*maiko in training*

A couple weeks ago Ashley Asao was in Tokyo with a few other students and professors from the occupational therapy program at the University of Puget Sound...I haven't seen her in a long time so I was really excited to see a friend from home (especially because I know she loves shopping and eating)! I took her and her friend Lesliann to Harajuku, Tsukiji, and Asakusa. Right now it's rainy season again in Japan so the weather was really ugly but we still had a good time!

Ashley writes a food blog for fun..You guys in Hawaii and the bay area should definitely check it out!
www.epicureanappetite.blogspot.com


free hugs in harajuku

cos-play


me, ash, and lesli

tsukiji (again!)


the long line to get into sushi dai @ 7am

we're almost in!

i've been there so many times this sushi chef recognized me...he thanked me for always bringing in my friends hahaha...then he asked how i found out about sushi dai and i told him jake was actually the one who told me about it, and he got all excited because he remembered jake too and he's a big fan! :)

greatest sushi ever

this thing was moving

the only place with good uni

good stuff

sugoi oishiikatta

tsukemono-ya in tsukiji

yes that's right! $100 for 2 mangoes!!!

$80 box of cherries!

ashley and lesli buying knives in tsukiji

getting it engraved

after tsukiji it was off to asakusa


yaki senbei on a stick...too good for words


kappabashi dori (the kitchenware district)

thousands of dishes...how do you choose?

fake food!




"what?! i can't eat this??..."

we had a lot of fun...the weekend went by too fast. i'm excited to go home and join ashley on the search for good eats in honolulu. ashley also loves to cook authentic japanese food, so i told her i'd pay her to cook for me when i get home :) she also makes weekly trips to marukai and shirokiya, yay she might be even more nihonjin than me!

the following weekend we all gathered in tokyo again to celebrate allie and naho's birthday. naho's contract is up at the end of this month so it was the last time seeing her. :( allie is staying with mito amity until december and she's also coming with us this obon trip to thailand and laos :)


kim and her four japanese hostesses

never buy wine that comes in a cat bottle...it was horrible


the girls on the yamanote
we ended up going out in shibuya again...we were out dancing until 5am. we didn't get back to the hotel until 6am, and had to wake up at 9:30 to go to katsura studio to get our maiko pictures taken :) when kim's mom came to visit during golden week they got to dress up as maiko's in kyoto and take pictures. when we saw them we knew we had to do it before we left japan, so i found this place in tokyo that did it. allie was supposed to come with us too but she uhh...wasn't feeling so well that morning :) hahaha..





whoa...kowaii yo! obake mitai!


i look so angry in all of my pictures...

i kept cracking up, so this is the face i had to make to try and stop smiling


my kimono




i was disappointed with my studio pictures because i look so pissed off in all of them hahahaha...you're not allowed to show teeth, so i felt like i was smiling but apparently i was not. overall though it was such a neat experience and i give those maiko and geisha a lot of credit because the kimono plus the wig and hair accessories were SO tight and heavy!! i felt like i was going to topple over with the slightest movements.


byee naho :( best of luck in DC!


matcha and oreo mcflurrys at mcdonalds are out, and milk tea mcflurrys are IN! kore mo oishii!


natto temaki in ume rice from 7-11...whoevers idea this was had me in mind :) i eat it almost everyday!

AHHHHH in one month the new girl will be here! i was really good this past weekend and shipped home another box. i also cleaned for 7 hours on saturday, but somehow my apartment is still full of stuff! the countdown is on...

Our adorable kids :)

Hello!!! Sorry I know I've been slacking again...Chotto namakechatteremasu! (I got a little lazy) :) After coming back from Golden Week I started to go into a little panic because it hit me that I had less than 3 months left, and now we're approaching the middle of June which means I have only a month and a half left of work!!! It's such a struggle for me because I told myself I wouldn't procrastinate and start packing and sending boxes home early, but everytime I've attempted to pack so far I found myself not wanting to put things in the box because that's when it hits me that this is all really coming to an end. So this weekend I'm going to start taking pictures of my cluttered apartment as it is that way I will always remember how it looked for the past two years.

It's also been hard trying to plan out my remaining weekends here in Japan. I thought that at the end I would want to travel and go out of town every week, but all I want to do is stay near and spend time in Fukushima. I want to hang out with my co-workers, and my student's families whenever I can because those are always the best times. We got the information of the new teacher that is coming to replace me. It's weird because this girl will have my life y'know? She will have my apartment, my kids, Iwaki...It makes me wish that I could go back to the beginning when I was so scared and excited...Some how two years doesn't seem like enough, but I know it's time.

Anyway, glad to hear everyone is doing good at home! Congrats to Kat and Tracie for graduating! We have A LOT of friends who are becoming teachers!! Scary thought...haha just kidding!

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to the past month after Golden Week. We were really fortunate to have been invited by a couple of our student's families to their homes...great times!


It was that time again for the semi-annual Design Festa in Odaiba! Design festa is the biggest designer convention in Asia, and it's always a good place to see some interesting art, fashion, and people :)



These Korean hairdressers were doing hair for 500 yen, so we decided to let them do whatever they wanted to our hair










talented keiki


We didn't stay in Tokyo that night because Kim had to be back in Fukushima the next day to get her VISA renewed (I can't believe we've been working together for a year already!) So I decided to go back with her, and the next day our manager took us on a mini road trip to Koriyama from Iwaki. We always catch the highway bus there, but this time we drove on the side streets...Fun times!


The whole time it was only green mountains, trees, and more greenery! This one is actually called Mt. Fuji...no kidding.


Satoko's car...Nissan March (a very very very popular car here)


We took her to eat at Taj Mahal (our Indian restaurant)

Maki and Miyu goofing around in our office (my co-workers kids that we babysit like every Saturday night haha)

Iwaki Amity had a transfer student this past year, her name is Rinka and she moved to Iwaki a couple months ago from Koriyama. Lana used to teach her last year, and she her father's company just so happened to relocate him to Taira, and now she comes to Amity twice a week and Kim and I both have her in separate classes. She's so adorable and her mother is so nice! I thought it would be a lot of fun for all of us to get together since she knew Lana, Kim, and I and I knew she didn't know many people in Iwaki yet so we went over to her house for lunch. It was really good practice for Lana and I because Rinka's mom speaks almost no English, so we really had to try our best!


me and Rinka



Rinka's mom wanted to do a temaki sushi party! It was quite a spread! Ikura, maguro, hamachi, shrimp, crab...CRAZY!


Rinka loves chocolate

she ate like one temaki roll and two chocolate pies!

milk mustache

Sorry I just had to post all those pictures of Rinka because she is so stinkin cute!

That night we had to rush to dinner with our old co-worker Rina. Rina just quit Amity in May because she's moving to Vancouver in a couple of weeks! She had studied in Seattle and Vancouver a few years ago, and has been dying to move back on a working VISA rather than just on a short student VISA. Her personality also seems much more American than Japanese, so I think she's going to be much happier there. We went to our favorite restaurant Est Est.




Then after dinner...what else? Karaoke time!





The next day it was off to Hawaiians! It was Lana and Kim's first time so we were excited! :) Our manager's mom works for this company that gets free passes to Hawaiians as part of her benefits so we scored! I just had to pretend that I was Satoko Fukuda's cousin hahaha...

For breakfast we had the macha/oreo mcflurry! You guys are missing out back home!



Iwaki station being torn down

my city

we have ESCALATORS AND NEON SIGNS...we're moving up in the world!

iwakians for life

super hitachi...our "shinkansen"...only cool people are on the joban line :)

yumoto, iwaki (where hula girls was filmed)






old ladies drinking coconut milk for 1,250 yen a pop!

This is so cool! You stick your hands or feet into this fish tank and they eat all of the dead skin cells off of you! Look at Kim's face!

Hawaiians has one of the largest outdoor onsens in Japan...it was absolutely beautiful! After the waterpark we went to an okonomiyaki restaurant that we just discovered near our apartment.




wow so perfect!

dekita

me and saki she's so cute that it's hard to not like her even though she drives me NUTS in class...haha

saki's brother tomoya...their mother had bought them these cute sunglasses earlier that day!

The following weekend we were supposed to go hiking with these other Iwaki JET's but we didn't get the early train so Kim and I decided to just hop on a train and see where it took us. We ended up going to the end of the line which turned up to be Koriyama hahaha...Lana had some unexpected visitors :)



i love the country

small stations are adorable


random wedding plaza in the middle of nowhere

That night Lana's friend was having a Tarot card reading party so we all went to check it out. It was pretty cool, met a lot of nice people :)


Next day we did our usual sushi and Round 1!

I'm going to miss ordering sushi from a touch screen and having it delivered by shinkansen


In the bathroom it was an automatic soap dispenser/water/and dryer in one sink!







After Round 1 we were lucky again to be invited by one of Lana's students to their house for dinner. Lana has a new baby student named Kiyo. Her parents go to Hawaii every year for a month and decided to give birth in Hawaii so that their child would have dual citizenship. We could tell that he was very well off because he has a business in Tokyo but never has to be there to run it, so they moved to Koriyama to be closer to the wife's parents. They both don't work and go on vacation whenever they want. Talk about a life!


Oolong tea from China...$1000/50 grams We didn't want to drink it!


I was so excited because I had always heard of those sushi restaurants that you can order from and they deliver right to your door! They deliver everything in fancy boxes with shoyu, sauce, utencils, EVERYTHING! But we never tried because I heard that they were pretty expensive and people usually only do them when they're having an important private dinner party...We were so thankful!


shaka!


expensive cake from Usui department store



super high tech toilet

It was such a good time, they are the nicest people ever! We all exchanged information so I told him next time they're in Hawaii I will definitely show them around. So they might go to Honolulu in October for Kiyo's 1 year birthday! I hope to see them!