Into 2009

The holidays this year were unlike any other for us.  Being married, living outside Canada, no family gatherings, and so on really made for strange feelings. 

Tyler and Misty's visit added a familiar twang to everything, though, and even though we were in non-stop travel mode, it was a good, relaxing time.  

An added bonus was that we connected with the excellent Solheim's!  We met up in Tokyo with Tara and Krista, and they showed us around.  In good Tokyo fashion, we ate Hawaiian burgers and Thai food, and saw the possibly craziest department store on the planet.  

And as another added bonus, this was the weather we had for pretty much the entire holiday.  Ueno station in Tokyo is massive, and there's a really lively shopping street nearby.
As a further added bonus, Kelly Krupski (yes, THE Kelly Krupski) arrived in Japan, and we got to go meet her at the airport (an adventure all in itself), and hang out with her in Tokyo for a little while.  It was great to see another familiar friend in this strange land, Mandy was very impressed.
The park in Harajuku is full of people.  People performing 'cosplays' (which, to our slight disappointment, consisted of strangely dressed kids standing around text messaging, and posing for photos), people practicing their craft (we saw a man with a bullwhip whipping the air repeatedly.  Tara and Krista said he does it for hours on end, daily), and rivers of people watching all the action.  
Sittin' on a low chain, chewin' on a, sushi roll... (any Mississippi Gary fans out there?)

We watched for a while on the famous Harajuku bridge, and then, after meeting up with Krista and Tara again, we went for burgers.  

And now you know, some more of the story.

At Home

It was a nice Christmas holiday we had.  Two weeks of touring around and relaxing is a good way of forgetting about work.  Today is Wednesday, and Mandy's at work already.  She made a really good chicken gumbo soup yesterday and we had it for lunch today with some multi-grain bread i luckily found; i say luckily because it's a rare thing to find a loaf of multi-grain bread in Japan, in my experience.  Usually, bread comes in bags of 4, 6, or sometimes 8 slices.  But i've found a good bakery i visit each friday before work at which to buy good loaves of bread.  

Trivia, trivia, what else?  I've been practising guitar lately, and i really like it.  Mandy's been knitting up hurricanes, and now when i go out i'm clad, cozy in her products.  

The blogger site apparently doesn't like my spelling of "practising".  i was taught that the  's' in there stands for 'singing', which one could be practising, as opposed to "practicing" medicine or something.  Am i wrong, or is blogger wrong?  i'll have to look it up later.

Mandy's parents confirmed a visit for March 5th until the 28th!  We're excited to have them here.  If anyone else fancies a visit to the far east, now's your chance.  Except it's really tough because the yen is so powerful these days.  

Have a good one! 

Foreigner Fun

Osaka has a very famous castle (it's the single most visited sight in all of Japan - some say that's because it's the only thing to see in all of Osaka), and near the grounds is a kind of park.  We saw these hilarious people doing a "cos-play" (costume play), dressed up as characters from Alice in Wonderland.  The one guy collapsed at one point, but he got up and boogied again.  They were well-choreographed, but we couldn't hear any music, so it was extra funny because we could hear their feet, and their laughter.

They were videotaping it, but i don't know why.
Subway rides can be quite a relief from all the walking.  Misty and Tyler found seats, which is the key.  Tyler and i bought samurai headbands, and whenever we wore them, people laughed at...no, WITH us.  They asked us whether we knew what they meant, and we said 'yes'.  i guessed that it was the equivalent of a Japanese person coming to Canada and wearing around a coon-skin hat or snow shoes or something.  some people thought it was cool/amusing.

Tyler's means "victory", and mine means "fighting spirit".  Combining the two powers, we were invincible!  Basically, i did all the work and he got the glory.
This is the mountain that Mandy and i climbed up on our first visit to Kyoto.  The shape in the hillside is called 'dai', which means 'strength', and there are three shapes like this around the city.  Every year, during a certain festival, they light fires along the shapes and it's supposed to look amazing.  We'd like to come back for that.  
We bought noodles and okonomiyaki in Kyoto from a street-side vendor.  I really liked that okonomiyaki.  it's like an omelet/pancake with stuff inside and sauce on top.  We ate in front of a little temple.  Temples are everywhere in Kyoto.
There was a restaurant which, for some reason, had antique waterskis on the front of the building.  They reminded me of waterskiing.... so i took a picture....  

plus, look at the scooter!  

By the way, we are now back at work, almost done our first week of the new  year.  It's been ok, but somehow it's a little lackluster.  It takes some effort to keep it fresh.  No matter where you are or what you are doing, you have to accept ups and downs.  I'm pretty confident that that is a fact of life.  Just because you go to a new, exciting country, doesn't mean that everything you do is superfun.  But a lot of things are.  Sometimes, the classes get tiresome.  I don't know how teachers do it for 30+ years.  Maybe you just get used to it.  Oh ya, look who's talking...it's the guy who has never done the same thing for more than a year in a row.  Spoiled brat.

Our friend Kelly arrived in Japan!  She's working as a teacher up north in the colder, mountainous area, where she can snowboard on weekends.  We picked her up from Narita airport outside Tokyo late at night and had an unexpected taxi-ride.  It's all adventure out here.

Did i mention to have a look at that scooter?

Linky link

I haven't found the way to add videos to the blog yet, so i uploaded a little clip to youtube, of our shinkansen (bullet train) ride to Kyoto this Christmas.  

so check it out!

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ajLQM5ibU

The Forrests Go To Japan!

Mandy and i were excited to have some family members visit during the Christmas season.  It is a bit unsettling to be thousands of miles away from a family gathering during Christmas, especially because we're accustomed to having a few of them each year.  We missed turkey dinners, the famous flying Friesen gathering (on my side), the famous flying frumenty feast (on Mandy's side).  

But Misty and Tyler's visit was a great relief from all the absence of loved ones (besides each other).  We had sushi for Christmas dinner!  Talk about something we'll probably talk about later.

We first ventured out to Kyoto, where we found a Manga (japanese comics) museum, and we got to try our hand at it.  We all became like kids, drawing ourselves in different situations.  It was pretty fun and informative, but there was a distinct lack of huge, animated robots of popular characters, which we sort of expected.

This is a hotel facade in Kyoto.  ...Oh, and there's Mandy and Misty too.
We stopped at the Golden Pavillion for some sushi left-overs snacks.  It was such an interesting day, we had sun and snow at the same time, which made for great viewing of the temple.
This is Misty and Tyler looking at the most famous garden in Japan.  it's at a temple called Ryoan-ji, and it's a dry garden, one that allows for good thinking.  
Further adventures will be documented in later posts.  Stay tuned...

Random Moments

This is the most splendid Japanese temple i have seen.  It's called Kinkakuji, or 'Golden Pavilion'.  It's calming to look at it and see the reflection in the pond, and the trees.  It appears to be hovering.  
On the way to Kyoto, we saw snow!  Kyoto is in central Japan, but it's surrounded by mountains, so the elevation allows for periodical snowfall.  It was nice to see it from the train window.  Actually, at Kinkakuji, it was snowing lightly and the sun was shining at the same time.  
We were invited to our friends' place (Greg and Maki), and they have a Nintendo Wii, so we played for a while.  It was hilarious, but i'm terrible at video games.  No matter how fast i shook those controllers, i couldn't win the 100m dash.  
This is the cake we ate on Christmas day with Greg and Maki.  
We couldn't help but covet this little bus.  It's just sooooo kyoot!  It's the new VW bus, and it's quite a bit smaller than the original ones.  

Christmas was very different than usual for us, but it was a treat to have some family around to hang out with and to open some gifts with.  We didn't have turkey, or even KFC, but we did make sushi for Christmas dinner.  Sometimes you just have to say, "when in Rome."

It's Christmas in Nagoya, all the children sing...

Enjoy a few sights of Christmas in our local Japanese metropolis.  I won't encumber them with too many words this time.  



Merry Christmas and 'akemashita uedeto'!