Kristen and Shawn Visit: Part 1: Hanging in Okazaki and Nagoya

KRISTEN AND SHAWN ARRIVE

Because flying from America to Japan is super long and exhausting, we decided to hang out in Okazaki and just chill on their first day here. Which meant waking up leisurely, going to see Yamasa and some of the places I used to work, and then heading to the enormous Book Off over Seiyu so we could look at used things. Shawn was into this. After a delicious curry cauliflower lunch made chez me, we headed up to Okazaki Castle and walked around there being all touristy for a bit.

I ended up with ONE whole picture of our castle day, and this is it. If you look closely, you can see Kristen on the other side. Sadness that this is my only one. Perhaps Kristen and Shawn will send me their pictures later.

Then Krist and Shawn came to work with me in Daimon so that Shawn could meet my boss, Taka, because he drives race cars, and Shawn loves racing. Taka was kind enough to drive him around in his car and to offer to drive him around later.

After work, we headed to KARAOKE!!!! Since Kristen's all a karaoke lover, we had to go at least once while they were here.

Cesar, Carine, and Idit also came to hang out with us, and Kristen and Shawn managed to get into the Japanese songs we sang even though they didn't understand them. They, of course, both did some amazing rock ballads!

After karaoke, they got to go racing on a mountain in Gamagori while I went home to finish packing things up for my move and to hang out with Carine.

Next day, NAGOYA. I of course had to bring them to Toganji temple, because I LOVE it there, even if no one else here seems to have ever heard of it.



How could you not love this adorable little Buddha face with his elephants surrounded by such greenery?

Then we met up with Rachael for lunch at Nagoya's vegan restaurant, the Pupu Kitchen. It was my first time there, and I'm sad I waited so long. We ate vegan donburi, and it was totally beyond delish! Definitely recommended if you ever find your way to Nagoya. Just make sure you check the opening times.

After a brief tour of Sakae and Osu Kannon, we headed back to Okazaki for dinner with my new host stay family. Kristen actually tried to eat sushi, which was totally shocking to me. She didn't actually like it, but she TRIED it! She also tried pumpkin tempura and loved it. We were all very proud of her!

The next morning, we woke up super early and headed to Kyoto. More to come soooooon! :-)

And then and then and then and then and then (aka resto and Nagoya and karaoke and biking and dance)

So, it's been a ridiculously long time since I last updated, and to be honest, I don't even know where to start with the whole update thing. I can't really remember everything that I've been doing.
And thus - brief summaries!

Two (three?) weekends ago, a bunch of us got together and went to this nice buffet restaurant. I, of course, could eat nothing there, but it was still cool to get to hang out with everyone.




I believe, Martin and I took another bike trip around Okazaki, and this time, we went all the way over to Anjo, which is where he lives with a Japanese family.


Martin in front of his host family's house!


There was a cute little temple right by it


with, yet again, super awesome dragon fountain

and very pretty flowers.

And I really don't think I will ever get tired of these gate things.



Some weekend in there, Alexis, Martin, and I hopped on the train over to Nagoya.


Alexis got a beautiful pink donut!


We mostly just walked around and shopped, and it was super cool.


There are apparently ALWAYS festivals going on everywhere in Japan (there was a festival going on behind those things)!

We were for some reason all extraordinarily tired, though. We were planning on getting our hair cut, but we ended up not being able to find anywhere that would do it for us.

Last weekend, on Friday night a group of us went out to karaoke. I of course forgot to bring my camera, so I am sad to say that I have no pictures. We had a FABULOUS time, though! I got to sing "Nichiyoubi yori no shisha" by the High Lows, which is one of my favorite Japanese songs, and I totally rocked it (well, I managed to read the hiragana and sing along - my voice, however, is another story).



Jenny-Lyn, Lynne, and Laura all had FABULOUS voices, so it was embarrassing attempting to sing after them, since my voice is horrible. Lauren kept picking metal songs, which was sort of fabulous. And Alexis did wonderful old school 80sesque songs. Good times.
I will definitely be karaokeing again, and next time, I will remember to take pictures.

Other than that, I had my big kanji test two weeks ago, and I got 100%! Ohhh yeah! All that kanji time with Martin is totally paying off. Then we had our big test last week, and I totally rocked it. I didn't miss a single point for lack of knowledge, just a couple points for stupidity (i.e. writing things in that were already there). Just one more left and then the quarter is over. Time really has been flying by!

Oh, AND, I started doing this Japanese dance class thing. Jenny-Lyn and Jin-Han are the other two Yamasa students in the class with me, and it is super fun. It's good because it's like exercise.


me, Jin-Han, Jenny-Lyn

We already learned one whole dance, and then this past week we started a new one. Yay!

And that's what's been going on. Life is good. Japan is fabulous. Rachel and Josh are coming at the end of June. Guillame is coming at the end of July! And I might just come out of this all being a speaker of Japanese.

And I'll try to update more often, as I've already got things to say about this weekend.