Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Trip
FINALLY! After going back and forth on what to do for our anniversary for the past three weeks, we finally have plans. We booked a hotel for two nights and made reservations at a restaurant in Masuda, about an hour or so north of Hagi. It isn't an exciting, populous, touristy place, but it is somewhere different. It's a good "jumping off" point to visit Tsuwano, as the road from Masuda is fairly straight compared to other places (though on a map Tsuwano looks fairly close to Hagi, in reality it takes nearly two hours because of the winding mountain roads!). Aside from visiting Tsuwano, Masuda has some nice beaches we plan to check out, and possibly river canoeing. Should be fun!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
35 Questions
Yes... I admit I am occasionally a sucker for these things! This is sort of related to our anniversary coming up in a few days as it is a couples survey. I figured it may be interesting for you all to read, so here it goes!
1. What are your names? Jeremy and Kristin
2. When is your anniversary? June 28th
3. How long have you known each other? 9 years
4. How long have you been married? 1 year (almost!)
5. Did you change your name? No, not yet! We plan to change my name once we're Stateside again.
6. Where was the honeymoon? We stayed at a nice B&B near Warren Dunes State Park in SW Michigan.
7. Where do you live now? Hagi, Yamaguchi, Japan
8. What jobs do you have? Both English Conversation teachers
9. How many children do you have/want? None yet, 2 or 3
10. Do you have any pets? No, but K would like a cat or two someday
11. What religion are you? We are Christians, K grew up Baptist, J grew up Southern Baptist
12. Do you go to church? Yes, Tatokoyama Church
13. Do you cook or eat-out? Cook at home, eat out one meal once a week
14. Who cooks? Kristin, but we both cook/Jeremy usually helps with the preparation
15. Who cleans? Both of us
16. Who drives? Jeremy
17. Who manages the money? Both of us - K works the budget, J deals with the cash
18. Who is the early bird/night owl? K is almost always up first, J often stays up later
19. What do you do in your free time? Use the computer, play games, do word puzzles
20. What is your favorite activity together? playing board games or taking a walk
21. What are you saving for? traveling, paying off school loans, future children, future house
22. What are your favorite places to visit? K: the beach, J: board game stores :-)
23. What do you do on 'dates'? Sadly, we don't have many "dates" anymore, but we're always together anyway! IF we do, it's just to a restaurant in town, unless you count taking walks or going to the park to play games...
24. What do you argue most about? FOOD, haha!
25. What little things make you happy? K: getting a random gift, J: whenever K cooks, or makes something special for me
26. What things annoy you? K: having to unroll J's sweaty underwear to to laundry, J: papers everywhere!
27. What is most challenging for you? Keeping the house clean
28. What is most exciting for you? Living in a foreign country!
29. What is one thing you do every day together? Walk 30 minutes to work together
30. What are your most prized possessions? Our wedding rings, photos, and board games
31. What is your favorite thing about each other? K: he's my best friend! J: she "exudes" cuteness and is very easygoing
32. What are you looking forward to? Having a family
33. Do you miss anything? Family and friends, and being able to go to a used media store (in English!)
34. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? K: Hopefully, in America near family/friends, with kids, and a house. J: Who knows! At a steady job and with a couple of kids.
35. Do you have any marriage advice to share? The well-told "don't go to bed angry" is a good bit of advice. :-)
1. What are your names? Jeremy and Kristin
2. When is your anniversary? June 28th
3. How long have you known each other? 9 years
4. How long have you been married? 1 year (almost!)
5. Did you change your name? No, not yet! We plan to change my name once we're Stateside again.
6. Where was the honeymoon? We stayed at a nice B&B near Warren Dunes State Park in SW Michigan.
7. Where do you live now? Hagi, Yamaguchi, Japan
8. What jobs do you have? Both English Conversation teachers
9. How many children do you have/want? None yet, 2 or 3
10. Do you have any pets? No, but K would like a cat or two someday
11. What religion are you? We are Christians, K grew up Baptist, J grew up Southern Baptist
12. Do you go to church? Yes, Tatokoyama Church
13. Do you cook or eat-out? Cook at home, eat out one meal once a week
14. Who cooks? Kristin, but we both cook/Jeremy usually helps with the preparation
15. Who cleans? Both of us
16. Who drives? Jeremy
17. Who manages the money? Both of us - K works the budget, J deals with the cash
18. Who is the early bird/night owl? K is almost always up first, J often stays up later
19. What do you do in your free time? Use the computer, play games, do word puzzles
20. What is your favorite activity together? playing board games or taking a walk
21. What are you saving for? traveling, paying off school loans, future children, future house
22. What are your favorite places to visit? K: the beach, J: board game stores :-)
23. What do you do on 'dates'? Sadly, we don't have many "dates" anymore, but we're always together anyway! IF we do, it's just to a restaurant in town, unless you count taking walks or going to the park to play games...
24. What do you argue most about? FOOD, haha!
25. What little things make you happy? K: getting a random gift, J: whenever K cooks, or makes something special for me
26. What things annoy you? K: having to unroll J's sweaty underwear to to laundry, J: papers everywhere!
27. What is most challenging for you? Keeping the house clean
28. What is most exciting for you? Living in a foreign country!
29. What is one thing you do every day together? Walk 30 minutes to work together
30. What are your most prized possessions? Our wedding rings, photos, and board games
31. What is your favorite thing about each other? K: he's my best friend! J: she "exudes" cuteness and is very easygoing
32. What are you looking forward to? Having a family
33. Do you miss anything? Family and friends, and being able to go to a used media store (in English!)
34. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? K: Hopefully, in America near family/friends, with kids, and a house. J: Who knows! At a steady job and with a couple of kids.
35. Do you have any marriage advice to share? The well-told "don't go to bed angry" is a good bit of advice. :-)
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Randomness
It's official. We are staying in Japan another year! Tomorrow, we are going to the immigration office to renew our visas.
AND as of 5 minutes ago, Jeremy will need new sandals this summer. He broke both pair within the past 24 hours, haha. The flip flops were partly my fault as we crashed into each other trying to avoid a giant bug flying at us yesterday and one of the nice sandals' buckles snapped in half just moments ago as it got caught in the car door. Sigh. :-p
Yesterday, we finally conquered the weeds (and a nest of young cockroaches, which Jeremy refers to as the great cockroach massacre of '09) in our front garden, after a little prompting from our boss. Heh. Whenever we own a home someday, we need an easy yard to take care of... The other day we discovered a little Japanese man on our porch after investigating some strange noises around the side of our house (he was there to refill our gas tank). Apparently, he had a heck of a time getting through our forest on the side of the house (which reaches embarrassing heights similar to the picture of the front garden, though much more dense), and either mentioned it to our landlord or the landlord just got tired of the eyesore and told our boss that "weeding is necessary", haha. Actually, it was because they need to get in to replace the shoji door you can see in the picture, the paper has been torn since before we moved in. We planned to tackle the side today, however it has been raining all morning, so we shall see.
As you're all well aware one of our favorite pastimes is playing board games. We recently decided to take it to a new level and enjoy it all the more - have been taking them to the park with us! Here is Jeremy after another humiliating defeat. :-)
It has been getting quite warm here lately, though not yet as warm as back home! Thankfully, it hasn't been too bad, but we have had days when putting frozen bags of vegetables over our bodies feels awfully refreshing...
AND we recently discovered GOURMET Doritos. They have several different flavors. Do you have these back home?
And lastly... and most awaited... our first anniversary gift to ourselves... a Wii!!! I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd be interested in getting one and Jeremy took that as the ok to purchase one ASAP. He then went into "must. have. Wii. now." mode and didn't sleep much until we had one on the way. It arrived yesterday, but between work and weeding we didn't have time to pick it up at the post office. Jeremy walked there in the rain as soon as it opened this morning to pick it up (notice his wet T-shirt) and is now enjoying it to its fullest.
*edit*
And this is just for Jesse - Jeremy with his "future father" Father's Day flowers from church.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to our real dads!! We love you!!
AND as of 5 minutes ago, Jeremy will need new sandals this summer. He broke both pair within the past 24 hours, haha. The flip flops were partly my fault as we crashed into each other trying to avoid a giant bug flying at us yesterday and one of the nice sandals' buckles snapped in half just moments ago as it got caught in the car door. Sigh. :-p
Yesterday, we finally conquered the weeds (and a nest of young cockroaches, which Jeremy refers to as the great cockroach massacre of '09) in our front garden, after a little prompting from our boss. Heh. Whenever we own a home someday, we need an easy yard to take care of... The other day we discovered a little Japanese man on our porch after investigating some strange noises around the side of our house (he was there to refill our gas tank). Apparently, he had a heck of a time getting through our forest on the side of the house (which reaches embarrassing heights similar to the picture of the front garden, though much more dense), and either mentioned it to our landlord or the landlord just got tired of the eyesore and told our boss that "weeding is necessary", haha. Actually, it was because they need to get in to replace the shoji door you can see in the picture, the paper has been torn since before we moved in. We planned to tackle the side today, however it has been raining all morning, so we shall see.
As you're all well aware one of our favorite pastimes is playing board games. We recently decided to take it to a new level and enjoy it all the more - have been taking them to the park with us! Here is Jeremy after another humiliating defeat. :-)
It has been getting quite warm here lately, though not yet as warm as back home! Thankfully, it hasn't been too bad, but we have had days when putting frozen bags of vegetables over our bodies feels awfully refreshing...
AND we recently discovered GOURMET Doritos. They have several different flavors. Do you have these back home?
And lastly... and most awaited... our first anniversary gift to ourselves... a Wii!!! I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd be interested in getting one and Jeremy took that as the ok to purchase one ASAP. He then went into "must. have. Wii. now." mode and didn't sleep much until we had one on the way. It arrived yesterday, but between work and weeding we didn't have time to pick it up at the post office. Jeremy walked there in the rain as soon as it opened this morning to pick it up (notice his wet T-shirt) and is now enjoying it to its fullest.
*edit*
And this is just for Jesse - Jeremy with his "future father" Father's Day flowers from church.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to our real dads!! We love you!!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
More fireflies
No pictures this time, sorry! We went to another festival in Taware last night and had a good time. It was interesting... apparently, the people in that area aren't used to seeing foreigners so we were quite the spectacle. When we arrived we were greeted with camera flashes. No joke! Everyone whipped out their cameras and started taking pictures - some posed, most candid. We were watched very closely the entire evening. Of course being a celebrity has its perks - we were given some delicious free food and treated extra special. We were even put up on the stage in front of everyone and forced to introduce ourselves. It was slightly awkward having a Japanese comedian shove a microphone in your face while having hundreds of eyes on you... The fireflies, the reason for the event, were amazing - MUCH better than Hagi-Yamada's! There were sooo many! It was beautiful. We were even able to catch some. :-)
*edit* AND we discovered at church this morning that apparently Jeremy and I made it on local TV when we were at the Hagi festival last week - they freakin' zoomed in our faces!! Our friend said we were on the whole screen. Creepy, haha. We saw the cameras there and Jeremy joked about us being on TV...
*edit* AND we discovered at church this morning that apparently Jeremy and I made it on local TV when we were at the Hagi festival last week - they freakin' zoomed in our faces!! Our friend said we were on the whole screen. Creepy, haha. We saw the cameras there and Jeremy joked about us being on TV...
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Fireflies
'Tis the season of the firefly...
Yesterday was one of the many local celebrations of the glowing insects. We didn't realize it before, but I guess they are only around for a week or so, at least in such large quantities, so the nation is a "buzz" with the bugs. Heh. We joined one of my students and his wife in the countryside excursion. The evening started with the Yamaguchi police officer's music club playing several numbers that included various performances such as flag twirling, enka, more flag twirling, and a drama-song by two men dressed like women in kimonos... You would THINK they were the main event because everyone seemed to leave or filter out after their performance before the "fire dancing" began at sundown. To make it worse for the poor performers, everyone stopped and waved at the police officers as their tour bus drove by in the middle of their dance.
Here is a lovely, misty picture of the countryside complete with rice paddies. The festival was held on the other side of the road next to some houses. A lady in one of the houses periodically opened her door and spooked the visitors sitting on her porch step. It was amusing.
I took several videos throughout the evening even though it was nothing incredibly spectacular - nevermind the top of the lady's head in them. Here is the band playing while a man sings a traditional enka song called "Grandchild" - I don't know if those are his actual grandchildren on stage with him or just for show.
Here is a song we all recognize and hear a lot, but don't know where it's from! Anyone know???
Here is the "fire dance" I think they are symbolizing the fireflies... or worshipping them... (after this dance they danced with real fire torches!)
After the performances, we went in search of the famous fireflies - as the lights were too bright to see the insects' glow near the festival. We walked towards town in the dark listening to bullfrogs and crickets. It was slightly chilly and a little misty, but you could see the moonlight through the clouds. We saw a ton of fireflies over the river and back into the woods. It was pretty awesome!
Yesterday was one of the many local celebrations of the glowing insects. We didn't realize it before, but I guess they are only around for a week or so, at least in such large quantities, so the nation is a "buzz" with the bugs. Heh. We joined one of my students and his wife in the countryside excursion. The evening started with the Yamaguchi police officer's music club playing several numbers that included various performances such as flag twirling, enka, more flag twirling, and a drama-song by two men dressed like women in kimonos... You would THINK they were the main event because everyone seemed to leave or filter out after their performance before the "fire dancing" began at sundown. To make it worse for the poor performers, everyone stopped and waved at the police officers as their tour bus drove by in the middle of their dance.
Here is a lovely, misty picture of the countryside complete with rice paddies. The festival was held on the other side of the road next to some houses. A lady in one of the houses periodically opened her door and spooked the visitors sitting on her porch step. It was amusing.
I took several videos throughout the evening even though it was nothing incredibly spectacular - nevermind the top of the lady's head in them. Here is the band playing while a man sings a traditional enka song called "Grandchild" - I don't know if those are his actual grandchildren on stage with him or just for show.
Here is a song we all recognize and hear a lot, but don't know where it's from! Anyone know???
Here is the "fire dance" I think they are symbolizing the fireflies... or worshipping them... (after this dance they danced with real fire torches!)
After the performances, we went in search of the famous fireflies - as the lights were too bright to see the insects' glow near the festival. We walked towards town in the dark listening to bullfrogs and crickets. It was slightly chilly and a little misty, but you could see the moonlight through the clouds. We saw a ton of fireflies over the river and back into the woods. It was pretty awesome!
Costco
We love Costco!! Thank you Japan for allowing me to use my American card because you can't verify the expiration date! We had a yummy dinner of hotdogs, pizza, smoothie, and re-fillable soda (respectively) for less than $7.50 total. Our total Costco purchase was $30 under the budget we planned for - yay us! We came away with a lot, but not everything we hoped to find. Among the missing were avocados (which were completely sold out), flaxseed, wheat flour and yeast (for bread and rolls), fennel seeds and sweet paprika (for sausage), mouthwash, and Tums. We'll have to keep looking. I'm sad that Japan doesn't care for anything other than white bread/flour... but the happiness over what we did find will satisfy me for a while longer. :-) Our best finds were Dad's rootbeer and cheddar brats! I felt ridiculously American buying such things, but it was worth it!
Here is Jeremy with our stash.
Here is Jeremy with our stash.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
News
It's June already?! Wow, time has flown. It's hard to believe that we'll have been married for one year in less than a month, AND we'll have been in Japan for a year soon too! We've been loving it! I'll post more on each later.
We do have some "bad" news to share with you all... my computer is currently down due to a broken charger and thus a dead battery - the computer we use to chat and see you all with. BUT we have ordered a new one and it should arrive within the next two weeks (we hope!). Just in time for grandma's Ohio visit in July, right? :-) So fear not... we are well, and not trying to ignore anyone! We hope to see/talk to you all again very soon!
As for good news, our co-teacher, Carla, is back from her vacation in the States. She was gone three weeks visiting her family and friends. We hope to do the same thing next summer, if we stay here longer. We've pretty much decided that if they offer us to extend our contracts we will take them up on it. We haven't made very good use of our time here yet, and are starting to realize all that we are or will be missing out on if we don't. We'd need to stay longer to have the full benefit of everything. The rainy season is upon us and will probably last through the first of July. Regardless of the weather, Jeremy has been faithful to his workouts and has been running every morning (except Saturdays, as we work in the morning that day). I'm so proud of him! I have been fairly regular with my exercise as well, every other day. Haha. I should follow his example! We also have a new secretary at the Hagi school - two now, instead of one - and today we are having a welcome party for her, as is tradition in Japanese companies. We're looking forward to the possible buffet of food! On Sunday, we are FINALLY visiting Costco again! We are so excited!! Every day I have been adding more to our shopping list, so we will definitely need to refine it before leaving that morning or else we will be in trouble. We are also thinking of our anniversary plans... Jeremy would like to visit somewhere different for a day or two, so I have been researching various places in Yamaguchi prefecture. Among possible destinations are Shimonoseki, Ube, Iwakuni, Tsunoshima, and Yamaguchi City (even though we go there fairly often now, as it's the closest large city to us). We'll also consider Kokura and Tsuwano as well, in neighboring prefectures. We need to get out and explore more! Oh! And my sister is due to have their second baby July 4th, though she believes he will come early. How exciting! We can't wait for the news of our new nephew.
That's all for now! Take care! We love and miss you all!
We do have some "bad" news to share with you all... my computer is currently down due to a broken charger and thus a dead battery - the computer we use to chat and see you all with. BUT we have ordered a new one and it should arrive within the next two weeks (we hope!). Just in time for grandma's Ohio visit in July, right? :-) So fear not... we are well, and not trying to ignore anyone! We hope to see/talk to you all again very soon!
As for good news, our co-teacher, Carla, is back from her vacation in the States. She was gone three weeks visiting her family and friends. We hope to do the same thing next summer, if we stay here longer. We've pretty much decided that if they offer us to extend our contracts we will take them up on it. We haven't made very good use of our time here yet, and are starting to realize all that we are or will be missing out on if we don't. We'd need to stay longer to have the full benefit of everything. The rainy season is upon us and will probably last through the first of July. Regardless of the weather, Jeremy has been faithful to his workouts and has been running every morning (except Saturdays, as we work in the morning that day). I'm so proud of him! I have been fairly regular with my exercise as well, every other day. Haha. I should follow his example! We also have a new secretary at the Hagi school - two now, instead of one - and today we are having a welcome party for her, as is tradition in Japanese companies. We're looking forward to the possible buffet of food! On Sunday, we are FINALLY visiting Costco again! We are so excited!! Every day I have been adding more to our shopping list, so we will definitely need to refine it before leaving that morning or else we will be in trouble. We are also thinking of our anniversary plans... Jeremy would like to visit somewhere different for a day or two, so I have been researching various places in Yamaguchi prefecture. Among possible destinations are Shimonoseki, Ube, Iwakuni, Tsunoshima, and Yamaguchi City (even though we go there fairly often now, as it's the closest large city to us). We'll also consider Kokura and Tsuwano as well, in neighboring prefectures. We need to get out and explore more! Oh! And my sister is due to have their second baby July 4th, though she believes he will come early. How exciting! We can't wait for the news of our new nephew.
That's all for now! Take care! We love and miss you all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)