Tokyo

Fountains outside of the Imperial Palace

Matt and Me

Tokyo Tower

Some huskies in front of the Tokyo Tower. Since I am now a Northeastern 'husky' I suppose I should start getting used to their mascot!

I bought these sunglasses in Osaka and, while I feel a little silly wearing them, I also love them. And I like making Matt wear them, even though they look even more silly on him :)

Kobe

Azaleas in Kobe

Flower Festival

Sometimes Japan seems so efficient and sometimes I just wander around wondering why. For example, why are there THREE gardens using SCISSORS to cut the grass and prune the gardens? I mean, I am sure it is work that requires precision but I think this might be taking that a little too far.

Matt and the okonomiyaki

Me and the yakisoba

Since Kobe is only about 30 minutes and $4 away from Osaka, we decided to go there for the day on Monday. Kobe was in the middle of a flower festival and there were lots of impressive pictures made of flower petals throughout the streets. We wandered around, including unintentionally hiking about 45 minutes into the mountains above Kobe (no pictures of that though- I looked too sweaty in the pictures for it to be blog-worthy). Kobe has the second largest Chinatown in Japan and we ate a delicious Chinese set lunch there. The weather was gorgeous and the azalea bushes were out in full force.

That afternoon we headed back to Osaka and then to Dotonburi, the party district of Osaka. Matt experienced his first cook-your-own okonomiyaki and I enjoyed some delicious yakisoba (my very favorite Japanese food!).

Osaka at Night

Sunset over Osaka

Skyline View

Matt in the tunnel

Matt made me pose inside of this heart at the Floating Garden and this Japanese woman commented (in Japanese), "Doesn't she know that she is alone in a heart???" to her friend thinking that I did not understand. I did and I gave her a dirty look. I love it when that happens.

We headed to the Floating Garden in Osaka to see the sunset. You have to take this elevator up a million stories and then take this escalator through a tunnel to get to the top but the view was amazing. Matt and I are unclear why the building is called the Floating Garden though- there was no garden and it certainly was not floating. But it was still a lovely night. After the garden, we headed over to the big ferris wheel next to Umeda Station. However, the pictures were not that impressive.

Osaka, Day One

Big Man, Small Sandwich

Grilled Corn in front of Osaka Castle

Matt and Me

Matt had his first experience with fried octopus balls, takoyaki

Osaka Castle

Our first full day in Osaka was BEAUTIFUL. I had worn my winter coat from Kanazawa to Osaka and by the time I got there, I was in skirts and t shirts. First we headed to Osaka Castle. Matt experienced his first takoyaki (fried balls of dough with octopus in it). It is wildly popular here and, while I do not like it at all, Matt loved it! I had some great corn right off of a grill outside of the castle.

Osaka

Matt and Me, first night in Osaka

A great Engrish sign
On April 28 I picked Matt up from Kansai Airport and we went out to explore Osaka. We had a lovely dinner of conveyor belt sushi and walked around the area around our hotel.

Hold on!

Dear Faithful Readers of my blog (who I did not realize existed until I did not post for 2 weeks and got nasty emails and comments),

It has been an exciting two weeks and I have many pictures to post and stories to tell. Matt has been visiting from Boston since April 28 and he is here for a few more days so be patient. Here are some highlights:

* Matt now thinks I am fluent in Japanese. (He is wrong.)
* I ate pig cheek and cow tongue, by accident.
* I had a four year old shriek (and I do mean SHRIEK), "Ahhhh foreigner!!! Look Mom!!! They are foreigners!!!! AHHHH!!!" (in Japanese) at the Osaka Castle.
* A Japanese junior high school boy's baseball team cat called Matt ("You are HANSAMU!").
* A Japanese man stole 200 yen from me (about $1.80)!

:)

Birthday lunch!

Jane & Zach and Jess & Phill were nice enough to take me to a fantastic restaurant called "Bleeker Street" for my birthday lunch. The food was delicious- we had a set menu that had about a million courses. We had a salad, veggie cream soup, fish in a wine miso sauce (pictured above), a delicious beef filet, sushi, coffee and spinach ice cream and sesame pudding for dessert. It was one of the few times in Japan I have been stuffed after leaving a restaurant. The chef lived in New York for many years and Jane has been to the restaurant many times so he came out with each course to talk with us and tell us what we were eating. It was the perfect end to a perfect birthday.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday and my friends here threw me a birthday party. It was really touching to see everyone who came to the party (some came from out of town, others came with knee injuries even!) and my friends did such a great job with all of the details that made it so so special. Amanda hosted the party at her apartment and it was decorated with streamers and balloons. There was lots of food and drink and they even got me a cake (with chocolate chips and white icing!) and a crown to wear. It was perfect.

Honestly, I was shocked at how much work my friends here had put into the party and making my birthday special. I never expected to find such nice people here and make such good friends in such a short amount of time. It was certainly one of the very nicest birthdays I have ever had.

The family comes to town....

Dad, Cindy (my stepmother) and Jackie (my step sister) left this morning after a week of sightseeing with me in Japan. We started in Kyoto and did all of the highlights- Kiyomizudera, Kinkakuji (Golden Pavillion), Heian Shrine, Fushimi Inari, shopping, eating, etc, etc. Then they came to Kanazawa for a few days and we went to Kenrokuen garden, the Ninja Temple, did some gold leafing and ate lots of conveyor belt sushi.

Round One

Jackie, Dan and I went to Round One on Friday which is a huge game complex in Kanazawa. We bowled, rode the mechanical bull, played soccer, roller bladed and Jackie kicked Dan's butt at air hockey. :-)

Family

EARTHQUAKE

I was violently awoken this morning by an earthquake!!! A 7.2 earthquake hit off of the coast of my prefecture at 9:42 AM this morning. Truthfully, it wasn't so bad in Kanazawa. The room shook for about 30 seconds and a bottle of lotion fell off of my shelf. Other than that, everything was fine- the bottles of shampoo around my tub didn't even fall. However, apparently it was much worst further north. One of my friends said that her cabinets openned and her dishes fell out, her TV and washing machine fell over. A lady was killed in a town north of Kanazawa when a stone lantern fell on her. Pretty crazy!!! I have survived my first earthquake! It was on the news in Boston too- although it said that the earthquake hit Tokyo but it actually hit my prefecture.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/03/24/quake.japan.ap/index.html

Last week of school

Class 13
Class 18

This week and last week were the last Oral Communication classes for the year. We took pictures in most of the classes and here are two of my favorite classes. Some of these kids are hilarious and they are so good at English.

Views from the Kencho

Kanazawa

Alexis, Ikebana Artist Extraordinaire!

Our arrangement

Our names on the name plate: Jen Courudaa (Jane Calder) and Arekusasu Sumisu (Alexis Smith)


Jane and I entered an ikebana arrangement into an ikebana exhibition in Kanazawa this week. It was held in the Kencho, prefectural government building on the 19th floor. There were over 150 entries and we were the only non-Japanese people who entered. Needless to say our non-Japanese sounding names on the name plate had people stopping to take second look at our arrangement a few times. Jane and I entered a piece together- the idea was that the two parts of the arrangement complimented each other. Jane was in charge of the leafy party on the right side and I took care of the flowery part on the left side. Today we took a trip to the exhibition with Zach, Heather, Chris, Jess and Phill and it was kind of fun to see something that you made display for all to see.

St. Patty's Day!

Fiona is in fact one of the only Irish people in Kanazawa.Marie, Jess and me- you will notice the shamrock garland crown. I have to thank Dad and Cindy for sending me that. At first I had no idea what to do with it but on a whim I brought it with me to the party and by the end of the night half of the place had on these crowns. It was fabulous!
Jane, Phill and me

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day! Japan has borrowed many Western holidays and made them their own- people here are all over Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day. I expected St. P's Day not to be any different. On Friday I wore a green shamrock necklace to school (thank you for sending that to me, Dad and Cindy) and I assumed that people knew why I was wearing it. Well, apparently no Japanese people have even heard of St. Patrick's Day so I spent a few minutes in each class talking about it.

Last night, the foreigner bar had a St. Patrick's Day party and all of the foreigners of KZ were out in full force wearing green and making merry. It always seems pretty funny to go to these huge gatherings of foreigners but the parties are always fun nonetheless!

Oyama Shrine

It was a beautiful day in Kanazawa so I headed over to one of my favorite places- Oyama Shrine. Some of the flowers are starting to bloom and the contrast looks really nice with the snow that is rapidly melting.