Sayonara!

Wow. I can't believe how fast the last few weeks have gone! It is weird to think that we are leaving tomorrow...

This year has been great - a roller coaster ride that's for sure - but great! We have made a lot of good friends and done a lot of cool stuff. There are a lot of things that I will miss: friends, students, great customer service, the JR train system, cheap sushi, not having to get up before 9:00 am, karaoke rooms, and many, many other things.

I am sad to leave but also excited to go home and see my family and friends again!

We had a Sayonara party last night at Akashi park and it was a blast! We enjoyed some nice weather and drinks in the park and then went to karaoke one last time...

Very, very early tomorrow morning we will leave Kansai, make a brief stop in Seoul and then off to Paris. We'll enjoy a wonderful 5 days in Paris and then take a train to Munich for another 5 days before coming back to Minnesota. I am incredibly excited that we are getting to go to Europe on our way home!

Sayonara Japan!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!  

I know a lot of people say it, but I have the best mom in the world!!

She gave me my taste for good food,  good books, and good bargain shopping!

Thanks for always being so supportive and encouraging, mom!  You rock!

I love you!

Tokyo!

Wow - time is flying by super fast!  I can't believe that we're leaving in 3 weeks!

Last week we went to Tokyo and it was awesome!  We stayed with my friend Beth and her husband Shawn at their really, really nice house in Shinjuku.

We took the shinkansen (bullet train) up to Tokyo on Sunday night and wow, was it nice.  It goes over 200 mph and is an incredibly smooth ride.  We got in late so we caught up with Beth and Shawn and then headed to bed.

Monday consisted of a leisurely lunch in the park in Shinjuku and then off we went!  First to Shibuya to see the famously busy intersection and some shopping, then to Harajuku for more shopping.  I 

went to the MAC store in Harajuku and it happened to be a Pro Store which was really cool because there aren't any pro stores in MN.  We headed back to Beth's place picked up Shawn and had dinner at a really good Indian restaurant near their house.

Tuesday we went to the Imperial Palace, Ginza for shopping and then Meiji Shrine.  Ginza was crazy - so many high end stores.  Willard was extremely happy to go to the Ginza Apple store, of course.  After dinner we had to head back home to Akashi on the Shinkansen.

It was a short trip but a lot of fun!  Click HERE to see the pics!

This is us at the Ginza Apple Store:

Springtime!

Sorry I've been super lazy with posting for awhile...

It is spring here in Akashi and I love it!  For the past couple weeks it has been in the mid 50's and sunny most days.  Luckily the massively high humidity hasn't kicked in yet so it is enjoyable to be outside.  Sorry that you still have a lot of snow in Minnesota!  I have a feeling that a Minnesota winter will seem especially harsh next winter after I've been away for a year.

I can't believe that we're coming home in 2 months!  Yes, that's right folks, we'll be back home in MN in the beginning of June.  We've got lots of stuff planned for the remainder of our time here:

We'll be making a final (sad!) trip up to Omihachiman to visit Joe & Tiff next week.   On the docket is a Hanami party under the Sakura (cherry blossoms) in Hikone.  Hanami parties are very common in Japan once the cherry trees are in full bloom.  Basically you sit under the trees with friends and drink sake. Also we'll be taking a boat trip on Lake Biwa, visiting an Onsen (Japanese public bath - extremely popular here) then up to Nagahama for some Shiga pottery shopping and finally drinks and dinner at the micro brewery there.  Phew!  Lots of fun stuff crammed into one weekend!

Then a couple weeks later we'll be heading up to Tokyo to visit my friend Beth and her husband Shawn.  Beth is a friend of mine from Target where we worked on the same team.  She and her husband moved to Tokyo last summer too.  I'm excited to see all that is Tokyo!  My students tell me that Japanese culture in Tokyo is different than down here in Kansai and that the accent is different.  We'll see if I can tell or if any Tokyo-ans can understand my Japanese.

We're hoping to cram in a trip down to Hiroshima and Miyajima as well.  Plus we'll be hosting Joe & Tiff  for one last trip for them down to Akashi.  This will include either a Hanshin Tigers or Kobe Orix Buffalos baseball game, some yakiniku and going out in Kobe.

Wow, we will be busy!  

Yesterday I went to Kyoto to get some presents.  Kyoto has the best Japanese gifts so I made the trek up there myself to pick stuff up.  The cherry blossoms are starting and so it was very crowded.  I snapped a picture for you:

Back from Beijing

Ni hao!  We got back from  our trip to Beijing with Joe & Tiff on Thursday and it was awesome!  We saw all that we wanted to see and more!  I would say that we spent the right amount of time there because we had some extra left over to relax and wander around.

Our hotel was nice, and had a really awesome buffet breakfast.  It even came with censored BBC news.  Of course I knew that China is a communist country and that it censors media but dang, was it obvious.  We we're watching BBC news and when the anchorman said "China has been criticized..." it automatically cut to the next news story.  Wow.  

 

China also has its own search engine instead of Google, Yahoo, etc.  It doesn't allow you to go to sites that that the government doesn't approve of.  I went to the business center to check email once and wanted to see if Pete and Katy had their baby yet, but it wouldn't let me go to Katy's blog.  Hmmmm, maybe I'll try going through our website since we have a link, nope, not possible.  I tried a few other ways and I'm guessing that any personal website or blog is blocked.  Frustrating!  I was definitely happy to get back to Japan where I can look at any website that I want to.

We had some great food, wanton soup, gyozas, candied crab apple with walnuts, Peking duck, and spicy chicken lettuce wraps (apparently they do have them in China and PF Chang's didn't just make it up!).

I was impressed with all the history that we saw, it was pretty amazing.  From Tiananmen Square to standing on the emperors stone at the Temple of Heaven.    We saw Mao in his mausoleum looking very waxy.

In my mind I would find a super cool jade bracelet to bring home.  Little did I know that nice real jadeite (the higher quality jade used in jewelry) bracelets are super expensive!  So I ended up getting a simple jade ring, but it's still cool.  

Willard is doing a day by day summary of what we did as well has his clever and witty picture comments - click HERE to check it out!

Beijing, here we come!

Bright and early tomorrow morning we are heading off to Beijing for a 5 day vacation! We will be meeting Joe and Tiff at Kansai International Airport and then we will be on our way! We will be taking in the usual sights of The Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and shopping around at the markets. I'm hoping to eat some Peking Duck and many other Chinese goodies.

I am super excited! We've been watching some History and Discovery Channel specials to learn a bit more about the places we'll be seeing. There is so much history to see!

Whooohooo!

New Email

OK, so I've been a bit lazy about changing my email...Since we just had our first anniversary I figured I should get off my butt and do it. So here we go - please start emailing me at emma.willard@gmail.com

Phew, that wasn't so hard.

And to make this not incredibly boring, here is a picture of a shrine near our apartment.