Da Girls

So much, too much, going on at home right now, and I wish I could be there. I guess the biggest thing is obviously Alyssa's graduation which is this weekend...Congratulations to you Lys and Bryce! For those of you who haven't heard, my little sis is moving to Hilo in August! I think it's awesome! More of an adventure than going to Manoa, and less traffic!!!

Work continues to have it's ups and downs. There are some days where I feel like I want to teach forever, and others where I couldn't do it for another second. Since the new school year has started my schedule is a lot less stressful. I went from having 34 classes/week to just 27...it's pretty great, but the days go by a little slower. Our head JT (japanese teacher), Chima quit recently so we hired a new girl (it's pretty cool because I get to interview them too) haha. We thought that the loss of Chima was going to be hard to adjust to, but during Golden Week another JT, Mikako had to suddenly quit due to illness. I haven't heard from her since. I'm worried because Mikako's father was also in the hospital for cancer, the Japanese don't discuss details but I know it's something serious for her not to be able to work anymore. Mikako was my favorite...I still have her entire season two of "24"..she would also pass on her English magazines to me after she was done reading them. She was also a big Jake fan :) So, now our manager has to teach all of Mikako's classes. Usually managers don't teach any classes because there's a lot of office/business to be done, and now she has to do both, and I know she's going crazy.

My new FT (Foreign teacher) is Tehani. She's an '01 grad from Mililani. I'm so glad she's here but we both agreed that having each other to talk to about Hawaii just makes us more homesick, but it's nice. I don't want her to leave!! She's an emergency teacher which means she just fills in temporarily, until a permanent teacher is placed.

Jake was in Japan this past month...his tour schedule was too crazy, and he was never in tokyo when i was :( i did get to talk to him a lot though...yay. he'll be in japan from end of july-early october so hopefully i'll get to see him then...he wants to go eat at tsukiji...shoots.

Miss everyone and love you! Take care, and I'l write soon.

p.s. Taiwan ittekimasu!


Chima's goodbye dinner

Michelle, Stacie, and Andie...Giants vs. Tigers April '07

batting practice

crazy fans

Andie and Chan (the emergency teacher before Tehani)

The girls at a club in Tokyo

My Japan Map...the dots are the places that i've been to!!

iwaki beach

only ones for miles

hawaii?? nope, it's iwaki!


tsutaya

where's the sailor moon??

perfect strawberries! $4 dollars worth!

look mike, more denny's food!

iwaki sky at 4:30 am

gardens near the sumo arena

last weekend tehani, stacie, michelle, and i attended the 8th day of the grand sumo tournament-tokyo! having "girl-talk" and trying to get a tan!



chanko nabe!!! eat like a sumo wrestler!

SOLD OUT


junior level wrestlers

da arena

each seat has it's own bottle opener! the japanese think of everything!

the ring

posing with the junior wrestlers

talkin story

the big dogs

scoreboard-east vs. west

@ make your own katsu for stacie's bday dinner!


puri-kura, "i'm happy!"

michelle's beautiful poster

happy 28th birthday stace!

monorail to daiba

i bet u guys are sick of pictures of rainbow bridge, eh?

3.20/bottle!

11.90 for turkey/avocado, but well worth it.

michelle's first kua'aina

spam for 7.04 a can!!!

"Decks" shopping center


nice shirt teh

reyn spooner shirts!

i miss my buggie

this shopping center is almost a replica of the aladdin hotel in vegas

riding the smart cars

behind da wheel


daiba man made beach


This past Saturday it was pretty warm so Tehani and I decided to ride our bikes to the beach after work. We rode along the river in the PITCH dark, deafened by the noise of crickets and toads...talk about "country girls!" we brought along some booze for our "otsukaresama"!


100 yen candles were our only source of light!

when the candles went out, we were desperate for light so i started burning everything in my backpack...including this deck of cards...hahahaaha! good times...

On Sunday Michelle came up to Iwaki (I don't know how i convinced that one)...she wanted to go to the beach so I biked my butt back out there, but the weather sucked :( It's a good 10 mile bike ride round trip...my okole stay SORE!


the rice shoots are sprouting!

i live in the middle of nowhere

Later that day we took a trip a little north to visit Hattachi beach. When it's warmer it's a popular place to go swimming...but it was FREEEEEEZING that day :( lucky us.










**only people who have lived in japan will be able to understand how safe and kind japanese people can be..hattachi beach is in the middle of nowhere with a bus stop where the bus comes by ONCE a day. we found a taxi to get there, but had no way of getting back. we stopped in this small coffee shop that was owned by an elderly local couple. they were excited to have foreigners in there so when we asked if they could call a taxi for us, they first checked what time the next train to iwaki was, then asked the taxi to come in half an hour so that we would get to the station in time, but not too early because it was cold outside...isn't that just the cutest?**

purinima (greatest indian restaurant)

that's one side order of naan..it's literally hanging off the table!

HAWAIIANS spa resort!











UNI pretz!!!!! yuuuckkkkk!!

Hawaiians was a lot of fun! and i also had my first onsen experience! i was bathing naked with like 50 other women!! it was GREAT! The only pretty decent bar in Iwaki is this italian restaurant called Est Est


FREE pool and darts...i suck