ITS COLD!

SAMUI!

Dad, sorry I never did address your question about what the weather was like up here in iwaki city but i will do that right now! ok, so i know it said that the temperature ranged from 60-90 degrees and you must have been thinking, "what??"...not even two weeks ago the weather did range from the low 60s to mid 90s. if it was a sunny day, it was so hot and humid! mushiatsui!!! but if it rained at night it would fall to the low 60s. but it's officially fall and i guess that means heavy rain because it's been rainy almost everyday for the past week. one of our students mother explained that it's the ending of typhoon season and that's why it's been so rainy, and that it usually doesn't rain this much. today was not only rainy but WINDY! apparently iwaki is the "windy city" of japan, and that during the winter it gets so windy that people don't even ride their bikes because the wind just blows them down. i got a slight taste of how crazy the wind can be today. i tried walking to work with an umbrella but it was pointless. the wind seems to have a mind of its own and changes directions every five seconds (you think i'm exaggerating eh?) i hold the umbrella in one direction against the wind, and then the next second the umbrella flies up. chris has given up on using his, as well as the other pedestrians (i noticed that a lot of people were carrying broken umbrellas on the street)...i am dead scared of the winter weather....i tell the japanese teachers, "yeah you make fun of the little hawaii girl now, but when i get pnemonia and call in sick everyday in january, you will have to teach my classes so who has the last laugh now!?" ok, now i'm exaggerating...but still scared. currently my apartment in shaking because i'm on the top floor and the wind is THAT strong.

so alyssa is here in japan and i'm not even going to get to see her! i tried calling the tokyo hotel, but everytime i call they're not in. i stopped because i think i was irritating the front desk people, because by the third time they already knew who i was, and what room i needed to be connected to. haha. so instead of heading into tokyo last weekend, my friend from saitama came up to visit me. her name is michelle and she's from tennessee, she teaches at Amity Kita-Omiya. i warned her that there was nothing to do in iwaki, but she wanted to come anyway :)



*michelle, chris, and i went out to an izakaya probably the only place in iwaki that is open past 12am*

the next day we planned on going to the beach, but it was raining...of course. we thought about traveling to koriyama (fukushima) but it was raining there too. so since she had come so far we decided to just go to the beach anyway. i ripped open my box of winter clothes and we were off! (we looked so ridiculous).










the weather made the beach look rather dreary but because it was raining there was a light mist in the mountains and near the river it was so beautiful. the bike path follows the river and the path is right next to my apartment. it's just a 30 minute bike ride from there. i have to go again before winter comes or else i won't see the water for a good 4 months haha.

that night we headed into mito (which is in the middle of tokyo and iwaki) just for fun. we were so lost but we found this little restaurant and they served spanish food. the inside was so cute! we were the only ones in there. the bar was beautiful and the waiters all spoke pretty good english, they asked us where we were from and what we were doing in japan...we didn't know what anything was except for cervesa and sangria haha so we ordered sangria and the for the food we told the waiters to just bring us whatever they thought was good....they did and it was really good! but we have no idea what we ate...i want to go back there just because they were really slow, the food was good, and the people were nice. i don't know what the name of the restaurant is, but i call it "little spain".




this weekend i'm going to head to koriyama to visit melanie. she's from canada, and this weekend is her thanksgiving so i'm going to stay with her so she's not alone...plus she's cooking chicken (japan doesn't have turkey), stuffing, gravy, salad, and we're going to buy dessert. i'm excited!!

jake's on tv all the time here...here he is on a popular morning show (it seemed like japan's good morning america) they were talking about "hula girl" and he played the theme song...




that's about it for now...i wasn't going to post for a while because there is just so much more going on at home and i feel like that's where i should be...i love my family so much, and as long as they know that my heart is there that's what matters.

i will mail cards home soon!
love you,
andie