Summertime Adventures

I'm a little behind on the blogging because summer was, to say the least, CRAZY. But I guess that's what happens when you are in 6 countries/states in 6 weeks. Also because I've been obsessed with finishing my second short story ever since I came back to Japan, and it just didn't leave a lot of time for blogging. But since today I FINALLY finished the first draft, I'm now free to blog a bit. :)

A few days after summer started I went on a 3-day 2-night camp with the 1st graders from my school. Imagine about 120 six-year-old Japanese boys (the majority of whom have never left home overnight before) staying in this building with a bunch of frazzled teachers and you've pretty much got the trip nailed. We went up to Karuizawa which was cool because I had never been there before and stayed in this lodge.

I didn't realize I could take pictures my first day, so I missed out on that, but I snapped some of the second day. Although I tried to avoid using ones that show their faces as much as possible. They're so adorable though, right?

A normal day had meals prepared for us (this is an example of one of the more American-ish breakfasts), group prayer in the prayer hall, activities, playtime, snack time, more activities, and well, a bunch of other stuff. It definitely put my Japanese to the test trying to be a chaperone when the kids all understand Japanese better than I do. :) 

Needless to say, after we made it back from that camp I was ready for my real summer to start. I was also ready to just sit at home and be a total lump (or, as we say in Japanese I was ready to 'goro goro' around the house) but I may have accidentally, totally knowing what I was doing, bought my ticket to fly home for the next night. 

That's how I found myself catching an 8 pm flight to Seoul, sleeping at the airport, catching a 7 am flight, having a layover in Hong Kong, and then finally arriving in LAX.  My first stop was to see Chad and Bri (friends from college.) As you can see, we know how to party. What we don't know how to do is make decisions, which is why you see us with a chocolate cake broken into three different sections with different flavored icing. No regrets about that though. 

This wasn't my first time to hang out with Cam, who I'm pretty positive is going to go his entire life calling me Ducky (he and his parents are the only ones who still call me my nickname from sophomore year.)  But I digress. Anyway, Cam and I had some good times,  and I even met his little sister, Kayla this trip.  

We made sure to fit time in for playing board games while we were together as well as some Mario, but all too soon my trip was over and it was time to say goodbye. 

Because I love airports, I went back to LAX and then flew to SLC. (Side note: I had a lovely conversation with the lady sitting next to me who started the conversation with "were you watching a scary movie? I could tell because you were curled up in a ball and kept gasping." She was right, I was. And apparently, it was a great ice breaker because we then chatted until we got off the plane.)

I was in Utah a little more than a week because I had the most people to see here from those 8 years living there (man, was it really 8 years?) Not to mention I had some crazy adventures my old roommates and I needed to do.  Like watching my roommate dance with a dog. That's normal, right? Or going horseback riding in the mountains together. That was NOT normal but it was awesome. So awesome. 

 And although it might make me a little unpatriotic to Japan and the wonderful sushi here, I was dying for some American sushi with sauce and all that jazz so I definitely ate sushi two days in a row. Who can resist those sweet, sweet rolls? Also, the delicious almond chocolate boba. I missed that.


There were sleepovers to do. Board games to play. Friends' husbands to meet for the first time, and temples to go to. Not to mention lunch and dinner plans pretty much every single day with friends and family.




















Utah was seriously a blast, and I'm so glad I got to go there. Not only did I get to catch up with everyone, but my roommates and I had another chance to work on our roommate book What to Expect When You're Not Expecting: How to Be Single and Own It. It's all about (you guessed it) being single, but in a "humorous, our lives are really cool if we want them to be" kind of way instead of a "we're pathetic and bitter" kind of way. Look forward to it. I know I am. :)

It was kind of weird whenever my time was over at a place because my emotions were like "should we be sad?" and I'd be like "IDK man. I'm sad to leave but also looking forward to the next place. So, there's no way to tell really." And that's exactly what it was like leaving Utah. Goodbye to everyone I saw that week but hello airport, family, and a cute little ball of allergens that my brother named Pip.

Those few days I spent in Colorado were some of the laziest IN MY LIFE. It was awesome! David picked me up from the airport with a Benadryl, a bottle of water, and a face mask (and here I thought I had left those behind in Japan. Silly me.)
Let me tell you what an almost perfect vacation looks like:
-most of your free time is spent playing board games with your brother and sister
-between board game sessions, your sister insists on making delicious food for everyone because she "likes to cook" (Is that a real thing?)
-you don't look at your phone at all because time is irrelevant to your schedule and you don't have time to talk to anyone who isn't playing said board game with you
-you constantly are slightly drugged with allergy medicine and only remove your mask to eat aforementioned delicious food.

And then it was back to the airport with me because, what can I say, I love airports. I think my relationship with the airport is my longest lasting one so far. (And don't tell my parents but I've even slept over at the airport, so risque.)


My last stop in America was home. Hooray. Now I got to see the rest of my family. Especially the ones who are only half-grown. One of the first things I did was look through old family calendars and I found a ton of gems. Like this little guy. Classic. (By classic I'm mainly referring to our hairstyles. And clothing. And my inability to look at the camera.)  Mom picked me up from the airport, and I don't know who was so excited: her to see me or me to finally get home and unload my suitcase. (I brought 50 Japanese books home from Japan, so my bag was kind of freaking heavy.)       Home sweet home.

I had some really good, quality parent time, sibling time, and niece/nephew time during my three weeks at home. 

Uncle Paul spoiled me with a pumpkin chocolate chip cheesecake. Some day I'll learn how to make one of those. Until then though, I'll do my best to stay on his good side.

Looking at these two pictures, I've got to say that I think the biggest difference here is...there's no way Dad would have let me eat an entire spoonful of cookie dough when I was eight. I guess there are some perks to being an adult after all.

 Am I the only one who goes home to America and craves artichokes? Maybe. I'm not sure if it's the taste or the nostalgia factor, but either way, it was delicious. 

 By borrowing everyone else's cars and cell phones (completely not an inconvenience) I managed to take all of my nieces and nephews on Aunt Laura dates to celebrate the birthdays that I miss while I'm in Japan.  These little boys chose to go to the jump park.


The elder boys (randomly) decided that they wanted to go play mini-golf, so that's what we did. And I have to say, I really appreciate their game faces. I mean they were into it.









And for my two nieces, we did something a bit more girly and went to get our nails done.

Shh, nobody tell Grant and Benson that they didn't get a date this year. They're too little to remember so I figured I could get away with it.

This picture actually came a few days after I left for Korea, but I feel like it sums up summer with the kids. Of course, they don't all always look this happy. Only when Aunt Emily says "poophead" before taking the picture, naturally.

Back to the airport at 5 am and I'm on my 2nd to last leg of the trip-off to Korea I went. Zoom zoom. 25 hours of traveling later I arrived at Whitney's house. The good thing about visiting her house after America but before Japan is that going straight back to my house after America would make my Japan apartment feel really small, but by swinging by Korea first and staying in her actually small apartment, I was able to come back to my castle sized place.       Of course, I had to get some Korean BBQ with these girls. You can't say you've really gone to Seoul until you've gone out for BBQ. 

  We spent a lot of time at the river because the weather was so nice during the week I was there. (Well we spent a lot of time at the river and walking to and from the river.) And let's not forget our trip to the ice cream store which resulted in this. (Just to be clear, only one of those ice cream bars were mine.)

And the standard picture of me walking down the street that I had no idea existed until it was sent to me. And another picture I didn't know about until later.










It was almost a relief to go home to Japan just so I could finally stop living out of my suitcase and get back into my own routine, even if that routine meant work.  It's nice to be back, and I'm so grateful for all the amazing people I got to spend time with this summer. So thanks to everyone that made the world tour possible. :) Click here for the video to sum it all up.

Two of the Best Couples I Know: Abram + Katie and Me + Japan

It feels like just yesterday that Abram and Katie arrived in Tokyo, but, as it turns out, it was about 21 yesterdays ago.  Time flies when you're traveling like crazy across the country, huh?
I went ahead and made the video already which you can watch here if you don't want to read anymore.

The first week and a half they were here we just chilled around Tokyo. But by chilling, I mean we went out and hit the town every night.  And I mean hit the town hard (as long as I got to be back in bed by 11 pm that is.)

March 7th

Our first real day in Tokyo I took them to the Pokemon Center, an Owl Cafe, and a Maid Cafe.  One of those was significantly more embarrassing than the others, but they were all such Japanese experiences that I couldn't, in good conscience, leave any out.
This picture was perfect because my owl flew off literally right before we took the picture.  It's like the anti-photo bomb.


But at least I had this cute little guy to make up for it.  I would definitely be down for having an owl for a pet.  Look how cute he is?  And speaking of having owls for pets there was also  Hedwig from Harry Potter and this one that looked like some crazy Big Bird.


And speaking of cute, can we just talk about the food from the maid cafe?

March 8th

Today was a chill day where we went to all you can eat conveyor belt sushi (there's not really any other kind since you just grab what you want).  We explored the shrine on the way to sushi and just enjoyed the general wonderfulness that is Japan.                                                                      One of my favorite things about having people come to visit is that it reminds me of all the exciting feelings I felt when I had first moved here. Like how amazing it is that I can get a hot drink from a street vending machine.  So cool. We decided to make it an early night since we were planning on catching the first train out in the morning. (Aka we played a board game and accidentally stayed up late talking.) 

March 9th

Despite my best efforts to follow the schedule, from the very beginning I set us back when I woke up sick Saturday morning.  We didn't let that stop us though. We headed off a few hours later than planned and did our best to make the most of our limited time there.  We explored as many sights as we could see, and it was really pretty.   On the right is the Fire Pagoda near the Toshogu shrine, and on the right is the Kanmangafuchi Abyss where the statues are said to be a different number each time you count them. (It was funny because when we walked down the first time and counted them we all got different numbers, but we might have gotten distracted in the middle.)

That night we stayed at a guest house and had a good time watching a scary movie and playing cards.  (Well Abram and I watched a scary movie. Katie was fighting a losing battle against jet lag and went to sleep at like 9 pm.) 

March 10th

    We went to a delicious cafe for brunch because we really wanted to try their cheesecake and then headed off to Edo Wonderland.  Which, to put it simply is a theme park from the Edo period of Japan (minus rides.)                                                                                                                                               We got to experience a lesson in how to handle a katana (Japanese sword), we went through the ninja house and tried to walk around despite the crazy gravity.                                                                  (This is a picture of me standing up straight, despite how it looks.)

We watched a fun water show, took an Edo Uber, and got arrested.  All in all it was an excellent day.  We even spent like 30 minutes trying to figure out the maze.  It wasn't until we realized that some of the walls were actually trap doors that we made it out, but it was a fun little adventure.    We ended the night with some delicious ramen for dinner and then started the 3.5 hour trip home. (Good news: Katie was able to reteach me how to complete a Rubix cube, so all of that travel time was not in vain.)

March 11th

Today I showed them around my home area. 

 We went to the station by church and they made okonomiyaki for the first time.  (Don't mind the fact that Katie looks like she wants to beat me with her spatula for eating her okonomiyaki.)                                                             We also discovered a delicious bakery with scones. Then we went souvenir shopping at Don Quiote which is a must see for anyone coming to Japan. It's overwhelming, confusing, loud, crazy, and not to be missed.    Walking home that night was fun because it was like showing them a slice of my daily life. You know that moment when two worlds collide? That was this entire trip.  

March 12th

Since I'm beginning a new job in April, today was my last day at my elementary school in Inagi. It was sad to say goodbye to all the teachers, but I guess change is good.  I will miss everyone though.    After work I met Katie and Abram in Asakusa and we explored the night life. And, of course, we had to take a picture with them and Asakusa's Golden Poo.  We walked around and enjoyed the night view of Tokyo (here's Tokyo Sky Tree) and ate some delicious food before we went back home again. 

March 13th 

Today Abram was sick so we kept it short.  Through a series of slightly unfortunate circumstances we ended up eating at the Happy Pancake, but, true to its name, it was a happy experience indeed. The pancakes were delicious and lived up to their name.  We didn't even feel bad about going home after that and watching Howl's Moving Castle.  (Is a trip to Japan really complete without a Ghibli/anime movie?)

March 14th

Today I had a different work assignment, which meant that I got to sleep in and hang out with Katie and Abram in the morning before work.  Sadly, Abram was still sick so when I got off work I met up with Katie while he rested. We had a GNO and it was one heck of a night.  We hit the town so hard it's still recovering in the hospital.                                                                 First, we went to the bookstore and just basked in the glory that is shelves and shelves full of the written word. Then we hit the Dollar Store (three times actually since we kept forgetting things...) and ended it with a trip to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner.  

(I'll go ahead and put a sign-up sheet on the bottom of this post for all the people that are going to want to get in line for girls nights with me.)  After dinner we ended the night with beignets, so even Abram got to enjoy the girls night. 

March 15th

Today was my last day at my other school which meant a lot of goodbyes.  (Also, Katie came with me to work today.) This first is Mr. Ogawa, whom I taught with like 90% of the time, so we got to be pretty good friends. The second is a group shot of a bunch of different teachers at the school.  

Katie and I left after my second class since we had a flight to catch today to Hiroshima.  We hurried home, made a lunch consisting of every food that I had left in my fridge (at least the ones that would go bad), packed and cleaned, and then off to the airport we went.  I managed to sleep the whole flight to Hiroshima (which is only 90 minutes, but since we were an hour delayed for take-off it was a nice nap.) We started the night with Hiroshima style okonomiyaki, and then decided to walk to our hotel and see the town.  The pouring rain we immediately encountered upon leaving the station convinced us otherwise, so we hopped on a tram.  Our capsule hotel was so cool.  I can't believe I've waited a year to try one out.  It was only $30, but it was so nice! Plus, look at these great soaps that we couldn't figure out despite them being in English.  We played games in the lounge and then went to bed (where I proceeded to probably keep Katie up for the next hour or two because I kept laughing out loud at the book I was reading. Whoops)

March 16th

Today was our first real day in Hiroshima, so we set out to see the sights.  We spent a while exploring Peace Park and took it at a leisure pace.  We even had some random strangers ask to take pictures with us (it just gets less and less weird the longer I'm in Japan.)   

That afternoon we took a ferry to Miyajima Island and stayed in our fancy traditional Japanese inn with a traditional dinner.  Let's just say that it was an experience for everyone. Katie was having fun figuring out how to eat all the things that aren't generally found on dinner plates in America.

 But we had time after dinner to go and explore Miyajima at night which was pretty great. It was like an abandoned Japanese ghost town, and so much more fun to see it without hordes of people around. It was just us, the deer, and the occasional other visitor. 

That night we went to the onsen and wore our sweet yukatas around and then we stayed up late talking. 

 March 17th

Strangely enough, this was my second birthday in Japan, but it was significantly different from last year's.  We ate our traditional breakfast and headed off to explore some more.  Now that it's light out there were tons of people, so we took the introvert route and decided to hike the mountain instead.

The view at the top was gorgeous.  No regrets about that. We hiked around and saw the sights and then took a slightly less than conventional route back down the mountain. The good news is that there were literally no other people around so we had like 2 hours of undisturbed hiking.  The bad news is that my decision to follow the deer path added on quite a bit to our hike, which left us in a bit of a time crunch. Luckily we still had time to see the sights as we hurried to grab lunch and make it back on our ferry. 

                 

We went to Hiroshima castle and then were so tired we decided to go kill some time at Starbucks.  Tonight was the night we had a night bus taking us to Kyoto, so we didn't have anywhere to go to rest.  Luckily Starbucks had some really comfy chairs that we commandeered for the next hour..or two..or four.  But eventually, we did un-graft ourselves from the chairs and shamble to a restaurant that was open late.  We grabbed a 10 o'clock dinner and then found our bus where I almost immediately passed out in my chair.  

March 18th

The next morning we arrived at Kyoto around 7 am and considering how we were all waddling off the bus I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was feeling that hike from yesterday.  We went to our hotel and put our stuff away before beginning our day (bright and early.) Today we went and saw the 1,000 orange gates at Fushimi Inari, but we actually hiked all the way to the top this time. (I'm sure it'd be an excellent view at night too.)  From there we headed to KiyoMizu Dera, but we didn't do all the hiking for this one. 

After that, we went to the Silver Pavilion (which isn't actually silver, unlike the Golden Pavilion which is actually golden.)  We explored the gardens and went on a relaxing walk while reading about it.  

But that was about as far as our efforts got us today.  We went out for a late lunch and then checked into our hotel around 4 pm.  Aside from going out for dinner that night we didn't leave our room the rest of the night.  Everyone needed a night to recharge.  (Despite all of the crazy traveling we are doing, I think most of us are introverts who enjoy being in our rooms more than being out and about.  It's a miracle we are getting any traveling done.) 

March 19th

 (Don't judge our breakfast choices.  Bakeries are temptation #2 (# 1 being used book stores, obviously). This is why I can't live in France.) 

Despite sleeping until 11 am (like I said, we enjoy our relaxed schedules) we actually accomplished everything we wanted to see today.  We started out getting breakfast, and then went to the bamboo forest.  (Our hotel was conveniently located really close to it.)   Then we went on a lovely walk through a neighborhood which led us to the next temple with sooooo many Buddha statues.  

They all had different expressions, and it was really fun just walking around checking out all the statues. (And the lovely walk had nothing to do with the group of Japanese boys walking around in their traditional clothes, but it sure didn't hurt anything.)

After that, we made it to the Golden Pavilion where we were received our fortunes.  Mine told me "There appear a group of clouds in the unexpected direction, and the full moon hides himself in them for a short time."  I appreciate Japanese fortunes translated into English for their directness and clarity. It gave me helpful advice for many areas of my life. Such as 'wish': It seems hard to realize now, but afterward, it will be realized spontaneously.   Or 'illness': It's serious. You have to consult a doctor.  Or my 'marriage proposal': It seems to be settled, but it won't go well. Leave it to someone, and it will go well.   Essentially it was a very enlightening trip.  After that, we grabbed dinner while exploring Nishiki market. Honestly, I should have been taking more pictures of Katie's face as Abram ate all the different things he tried. Aside from the natto, he didn't normally have much of a reaction, but her face was priceless.  

We ate some wagyu beef which is when Katie fell in love with the expensive, delicious beef.  They also tried their first takoyaki (which are fried balls with octopus in them.)  We saw some shrines and walked along Pontocho Street before heading home for the night.  (I accidentally crossed the street ahead of K&A and Katie snapped a picture of me standing across the road right when a car drove by making it look like I'm inside the car. ) 

March 20th

Unfortunately, we had to be up before 11 today since we had an 8:30 am bus to catch to Takayama.  It was a 4-hour ride so that gave me plenty of time to sleep on the bus (but by sleep I mean read my book.) Once we arrived we had essentially 4 hours to explore the town before things shut down around 5 pm.  We went to the Takayama temple, explored the Old Town, and then went to the Folk Village which was kind of like Edo Wonderland, but with way fewer people.  The houses from back then were seriously crazy.  The past just blows my mind.  We grabbed dinner and ordered way too much food (at least that's what I'm sure the waiter was thinking up until we finished it all.) Then we relaxed at the foot bath in town, grabbed some ice cream, and went to our hotel to relax.

March 21st

Today we grabbed breakfast and then got back on the bus to go to Shirakawa.  Today's adventure was a bit different than normal since we were actually staying at the house of one of my coworker's parents.  Almost as soon as we stepped off the bus she called out to me (I guess she'd seen a picture) and then she started showing us around the village. I'm not sure if she was showing the village to us or showing us to the village actually.  As she drove us around she would flag down anyone that drove by and explain how and why we were staying with her. It was pretty adorable actually.    We only did a bit of sightseeing before she offered to make us lunch so we went to her house.  

 The afternoon was very relaxing. We sat and chatted (well I did my best to balance having a normal conversation with translating) and then we went grocery shopping with her.  Turns out the town is so small (2,000 people) that they don't actually have a grocery store. Instead, about 3 times a week a food truck comes and plays its merry song (like a healthy ice cream truck) and all the villagers gather and grab what they need. It was insane.  (That's the dragon truck.)  We went to the onsen (public bathhouse) with our one-night-host-mom, and then the 5 of us ate dinner. After dinner (delicious sukiyaki) we played Qwirkle) and everyone had a good laugh before we went upstairs to bed. It was a really fun night, and I'm glad Katie and Abram got to experience what it's like to be with a Japanese family.

 

March 22nd

Today we ate breakfast, gave our host mom our thank you gifts (we had all drawn/painted pictures of our trip so far and wrote thank you notes), and then spent our last hour wandering town with her again before we hopped on the bus again.

We arrived in Kanazawa and it was still cold. (Cold being relative, but we weren't prepared for 40 degree weather with our thin little jackets.) We grabbed lunch at the station, dropped our bags off at our hotel for the night, and immediately lost all will to leave the house again.  I think our one city a day schedule was wearing on everyone, so we took a break.  We made a unanimous decision to have a day of rest so we watched two movies on the big screen TV in our apartment and only left to go pick up our pizza from Dominos.  (Yes, we ate pizza.)  Honestly, it was a great night and I think everyone enjoyed it. 

March 23rd

Today we were originally planning on heading to another city, but instead, we explored Kanazawa and then headed home.  We found a delicious cafe to eat breakfast at where we ran into a lady we met at the station the day before. Small world. Turns out there are some really cool places in this city.  We went to the samurai neighborhood and explored some of the houses/museums (and found this Jesus statue).  Then we went to this place called the Ninja Temple.  It has no connections to ninjas but was simply named that due to all of the trap doors, hidden staircases, and other secrets hidden in the building structure. It was the coolest tour! Sadly, videos and pictures weren't allowed.  We went to Kanazawa castle after that and the architecture blew us away. They had some crazy skills being able to build all the things they did back then without power tools or even nails.   We explored the giant park around the castle for as long as our cold fingers allowed, before we headed back to the station for dinner and our trip home.  All in all it was exhausting (as you can see by Katie falling asleep on Abram), but what a trip.

               

March 24th

We had a late night last night, but we finally made it to my home ward. I was able to introduce Katie and Abram to my friends and then we had a relaxing Sunday just enjoying being home and not sight-seeing. (Well I mean I got to enjoy being home, I guess they were still technically not home.)  

March 25th

Today was also relaxing. We made cream cheese french toast one last time and spent the morning organizing suitcases and watching a movie.  I don't know what was weirder: walking to the station with them without any luggage to drag around behind me or walking back from the station without them.

I guess now I'll have to adjust back to life on my own. But boy my house has never felt so large!
That night I went to my school's drinking party, which was fun (albeit slightly expensive considering I don't even drink) but it seemed like a good idea since next week I start working at a new school and I don't know when I'll see everyone again.
(It seemed like a good idea up until they randomly asked me to give a mini-speech since I wouldn't be there next year.) Speeches in English= Not fun. Speeches in Japanese=leaves me incapable of using chopsticks for the next 5 minutes until my hands stop shaking.   Good times.

Now the next big adventure will be starting my new job and probably moving to a new house.  Wish me luck!