So there's not too much going on around here lately. It's winter, and that always makes me less social and more of a home-body. I must admit though, we are lucky and I don't think it's dropped below freezing more than a few times. Most days are sunny and in the high 30s. Saturday was a beautiful sunny and 65, which inspired me to spend some time outside, where I cleaned out our car (I haven't done that here, so it was desperately needed).
Work is good! I feel like I'm never there though. Last week my second year students went to Hokkaido, the big island north of Honshu (where we live) to ski, so I didn't have half of my classes. I only taught one class all week except for Thursday, where I taught 2 (I almost felt exhausted!). I also have no work today and next Monday and Tuesday. It's the end of the school year here so there are some extra activities going on. I think the rest of the school year isn't nearly as generous with days off. My students can now give directions in English! For example, they could tell you, "The library is next to the post office. Go straight for 2 blocks and then turn right. You will see it on your left." Such skills! This week we are quickly learning proper phrases to use on the telephone, like, "May I speak to Aki?" or "Yes, please wait a minute while I go get her." I find this a bit funny since they all have their own cell phones, but whatever, I just teach what they tell me.
My goals for today include getting this entry finished, do some meal planning and make a grocery list and then go grocery shopping. However, Bryan's chain broke on his bike so he took the car to work. It's hard to bring groceries home in a bike basket :-( I also want to go to a new grocery store that my co-worker told me about. So these goals may not get accomplished today.
I'll also hit up the gym at some point. I started spending more time on the treadmill again, mostly doing a high intensity interval training workout. It involves a speedy walk for a minute and a half and then sprinting for 30 seconds. That doesn't sound so bad, until you do it over and over! I'm also trying to keep up with some weight lifting, but I'm easily intimidated by a busy weight room full of buff Navy men, so that doesn't always happen. I've been doing Weight Watchers for almost a month. Of course I'd rather keep eating whatever I wish, but it's not too hard to stick with. I've lost 9 pounds so far and plan on keeping up with the program until we go on vacation in March. And I'll probably need to stay on it after we get back from all of the eating we plan on doing!
Yes, vacation in March! We originally planned on going to Thailand, but after learning more and looking into travel details, we decided against it. It seems pretty nice, but instead, our big destination is Bali!! Bali seems way more fabulous. We are taking a Space A flight (another perk of the military life, a free flight, assuming they have room for us, keep your fingers crossed!) to Singapore, where we'll spend the day and first night. The next day we're flying to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 2 nights to do some good eating and city exploring. After that we'll catch a flight to Bali, where we'll first spend 3 nights inland in Ubud and then 3 nights on the beach near the Seminyak area. We're looking forward to more eating, a bike tour, massages, delicious drinks, and soaking up the sun.
And speaking of vacations, we're also in the planning stage of our summer vacation to back home. We don't have any specific dates yet, but we're hoping to arrive in the end of July or early August. Once we buy tickets, we will give a more thorough update on our plans. We're also very excited to be stopping in Hawaii for a week before coming home! We will be staying on the island of Kauai with two of our favorite couple friends.
See, I told you there's not much to update about, just lot of exciting planning right now. Nada. Here are some random pics.
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| Horrible pic, but you get the idea. One perk of military life is getting free concert every now and then. Vertical Horizon came to sing to us! It was a nice small acoustic concert. Bryan and I both enjoy several of their songs, so we really enjoyed it. |
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| I saw this lady and her crew of kids while I was walking home one day. Apparently the easiest way to get 4 kids from around is to just buy a cart on wheels! The kids seemed to thoroughly enjoy this. |
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| This is part of my walk to work. The road runs along train tracks, as you can see. Lots of other walkers and bikers. |
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| This is actually my co-workers map, but I made one just like it for my students at school. We took a picture of this map, cropped it, then printed it on a piece of paper for them. It's a pretend NYC map. |
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| This is right behind my house. I don't think I've posted a picture like this. You can see how parking is often very different here in Japan, as space is an issue. There are cars below ground and then the ground level parker just gets elevated. I think these only go down one level, but some go down three levels. From what I understand, there is a machine with a button to press to get the cars up and down. |
We're going skiing on February 23 and then the 24th we'll be going to cheer on our friend who is running in the Tokyo marathon. Hopefully I'll have some better pictures to share from those events.
Miss ya'll!
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