Coffee with Hara-san, and earthquake???

Hello! Last night we went out for coffee with Hara-san. He is currently working on his discertation and wanted to take a break for awhile. We had a lot of fun, and laughed practically the entire evening. He likes to hear Casey speak Japanese and he giggles when we say things wrong, so we were laughing quite a bit, as you can imagine. (He's also a great resource for learning Japanese because he's so good at English!) We ended up getting into a conversation about what words are used for animal noises in Japanese (cow = moooo... etc) but the funniest one we found was that a rooster says "koki ko kooooo" (I think I spelled it wrong, and it doesn't do it justice unless you here Hara and Casey making this noise... it was hilarious!) Anyway, I think Hara-san got the idea to call our friend Tanaka-san and simply say it and hang up. So Casey did. I look forward to hearing what she thought of the whole thing when they see each other at work today...
In other news, I am fairly certain that I felt a small earthquake around 11:00 today. I was laying in bed (coffee = restless sleep) but the bed started moving a bit and it was significant enough that I sat straight up. I even looked over to the laundry rack and realized it was moving a bit, too. I looked online to see if they had reported anything, but haven't checked it within the last hour or so. I'll update that later if I find out that anything really happened. If not, something must be wrong with me! But that is, of course, very possible. :) But if it was an earthquake, then two things happened this week that are fairly rare in Osaka- earthquakes and snow!
That's about it for now. Case and I are headed to Shakey's tonight in Kyoto- yay! I'll update tomorrow and let you know how it went. Happy holidays to whoever is reading this!!

--This is a post for Christmas Eve-- First of all, I think that the 'earthquake' I may have felt was actually a construction company tearing down a building on our block. I have checked the reports and haven't heard anything, so I will assume it was that instead. Kind of a relief!
Tonight Casey and I went to Shakey's, an all-you-can-eat pizza place in Kyoto. It was well worth the hour train ride and 20 minute wait in line to get there! They had a few strange types of pizza (something with squid, which Casey said was "interesting", and a few others with corn and random ingredients that I can't remember at the moment). I had salad, two types of pasta, jello, 2 types of pizza, and then 4 pieces of dessert pizza. Sad, right? It was really good! Casey and I just kept going back for more. For once, I think I actually held my weight at a buffet. I can't really do that well in America. But yeah, it was definitely the best pizza I have had while in Japan. Glad we heard about that place from the REUs!
Other than that, we came back to our apartment, opened our Christmas Eve gifts from Casey's parents (we get pajamas each year and then wear them when opening our 'Santa' gifts), and now we may or may not watch an episode of Family Guy before we go to bed. I'll write again tomorrow and include pictures. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

-Ashley

About last night...

Hello again everyone. So I decided to leave up last night's post for a laugh. Drunken blogging is not the best decision, but I guess it could have been much worse. :)
So about last night- Casey remembered seeing an advertisement for the turkey dinner at the Hummingbird Cafe (which we have gone to once before, and really liked William a lot) so we decided to head over there and check it out. The food was so good! No clue how William got a turkey to Japan, but he apparently has connections. It was really moist and had good flavor. The mac and cheese and pasta salad were about as close to America as we have gotten so far here. All in all, it was definitely worth the money. We got about 3 hours of entertainment, food, drinks, and met some nice people (Tomiko-san and Naomi-san!) . I don't even like turkey that much, but I will rave about that one! :)
That's about all for now. I can't believe it's the 23rd of December. Ahhhhhhhhh! Tomorrow we will go to Kyoto to Shakey's (please let it be open!) and Sunday we'll do our Christmas activities. We may go shopping in the afternoon because Casey found a mall that he thinks I will enjoy. I will not argue with that!
Well I'm off to do more housewife duties. :)

-Ash

Turkey in Japan?

Hello everyone. I just got back from the Hummingbird Cafe where we had a wonderful Christmas dinner of turkey, mac and cheese, and some other 'oishi' food (that means 'delicious in Japanese, if I spelled it right), and we also met some nice Japanese folks who spoke English with us and had a few drinks. We paid $30 and got 3 drinks and a buffet of really good food. It was worth it! I will get a picture of the bar owner, William, who is from Jamaica, at a later date. Here are the people we met this evening: Naka-san, Tomiko-san, Naomi-san (who has 2 children, ages 17 and 20... can you believe that?!!? Yeah we couldn't either!!!) and then us. It was a fun evening! I realize how little Japanese I really know. Casey's Japanese skills were pretty impressive, though. He was my official translator for the evening. :) SO I think this is the last time I do a blog after having 3 (actually 4) drinks. Forgive me please. :)
Signing off to a blog that will most likely be deleted tomorrow when I wake up and read the stupid things I was writing,
Ashley

Disappearing Snow

It snowed last night!!! I woke up this morning to the phone ringing and Casey saying, "You should look outside..." at that point there was a good inch of snow on the ground, and it was still snowing. I got excited and called my parents. By the time I was off the phone with them, the sun was out and half of the snow was already melted. Booo!!! But it was neat to see while it lasted. I would have taken a picture if I would have known how fast it would be gone. Apparently it's just supposed to rain the rest of the time. Good while it lasted!

I had a nice chat with my parents this morning, though. Sounds like things are going pretty well at home. Charley is apparently getting bigger and getting some good muscle tone (and compliments from people, which is always fun!). I look forward to seeing him! Only a few months left- time is really flying by! (Here is a picture of Charley and I when we took him to Kansas. I miss my boy!!!)

So last night I made the grilled salmon teriyaki dish that I had mentioned previously. Had a few problems with the marinade trying to catch on fire... Besides all of the smoke, it ended up tasting pretty good! The apartment smells pretty interesting right now, though. Tonight I am making another beef dish, which was pretty tasty last time so I'm hoping for the best. I am going to try to stay inside by the heater today if at all possible, so hopefully we have all of the ingredients here so I don't have to bundle up again. :)
Guess that's about all for now. I will write later if anything exciting happens. :)

-Ash

Okay so the exciting thing that happened was that it started snowing again and I got pictures of it this time. Here you go!!

Nerd Alert!

I am quite possibly the biggest dork of all time, but the "creative" bug bit me yesterday. I really wanted to have some kind of Christmas tree for Casey and I on Sunday, so I ended up making 16 of the little throwing stars (which I learned in elementary school) and then looked up instructions for making the *massive* star... I then took a toilet paper roll and taped everything to it so it would stand up. So this is our Christmas tree. The little gifts are actually 2 of Casey's gifts- I individually wrapped a few things so he would have more to open. Finally, the little Japanese wrestlers (which Casey acquired by drinking some type of coffee, I think) look on in amazement at my handiwork. Hahahaha... yep, I'm a nerd. I kind of like the way the tree came out, though... it took a long time to try and figure out how to connect the stars and not have the branches going up instead of down.
In other news, today I had the most difficult Japanese lesson yet. I spent a long time trying to figure out what Yanagi-san was saying while she was trying to teach me sentences to ask when I go out shopping. It was so difficult, in fact, that we gave up and decided that I should go back to the easier lesson of counting and learning names for relatives (mother, uncle, etc.). I was relieved, but also a little frustrated at not being able to understand everything. I haven't specifically learned how the sentence structure is yet in Japanese, but I know it's quite a bit different than English, so I think once I know that I will be able to pick it up easier.
After my lesson, Tasaka-san was cooking Curry Rice (Japanese-style) and she invited Casey and I to stay and eat lunch in the International Student Office (ISO). We got to talking with her about things I would like to learn to make (sushi, tempura, etc.) and she seemed excited to help me learn, so she said next month we will cook together in the ISO. I look forward to learning all of this and then going home and hopefully replicating it in South Carolina! I am cooking again tonight (Salmon this time... and we are sure that it's salmon and not salted ham, FYI...) so I am a little apprehensive after the first 'salmon' incident. Casey found another burner yesterday at the recycle shop for $20 (gosh I wish we lived closer to that store!) so I should be able to cook more than one thing at a time. It was becoming problematic with only one burner and multiple things to cook. We'll see how it all goes!
Today was pretty nice, temperature-wise. The past two days have been around 50, which is quite a jump from the norm. There is also very little wind, which has helped tremendously. Tonight it's supposed to rain and then be cold and rainy tomorrow. I hope to stay inside if I can. I am still sitting next to the space heater, like normal, but I do not have quite the amount of sweatshirts/socks/undershirts on that I normally do. :)
I'm looking forward to our Christmas weekend- we are planning to go to Kyoto on Saturday to eat at Shakey's, an all-you-can-eat pizza joint that was a favorite of Jeff and Gopal. Hopefully they'll be open- we have been on a Shakey's hunt long before the REU students left. I have still never eaten there, but have heard a lot about it! Sunday night we are going to go to a restaurant that Casey went to last week and really enjoyed. We both decided that it would be better not to cook at home for Christmas. Yay- less stress for me!! :) We also plan to talk to family on Sunday and look forward to hearing from everyone.
Guess that's about it for now.

-Ashley

Adventures in Umeda

I decided to do a bit of Christmas shopping in downtown Umeda today. The weather was really nice- not windy like it has been lately. I also rode on a train by myself for the first time. Surprisingly enough, I made it without getting lost. I decided to stop by this little yarn shop I had seen this morning, and bought some as a gift to myself for not getting lost or killed on the journey. Looking forward to starting a new knitting project this afternoon. :) All in all, a confidence-boosting trip. Even the times where I couldn't speak much Japanese to the clerk who was trying to help me, I managed to speak enough so that they found someone who could speak English with me (which helped with the gift-buying process as well!). Good times! Now I get to wrap Casey's Christmas items, and relax.
(I'm writing this Wednesday)- Casey and I went to the store last night and had a few interesting moments. We were approached by two different people, one Japanese and one Australian, who asked us if we needed help finding anything. I suppose it was because we were carrying a book about buying food in Japan and trying to translate everything (which takes FOREVER!) but we also must have looked pretty confused. We were like a magnet, sucking in English-speakers from all sections of the store. :) It was nice, though. The lady from Australia gave us her card, just incase we ever have any questions about anything. She has lived here for 25 years, so I think she'd be a good person to ask. I think it was probably one of the friendliest outings we have had yet!
We also ate dinner at this awesome Nepalian restaurant last night. It was our 3rd time there in 2.5 weeks. Casey decided to eat this incredibly hot pepper (he always eats crazy things like that) but it was the first time I had seen him in pain in awhile from eating something of that nature. The poor guy was sweating and his nose started running. Then came the heartburn, and we do not have any Tums around. He got through it, though, and I guess I am impressed with his recovery. I will never understand why he does this to himself! Even the server questioned him about it when he ordered it, "It's very hot, sir...", but Mr. Hetrick is The Man and he toughed it out. :)
No pictures in this entry- I'm saving it for the next one.

-Ashley

Weekend events

So the past two days have been spent shopping, going to an International Student Year-End party, and not sleeping very well. (I blame the tic-tac-sized bed!)

Saturday, Casey worked until around 1:30, and then we went with Tasaka-san to the International Student party at Osaka University's Suita campus. We met a lot of new people, which was fun. We watched people from various countries show off their talents (mainly musically) and then we ended up participating in a few of the group dancing events. We were both very reluctant to go out and dance, but it ended up being fun. There was also some great food there as well. It ended up snowing on Saturday evening/Sunday morning, but anyone that woke up by 7 or 8 a.m. probably missed it because it melted quickly after the sun came up. I was able to see it because I woke up around 5:30. Why? I have no idea. But I guess I am glad I got to see snow again.

Sunday, Casey and I went to Umeda (downtown Osaka area) and went shopping and to the Sky Building. We went on a pretty clear day, so we were able to see how big Osaka really is. We went on an outside observation deck and were able to see the general area where our apartment is. It was so windy yesterday and I was getting blown around quite a bit up there, but it was worth the view.

We stayed out until around 8:30 last night, and then came home and collapsed. Walking around that much, especially in the cold and wind, took a lot out of us. You'd think I would have slept better last night. We were in bed by 10- rare for both of us. However, I woke up at 3 and couldn't get back to sleep until sometime after 5. Then I slept a lot this morning and couldn't wake up. It's a vicious cycle!! I hope it doesn't happen again tonight.

Well, that's about all from here for now. Don't have much planned for today, but I do know that later this week I will be going shopping for Casey's Christmas present. Hopefully I don't get too lost!!

-Ashley