Friends coming to visit!

The Brothers Sherburne (Kirk and Sherbie) along with the Keipers (Kate and Keip) have made their way to our end of the world for a visit and we can't wait to see them!

They flew into Tokyo on Wednesday and are enjoying a few days sightseeing there before taking the bullet train (Shinkansen) down to Kansai (our area of Japan, around Osaka - like the Midwest) on Sunday.

We will be spending the first half of the week up in Joe & Tiff's neck of the woods showing them the sights in Omihachiman, Kyoto, Nara, and around Lake Biwa. Then on Wednesday we will head back down to our place in Akashi and hit up Himeji, Tarumi, Akashi and Kobe before they head back to the US on Saturday.

It will be a fun week filled with castles, shrines, karaoke, sushi, lots of walking, okonmiyaki, fishmarkets, tori gates, yakiniku, drinking, izakayas, Osho, and catching up!

Mark and I are heading up to Omi tonight to Joe & Tiff's so we can get up bright and early tomorrow to go pick up our visitors in Maibara.

What fun! Yay!

The Queen's Fool

I just finished The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory. My Aunt Lugene sent it to me because she empathizes with my fear of running out of books to read.

I am now addicted to Philippa's Tudor era books. The first one that I read was The Other Boleyn Girl which was the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn told by Mary Boleyn, Anne's sister. Sidenote: They're making a movie of it now with Eric Bana as Henry, Scarlett Jo as Mary, and Natalie Portman as Anne.

After I finished it I wanted to read another immediately. The Queen's Fool takes during Queen Mary's 5 year reign. The narrator is Hannah, a Jewish girl escaping the Inquisition in Spain who has "the sight" and becomes a close friend of the Queen's. I love historical fiction and this book was great!

Thanks Lug!

Thanksgiving in Japan!

Thanksgiving snuck up on me this year. I might have forgotten until the week of if Joe & Tiff had not asked if we wanted to come up to Omihachiman to celebrate with them. Maybe it is because the weather is still fall-ish and the leaves are just changing or maybe it is because I am not bombarded with holiday season commercials here or maybe it is because I don't work in retail now so there is not the focus on day after shopping or maybe it is because the Japanese don't celebrate thanksgiving (and rightly so)...any way it didn't feel like thanksgiving.

So up we went to Omi on Wednesday night. On thanksgiving we had chicken (it is hard to find turkey here), mashed potatoes and gravy, Sellner crockpot corn, stuffing, Eckberg Salad, and pumpkin cheesecake.

We had fun eating a lot, hanging out, watching movies, and catching up!

We have a lot to be thankful for!

Here we are, just about to dig in.

Mike & Emily's Going Away Party

So another disappointing thing about Nova going bankrupt is that a lot of our friends are going home because they were unable to find another job and ran out of money. Last week was a going away party for Mike and Emily at Donkey Pub. Trevor left the week before, James & Louise before that...sigh.

You've seen other posts of us at Donkey, it is a small bar in Akashi that a lot of Nova teachers go to to play darts and have some beers. The owners 'Mommy' and 'Master' are a couple about our parent's age and are super nice. They speak some English and are always very excited to see us. They have drinks with us and play darts with us too. They usually are closed on Sundays but last sunday they opened up especially for Mike & Emily's going away. (Mike has been going there for darts every Thursday for the last 5 years)

It was a lot of fun but sad too because our group of friends here is getting smaller and smaller. Mike and Emily are both from Australia so it will be quite a while before we see them again.

Click here to see the pics.

This is us with Mike - He doesn't normally smile like that, he just wanted to look weird so we would remember him that way...

Latest Reading...

So in the last 2 weeks I've read two books...

Geisha, a Life by Mineko Iwasaki. It is a memoir of a famous Geiko from Kyoto during the 60's and 70's. I enjoyed it, it wasn't the best book that I've ever read but it was interesting to read about Gion from an insider's point of view. Sometimes she seemed a bit full of herself but overall it was a good read.

The Zahir by Paulo Coelho. Tiff lent me this book and I really liked it. It is the story of a famous novelist whose wife disappears without any notice and the journey he takes to find her. There is a lot of philosophy in it about love and about life which is interesting. I really like his writing style and it makes me want to read more of his books.

Next I'm reading The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory

That's it for now!

MAC Holiday Collection is here!

MAC released its holiday collection last week! The theme this year is called 'Antiquitease' and as you can guess, the design has an antique feel to it. What is great about the holiday collections from MAC is that you can get eyeshadow, lipstick, lipglass, brushes, pigments, etc in sets for cheaper than buying them each individually.
















I always tell my friends that if you want to get some professional brushes from MAC then this is the time of the year to do it! You can get a set of 5 travel sized brushes in a cool travel bag. I still have mine from the holiday collection 4 years ago and I use them every day!

Unfortunately the holiday collection hasn't come to Japan yet so I haven't seen them in person, just online. But, Beth did and she said everything looked awesome!

Click HERE to check everything out!

P.S. Things usually sell out before before Christmas so don't wait too long!