Presents!

On Tuesday I got some presents from my adult class. Two of them were on vacation the week before, so they brought back sweets from where they had been in Japan.

A famous treat from Tokyo.

They were delicious banana cakes :) yum!

Delicious rice crispy pastry/pie treats.

I forgot the name of the city they came from, I will find out though.

This next treat came from my other student, Yoko. She did not go any where last week. She actually works at a soy milk factory where they make so many flavors of soy milk!

The white one was black tea soy milk. The pink one was strawberry soy milk. The brown one was coffee soy milk. The green one was green tea soy milk. The yellow was banana soy milk. There was one other while one which was yogurt flavored. I didn't take a picture because I did not realize the two white ones were different. I asked the secretary to tell us. My favorite was coffee, although I was expecting chocolate. Will's favorite was green tea. They were all very delicious and far superior to any soy milk I have ever had in the states. 

This next gift was a gift from one of Will's students. It was half eaten by the time I took a picture of it.

Some sort of delicious apple taffy like candy! It's called Hi-Chew, not to be confused with Chu-Hi the alcoholic soda

The Wrong Side of the Road on the way to the River!

When we first arrived to Japan we did not realize that they drive on the wrong side of the Road. For some people this might be common knowledge, however, for us it was not. We only discovered this when we were flying over Japan, looking out the window at the little cars down on the ground. I just assumed it was only Britain and certain former British colonies that did that. We looked up which countries drive on the right side of the road vs. the left side. Here's what we found....

The countries that are blue drive on the left side and all the red countries drive on the right. As you can see, most of the world drives on the right. Therefore, it is my conclusion that the left side is the wrong side of the road

can you guess which one it is?

Here's a picture of our car from our kitchen window. We drive a Nissan March. We are lucky that our school provides us with this car. Many people who get teaching jobs do not get cars. We only have to pay car insurance which is roughly the same as what you pay in the states.It is a small car by American standards, and Will looks ridiculous getting into it. Also its like driving a go-kart. But it is pretty typical by Japanese commuter standards, and we are lucky to have it.

Our car is the orange one! Here's Will getting into it now. He always walks to the correct side of the car, which is wrong side of the car in the country where they drive on the wrong side of the road. If he could remember to walk to the left side of car, he would be on right side.

 Will! 

Now we are off on our adventure to the Nagara River or one of its tributaries. We could see the river on the side of the road, but we had a terrible time trying to find a place to pull off and park. We stopped at this cafe where there was a walkway down to the river. However, I thought it looked a little too dangerous of a spot to swim. Will thought it would have been fine, but even so it didn't look like a nice spot to swim. There were no rocks to sit on nearby. So, back on the road we went. We found this pull off, so we stopped and parked our car.

We weren't  sure we could park here, but it seemed like the thing to do.....so we did!

At first at the guard rail we noticed some stairs that lead to the river so we walked over to investigate.

If you look way off in the distance you can see a little red flag. It's right across from the orange one. There were some stairs that seemed to lead down the river. It was all very mysterious

nope just stairs to the power box :(

We were very sad to see that these stairs did not lead to a place to swim. We looked around, but there was no way to go. It was so hot, and the river was so tantalizing.

no way down :( booooo

Look at the cool freshing water so nice and lush just teasing us. It was not yet refreshing because how can you be refreshed if you have not yet been freshed?

I was very sad!

Not a happy camper! No way down, and I am so hot! hey look at our cute car in the distance!

So, it was back to the car again, driving around trying to figure something out. We ended up right back to the same spot again, because we saw a road just a little way down. We didn't want to drive down it because we were unsure if it was ok to drive the car down. It looked like it would have been stuck. We were wrong about that though, for future reference. So, we parked the car again and walked down the path, crossed the street and went down the dirt road.

some pretty trees on the side of the path. The picture does not give it justice to it's beauty.

Finally we made it! we climbed down the path and into the insanely cold water!

There is a Japanese fisherman behind me. I am not sure he caught anything the whole time we were there. I hope we didn't bother him

So cool and refreshing, oh yeah!

After some time in the shallow part of the river (don't worry mom, it was only about a two feet where I was sitting) we went back. Next time we will be more adventurous and go to the deeper part after the rapids. On our way back to our car we noticed something interesting.

A shrine of some sort.

p.s. don't litter, ok!

This time I had the courage to drive on the wrong side of the road.

Oh yeah driving like a pro.

Ok so everything turned out to be nice. We had a great time! If we have another hot day we will go back again! :) We are considering going tomorrow, maybe. If we feel like it.

This was on my laptop. A Japanese mosquito, this is how they charge....they don't need blood.

Discount Tuesday

Piago parking-lot

Every Tuesday at Piago, the local grocery store, things get discounted. Mainly it's meat, fish, and produce. Some other products are discounted as well. People swarm like buzzards around the discounted items. It's quite a sight. We had heard of discount Tuesday from Brian and Lesley, but had no idea how insanely busy it is. It's like black Friday, the day all retail employees dread....only this happens every week.

Pay day came, and we did not get too much. This was because we only taught two days in July. So, what you see is all that we have for one month. We are on a strict budget this month....(I might be able to use credit cards, but I want to try not to). This equals out to be about $260. Will is being a little too extreme and is counting how much each bit of food he eats cost. For example, breakfast cost him 80 yen because the eggs, rice, and crackers he had totaled that amount. He is silly.

Welcome to Piago!
Current time is 10:30 am (just 30 minutes after the store opened!)

The lady with blue hat is an employee. She is marking stuff down. Look at those people slowly starting to swarm around her.

You can see either the same or different employee marking stuff down.

Fish is always really cheap. We like to get the fish you can pick out yourself. It cost about a dollar a fish

After you get all the food, you've got to check out! Normally there is only one cashier....However, on discount Tuesday there are always two cashiers. You can kind of see that in the picture above. Also if you will notice there is no conveyor belt. It's just the red hand basket. What you do is put your hand basket(s) at the register and they scan them in and put them in another hand basket. You then pay and take it over to a bagging area where you bag your own groceries.

Now you might be asking yourself, "do I have to carry around two hand baskets to do a week's worth of shopping?" The answer is: If you want, or you can put the hand held baskets in a push cart.

This is the bagging area

Now let's hear a drum roll for today's grocery bill....bddddddddum 1400 yen! That's about $15. Look at all the stuff we bought!

We got 2 cartons of eggs, two types of fish (salmon, and something else?) Butter squash, potatoes, bananas, noodles, and 2 cans of giant coke. It's funny because we don't normally buy coke (even thought I got it yesterday!) Will saw these two giant cheap cans of coke (about 60 cents)

Drink Machines!

I decided to write a blog about drink vending machines! Exciting, I know!

Well, drink machines aren't too much different in Japan, but they are everywhere in this town. They are just on corners in residential neighborhoods, everywhere. Also, in the summer drinks are cold and in the winter drinks are warm. I think this applies only to certain machines. Some machines talk to you after you have made a purchase.

This machine talks to you. I am not sure what it says....perhaps "thanks have a nice day, enjoy your beverage!" I'll let you know when I learn Japanese!

As you can see the prices range from 100 yen all the way up to 150 yen, this about $1.00 - $1.50. Not to much different than prices in the states, although I don't think you can get drinks for a dollar! The nice red stickers that say 100 yen are for drinks on sale. Every week there are drinks that are on special, oh yeah!

Here's Will trying to count the money. I think he got it!

Will is now inserting the coins. He bought the white can of cafe au lait. It's not very good, but he likes it

This drink machine is literally right next to our building. I had not had a coke in a long time, so I decided to get a can. It cost 120 yen, you can also get the bottle for 150 yen. There is caffeine free coke (what's the point?) and coke zero. No diet...which is good, because i was addicted to this stuff.

My favorite drinks so far are Royal Milk Tea and Vitamin CC Soda. We have tried a melon-flavored soda that was not too great.  There is a lot of iced coffee and green tea.

This is one of the flash cards that we use at school. For some reason Will thinks it is very funny and took a picture of it. I think using a spider to describe "scared" is highly appropriate considering how afraid of spiders that I am. I think if it were a picture of me, I'd have my mouth covered, don't want the spider to fall in!

Our Room

This is just a glimpse into one of the rooms in our apartment. It's our bedroom. We've made a few changes as you can see. I think the first picture is from more than a year ago, from before Brian and Lesley. It still needs a little work. We need to get a curtain for the window by our bed. Right now there is a sheet, next month when we get paid we have plans to buy one or maybe my mom will mail our old ones to us. Also, I am not sure how I feel about the big rack of clothes in there.

Before

After