Fall Festivites and my House

Happy November!   It's quite crazy that it's already November.  We're on about the same latitude of North Carolina, but sadly, not a lot of leaves have changed colors around here.  We're going on an "Autumn Hike" Sunday, in Nikko, which is supposed to be a beautiful place a bit north of us, so hopefully we'll see some good colors there.  It is getting much cooler, usually in the 60s and 70s during the day and then dropping to the low 50s and 40s at night.  We haven't turned on our heat yet though.  I hear that's going to be expensive!  Also, the heat is through the same units as our AC, so we'll only have a heater in our living room/kitchen and in the bedrooms.  The bathrooms, entryway and stairs won't be heated unless we leave the doors open.  But in good news, my toilet seats are heated.  I have turned those on!

I should start subbing next week!  And if not then, then definitely the week after.  I got a letter from DODEA headquarters saying that I've been officially hired, but then my bubble got slightly burst whenever the secretary emailed me to tell me that it would take another 2 weeks to get on payroll.     I've also sent my resume to 2 English schools.  One is an actual Japanese high school, which will definitely have an opening.  The other is a for-profit English tutoring school.   I think they basically just arrange students to come to me.  Both would pay pretty well.  The second one would require me to work evenings, but it would only be a couple nights per week. I haven't heard back from either, so don't get too excited.

As previously mentioned, we dressed up as The Blue Man group and walked around a couple parts of Tokyo.  So hilarious!   At first I was concerned that they wouldn't know who we were, but I was quickly proved very wrong.  We tried to stay in character for the majority day, which can be exhausting!   The Blue Men don't talk and they're very curious about everything.  We had a fun time playing on the train, looking out the door at every stop, walking from car to car and sitting by strangers.  No exaggeration, I think we had our picture taken over a thousand times that day.  We were with two fun Japanese girls and they told us that many people thought we were the real Blue Man Group.  I think this is funny because first of all, our makeup wasn't that good, especially up close, second, our group also consisted of "Alice" from Alice in Wonderland and Mario and Luigi, and lastly, there were 3 of us girls, wearing skirts.  Blue "Man" Group, not Blue Woman Group.    At one point, a police officer had to escort us to a side road because we were causing too much of a commotion on the main street.  People also had us take pictures with their children, but this often ended poorly since they were of course frightened by the blue paint.  Most of the day we were the only ones in costumes but later in the day, people would mention Halloween and smile.  Once we left dinner in Shibuya and started walking around we saw a lot more people in costume. 

Group photo at dinner!   We went to the Glorious Day Cafe in Shiuya, which not only had excellent food, but also kept giving us free shots of tequila since we were in costume.    Mariko, who is dressed as Mario, was a great guide for us.  She took us to several parts of Tokyo and constantly counted us to make sure we didn't get lost in the crazy train stations or on the super busy streets.  And she suggested we come here for dinner!   Three cheers for Mariko!!

 

 

The base had Trick or Treating on Halloween evening.  It was open to Japanese children, if they were accompanied by an American.  They were soooooo frickin cute!   Sadly, I didn't think of taking pictures until it was dark out and I only had my phone, so the quality isn't good, but here's a picture of the group that my friend Kristin brought, including her daughter, the little Hello Kitty on the left.      Japanese don't traditionally celebrate Halloween, but it has become a bit more popular recently.  Some of the stores sell little jack-o-lanterns and other decorations, but communities don't do trick-or-treating.  I hear that the kids are SUPER excited to be invited to our celebrations.  They really don't know English yet, but their parents were with them (some of them dressed up too!)  and absolutely insisted that they said either Trick-or-Treat! or Happy Halloween! and Thank you very much!! after we gave them candy.   One mom actually handed us a snack-size pack of Japanese cookies with a note that said something like "Thank you for sharing your traditions with us!  Love, Your Japanese Friends".   How sweet is that??  I've never had trick-or-treaters give me candy!

This picture doesn't truly represent how much they made my heart melt, but hopefully it makes you smile.

On a totally different subject, here's pictures of our house!  Well, actually, just the front door, living room and kitchen.  Our bed is still not put together (but shout out to Haverty's Furniture!  The movers lost all of the screws to put our bed together, so they're sending us the hardware to do so, for free, aaaaand even through USPS, since FedEx that they usually use takes forever to arrive!), so no pictures of our bedroom yet.  Our spare bedroom is a bit of a disaster still, especially since I bought some Christmas decorations and a tree and shoved them in that room.  Our staircase and entry way still aren't fully decorated.   I'm working on getting some pictures framed still.

Bryan got me flowers for my birthday and has planted some basil, cilantro and chives for us.  My mum plant, like always, has quit blooming.   And I love my pumpkins!  Oh, and I made the wreathe.  It has felt flowers on it. They're really pretty, but sadly I made them way too small, so they don't really show up.  Rookie mistake.

The "dining room" section of the room.   The orchid by the window is beautiful!  Bryan had me pick out one for my birthday :-)  Haven't killed it yet!   Also, the wall behind the tv is saved for displaying some Japanese art, whenever we find something that we really want.

The view of the room when you walk in the room.  Love our couch!  So comfy.

The doorway takes you to our entryway and stairs.  The little door is to the closet under the stairs.  Reminds me of where Harry Potter lived with his aunt and uncle.

This is the only kitchen storage that came with the house.  Our stove and refrigerator are free from base.  The stove is a bit smaller than the ones back home, but I'm grateful to have it!

We had to buy those shelves since we have no cupboards.   And yes, that's a poster of Brad Pitt. It's on a nice sturdy piece of cardstock and it glossy.  It came in the mail from JCom, our internet company.  I hear they love Brad Pitt here, so I couldn't immediately throw it away.  That would be rude.

Last weekend, I went on a tour with some ladies to a pottery festival on the other side of Tokyo.  It was a long ride, but the buses that they have are really nice, so it wasn't too bad.   I didn't actually take pictures of the pottery (not sure why) but I did get some other pictures.  I didn't buy any pottery either. There was plenty of beautiful pieces.  Tons!   However, nothing really screamed, "Buy me!!!" and  I thought I should pace myself with those kind of purchases and hold out until I see something that I really want. 

It was a gloomy morning, but I took this picture from my seat on the bus.  The SkyTree was just completed in May.  It's one of the tallest towers in the world, at 2,080 feet tall, which is over twice as tall as the Eifel Tower.  Someday I will go to the top!

The word "yakatori" means skewered chicken, but it also be used to refer to any kind of food on a stick.   I've never been disappointed with any yakatori yet.  Very delicious and one of my favorite Japanese foods. 

We stuck to some ramen and beef and chicken yakatori, but we could have also had some smoked fishies on a stick.  I was very curious about these, especially the part on how to eat them, so I watched several people and they all just ate the whole fish!  Not sure if I'm up for that much adventure.

AOSA, the Atsugi Officers' Spouse Association, which organizes most of the social things I do on base, planned a luncheon to benefit the Red Cross.  It was a Thanksgiving theme and like Halloween, Americans were encouraged to bring Japanese neighbors and friends.  It was at the Officers' Club and they catered a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  I helped put on a little game show that  the Japanese played.  There were a bunch of questions about the origin of the holiday and how we celebrate it today.  Each question had some props and I think they enjoyed it.   We also had two auctions.  The first was a silent auction.  Each of the commands on base put together a themed gift basket.  The clinic did one that we called "Homemade Christmas".  I made the part on the left, which was jars of cookie dough mix and the other ladies made hot drink mixes and Christmas tree ornaments.  It sold for $80 :-)   At the end, there was a live auction of desserts, which were donated and used as centerpieces for the tables.  I made a pumpkin roll, and as some of you may have seen on Facebook, it took multiple attempts, but I got a pretty one.  It sold for $35! 

Our basket for the silent auction.

This is my sad version of the Mayflower.  It was a prop for our game show question: "What was the name of the ship that the pilgrims sailed to America?"     Bryan said, "There's no point in trying to impress the Japanese with a paper ship.  They do origami!"  Thanks for the support, love!

My pumpkin roll!

That's all for now.  It's Friday night, right around 8pm.  Bryan put in a movie to watch but he definitely fell asleep already.  I guess I'll continue watching it and maybe do my nails. 

Next time I'll hopefully have some pretty pictures from our hike this weekend!

Sayonara,

 XOXO,

 Cherie-san