Awesome New Coat!

I got an awesome new coat! This is the first cool, fashionable thing I've bought since moving here in July. Mostly I've just gotten, shorts, fleece zip ups, and long sleeve t's.

I've been longing for a cream wool coat all fall and winter. Up until now, all the ones that I like are way too expensive...Until yesterday. I was walking past a store called Honeys (I laughed the first time I saw it) and there was a beautiful cream wool coat that was part pea, part sailor, part trench coat....AND it was on sale for $19! Score!

Of course I wore it out to dinner last night in Kobe. We went to dinner at a Turkish restaurant called Midnight Express. The food was good and even the owner complimented my coat as we were leaving.

To make it even better - Uniqlo had some cashmere scarves onsale for $19 (apparently that's my lucky number) so I got a chocolate brown one to keep my neck warm.

Here are some pics - one with the scarf and one without. Whoo!

New Years Eve

We rang in the New Year in Kobe this year which was a blast!














Earlier in the day we met up with Joe and Tiff and Tiff's family who was visiting. We went to a Sake brewery and unfortunately the tour was closed because of the holiday but we still got to do some tasting. I made a mental note for us to go back again sometime and take the tour.

We then wandered around Harborland, the Earthquake Memorial at the port, Nankinmach (Chinatown) and Sannomiya shopping. The Eckbergs and Sellners headed home around dinnertime and Mark and I went to the New Munchen Club which is a German style microbrew bar. We didn't think we would make it to midnight after walking around all day in the cold but after a few beers we were going strong again. It was great to have a weiss beer and a dark Newcastle-like beer for once!















We then decided to hit up another bar called the Hub for a few more drinks before midnight. Our friend Akiko joined us there before we went out to join the crowd waiting for the countdown outside Ikuta Shrine. Ikuta road leading up to Ikuta shrine is kind of like Times Square on NYE only in Kobe. At midnight people get let into the shrine to make a wish, listen to all the taiko drummers and grab some good street vendor food.


It was a blast! There were a ton of people but it was really organized, they let us in in waves and so there wasn't a mad rush. I had Japanese fried chicken, Mark got a Gyro and Akiko had takoyaki...Ok - I had 2 large things of fried chicken which Mark enjoyed giving me crap about, but he did help me finish them!

Hope you all had a great New Years!

Here are a couple more pics from the night.

Holiday Season in Japan

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season! Thanks so much to all of your Christmas cards and fun packages!

What was Christmas like in Japan? Well, it didn't really feel like Christmas. Christmas for the Japanese is purely commercial so everyone goes to work like normal except they get a cake and KFC for dinner...not really sure why. So we worked Christmas Eve and Day (which is a bummer BUT it is good to be working again - even if it is only cleaning the school). It was sunny and in the mid 50's so the weather didn't help much with the Christmas spirit. And on top of it all, we were away from family and friends which definitely detracted from the festive feelings. I missed you all!!

After work we went over to our friend Vince's place for a Christmas dinner with what is left of our ex-Nova teacher friends and some of our Japanese staff that have become friends. We brought mashed potatoes, gravy and corn. Other people brought chicken, chocolate cake, gratin, sandwiches, chili, and many other random things.

Shoko and Tomomi thought the mashed potatoes were unbelievably awesome and numerous times exclaimed "oishi!!!" which means delicious.

Unfortunately we forgot to bring our camera so we don't have pictures until we try and get some from other people.

We ended up staying until 3:30 am because we were having so much fun!

And now the friends are gone...

So Sherbie, Kirk, Kate, and Keip went home to Minnesota last Saturday which is sad. We had a great whirlwind week with them! It was fun to see them, to show them all that we love about Japan, and cool for us to have something to do!

We've been a bit lazy getting pictures up, but between everyone's cameras there were over 1000 pics to go through.

Since Willard is a lot better than I am at putting funny captions to pictures, he will be uploading them. Click HERE to read all about it.

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.