prices in the U.S. again! Many of you have been asking about prices and expenses in Japan... the next time I go grocery shopping, I will blog it....

S'MORES!

Well, summer is about over - and we were missing one key component this year: S'MORES! There hasn't been a single summer that's gone by that I haven't had a smore! So I went on a hunt around Nagoya to find all of the essential ingredients. :)

SUCCESS! I managed to find all 3 ingredients. The cost was pretty ridiculous, but I didn't care!

• Marshmallows = 390 yen = $4.62
• Hershey bar =300 yen = $3.55
• Graham crackers = 600 yen = $7.11

I love that the marshmallow bag says, "A True American Tradition."

And we even discovered a new use for chopsticks! Nothing like roasting marshmallows on the stove top with a chopstick!! mmmm I have a feeling this is going to become a regular dessert for us. :)

Registered to RUN!

We are officially registered to run the 35th annual Lake Kawaguchi Marathon on Sunday, November 28! We signed up for the "A-round-the-lake" run, which is 27km or 16.77 miles around Lake Kawaguchi! This lake is nestled next to Mt. Fuji, and from what we have read - the views are amazing. Sixteen and a half miles will be a long run for us, with only 2 months left to train - but I know we can do it! :)

Here is the website if you're interested in checking it out: http://www.sports-info.co.jp/kawaguchi2010/info.html

Map of the course:

Eat, Pray, Love

I recently read the book, "Eat, Pray, Love." I thought the title was catchy, and heard from others that it was an easy and fun read. My opinion of the book was quite opposite - I hated it. Yes, of course there were some good parts and it was very soulful at moments, but I though it dragged on and was soooo boring.

The movie premiered in Nagoya this weekend - and a group of friends were going to see it. I debated whether it would be worth it to see the movie - since I disliked the book so much, not to mention that the movie got such bad reviews, and it's really expensive to go to the movies in Japan. But we gave in, and decided to go out with friends and give the movie a chance. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the movie - so much better than the book! But it's one of those movies that you see one time, and never bother watching again. Joe even liked it - but that's probably because you can drink beer in the movie theaters in Japan, so he was content ;)

After the movie we ventured over to a little Spanish bar, for sangria and tapas.

It was an open-air bar, which was really nice since it's finally starting to cool down here. It was nice to sit "outside" and feel the breeze. There were 6 of us so we decided to order a pitcher of sangria. We asked the waitress how many people a pitcher would serve, she said 5. So we ordered two pitchers. This is what we got....

We couldn't help but laugh when the pitchers arrived at our table... they were "Japanese size" - I don't know how in the world they think that pitcher will serve 5 people! It's enough for one person! :)

4 years at Boeing

Congratulations to my wonderful hubby for his 4-year Boeing anniversary! It's hard to believe that it's been four years already. It seems like yesterday that he graduated from college and we took the exciting adventure to move across the country to Seattle. Who would have known that 4 years later we'd be living in Japan.

I'll never forget one of the first times we went on a date and I asked him what his dream job was. Without even the slightest hesitation he said, "Boeing." I thought to myself - Boeing? No way will I ever move across the country... this relationship is never going to last. Now, 7 years later, I look back on that moment and smile. Despite the difficulty of living far away from our family and friends, we've really had an amazing adventure together! I know we'll look back on this time in our lives and be grateful for all of the opportunities we've had to travel, learn about different cultures, gain work experience, further education, save money, and grow as individuals as well as a couple.

I found a homemade bakery by my new school. I walk past it everyday, and it smells so delicious. Today was the perfect occasion to try one of the scrumptious cakes. Of course, I chose a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling, and chocolate mousse frosting... Joe's kind of cake!

Congratulations, Joe!

Seto Festival

I've posted a blog about Seto before (the town near Nagoya known for it's pottery). Well in September each year, the small city holds a giant festival - where the streets are filled with vendors selling tons and tons of ceramics. I read somewhere that there are about 250 stores that line up along the Seto River to sell their pottery products for very low prices. The festival has been held each year since 1932... and more than 50,000 people from Japan and abroad visit the festival. My friend Mimi and I ventured out there on Saturday, and found some great deals!

So many vendors lined both streets up and down the river. We probably only made it through about a quarter of the shops.

We loved the festival decorations hanging in the background.

I found many pieces that match the sets I've started here. :)

One of my favorite pieces - the color matches my set perfectly! I love the mountains and subtle art on it.

Update - Teaching, etc.

It's been a while since I've written a blog post. I guess we've been really busy lately!

It's been HOT & HUMID and in the upper 90's for WEEKS... actually, MONTHS now. It's completely miserable and we can't wait for fall! We watched the Michigan game over the weekend and noticed the wind blowing, everyone wearing long sleeved shirts and jackets. We miss that.

Go Blue! Picture of Joe watching the Michigan game... sporting his Michigan jersey and new yellow crocs. I don't have to tell you that he was thrilled to see his team start off the season so well!

I got a part-time job teaching first grade at an international school, twice a week. Today was my first official day, and it went really well!! The kids are super cute! I have 8 students, all Japanese, who speak English fluently. Their parents generally put them in school starting around the age of 2 - so they learn English naturally. By the time they're 5, they speak incredibly well.

Joe's job is still going well. He loves it here and stays busy. He's still taking private Japanese lessons about 1-2 times a week, and lately has been busy getting his application ready for grad school. He's looking into doing a dual degree program for a masters and MBA.

That's all the news around here... working, studying, and traveling.

Mt. Fuji

We hiked Mt. Fuji on Saturday! 1400m vertical, 3776m altitude at the peak.
We hiked the Fujinomiya Trail, which is the shortest course for reaching the highest point on the mountain. This also means that it consists of many difficult and steep areas! We started at the 5th station on the Fujinomiya Trail: 2400m.

You can see the route we took on this map. We started at the 5th station on the Fujinomiya trail, which is on the bottom left hand-side of the picture.

And we're off! We went with Daryl, Kirk, and Rob (Joe's co-workers from Boeing). This was actually Kirk's second time climbing Mt. Fuji... and as the Japanese say, "A wise man climbs Mt. Fuji once in their life, only a fool climbs it twice."

Everyone around us were wearing coats, pants, gloves, hats, etc. The 5 of us, on the other hand, were taking off as many layers as possible and still sweating. It was a lot steeper than I thought it would be. I think this was about the time that I was saying, "I don't think I'm going to make it to the top!"

Finally broke through the clouds - it was beautiful.

I was surprised that it was all rock and gravel. I was expecting more trees and greenery. It wasn't a very scenic hike up, but the views from the top were worth it!

On top of the world! We made it to the top in 4 hours :)

Crater at the top.

Shrine at the top.

We bought these walking sticks at the bottom of the mountain. As you hike the mountain, you can get each hut's unique "stamp" branded onto your walking stick. It helped us on our hike, and is a neat souvenir.

Starting our descent... we've got a long way to go.

We were trying to make it down before the sun set, since we didn't bring flashlights with us. We all agree that going down was more difficult than hiking up the mountain. It was so steep, and with so much rock and gravel it was hard to keep your balance and footing - and hard on your joints.... not to mention we were physically exhausted from the climb up.

Beautiful sunset. We made it down in 3 hours.

It was an amazing adventure and accomplishment. But also the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm glad we did it, but I will never do it again! If you want to see more pictures, I posted an album on facebook and shutterfly: http://emilyandjoepictures.shutterfly.com/

Tokyo

We went to Tokyo for the weekend, and loved it! Joe had to go to a town called Utsunomiya for work for a few days, which is north of Tokyo. So we decided to meet in Tokyo for the weekend. After spending a frustrating hour searching for each other in the ginormous Tokyo Station, we finally found each other and had a great weekend!

This may not look like much during the day, but at night this long street comes alive! There are tons of restaurants, bars, and cafes under the train tracks... a very unique setting and fun atmosphere. We ate at a little Italian restaurant our first night just down the street from here.

We didn't have the energy to get up at 4am to see the actual famous Tokyo fish market, but we did venture over to a little market area near the fish market later in the morning. :)

Did you see the fish Joe caught!? It was a whopper!

We spent the afternoon shopping in an area called Shibuya - a popular and trendy shopping area for young people. This picture is of the famous Shibuya Crossing intersection right outside of Shibuya Station. It's known as the world's busiest street crossing, and one of the world's largest cross walks. When the traffic lights turn red, all traffic stops in every direction. So the entire intersection opens up for pediestrians to cross. Thousands of people cross within minutes, all day, everyday: morning, noon, and night.

At night we went to a neighboring district called Roppongi, known for it's nightlife. We loved all of the international food choices and decided to go on our own little pub crawl. We started out at a German pub, ordering appetizers and beer. Second, we went out for margharitas and dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Next, we found an Irish pub with my favorite Strongbow Cider! Last, we went to a sports bar which had a variety of draft beer choices. Very fun night!

The next day, we wandered the streets of an area called Ginza, which is one of Toky's upscale shopping districts. They close the streets on weekends to accommodate all of the pedestrian traffic. Our favorite part of this district was probably the Sony Building, which is essentially a Sony showroom with hands-on displays of the latest gizmos and gadgets.

We ventured into the 12 floor Abercrombie & Fitch store, famous and popular for being Asia's first store. I wasn't surprised to smell the perfume from down the street and hear the booming music, but I was very surprised to see girls dancing in mini-skirts and male models without shirts on displaying the classic "abercrombie look." I was too uncomfortable to take a picture, but copied a couple from the internet to show you what I'm talking about:

Most of the male and female models were "white," and people were lined up to take pictures with them. Prices were over double what you would pay for an item in the U.S. The lowest price we saw for jeans was $250. And even still, people were buying like crazy... if they only knew how much they were overpaying!

Overall, we had a great weekend trip to Tokyo and plan on going back soon!!!