saturday morning

so that's it. the inside of our apartment. i guess it's more like a room. it's very very tiny. questions about any of it... comment people!!

how many days until my parents come to visit? i don't know. but i'm going to count today.

i have a very runny nose and a sore throat. oh, i also have a zit on my lip. i'm sexy in japan.

d ate all of the chocolate last night while i was asleep. he was up till 5:30am. no coffee for him after like noon from now on.

it's rainy right now. it's been sunny and warm like all week so i guess it's ok. i don't have to go anywhere today so rain on japan!! rain on. but just for today. maybe tomorrow too. but on monday, you definitely have to stop it.

gayle just got back from her wedding. told me that she drove marc crazy saying "when chrissy and i were here...". that made me happy.

did you ever think that anyone in the world still used 1-ply toilet paper? japan does.

ok... back to bed. crap, the oilers game starts in 10 minutes. decisions, decisions...

just some pics

we really haven't changed at all.

our apartment, 2nd one from the left on the top

the 17 stairs we have to climb, mailboxes, and d's bike

on a clear day, we can see the top of mt. fuji from here.

another ladder shot. man i hate that ladder.

i really like it here.

mommy...

my head hurts and i have the sniffles.and now my foot's asleep.

trick or treat, smell my feet...

first we partied with the kids. then we partied with the "adults". i wore my pyjamas and carried around a stuffed animal. cute, right? lame i say. darren was very popular as superman. why? i'll leave that to your imagination...some of our pictures are too, shall we say, risque? to be posted. not of us, of course. but of stuff like this guy...this is the most clothing this guy had on all night. seriously. where do you even buy a shiny gold g-string?

we're listening to the oilers game right now. the announcers keep reporting accidents all over edmonton. scary. pisani just scored!!! yay!!! uh-oh...they're going upstairs. it's good!!!!!

ok, now more halloween pictures.and then at the end of the evening... we snap back to reality.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

don't mess with noodleman

first, thank you to b & a for the 'taste of home' that we got yesterday. everything was awesome. by the way if anybody else wants to sent me beer please feel free.

onwards. we felt our first earthquake last week, it shook our place for what felt like 10 seconds. pretty cool. there are, on average, 1500 earthquakes a year around japan, that's a little f.f. (fun fact) for you. this weekend is going to be great, parties and costumes until sunday night. it's still +20 here in the daytime so this halloween, we won't have to try to get our costumes on over our winter coats.

and now... some pictures...

... this is shibuya, possibly the busiest place ever. seriously it's ridiculous.


... the station at shibuya.

... this one is for jennifer.


more to come... after the weekend.

orange fanta it is!!

sunny day chasing the clouds away... true that my friend. true that.

have you ever had fanta? do you even remember if you've ever had fanta? well, if you have and if you do, you might have been wondering where it went. we found it! it's all in japan! grape, melon, and orange. you are welcome.changed our costumes for halloween. darren's is super. mine is tired. figure that out, bitches!!

seriously, things have been going great lately. i got paid, phone and internet hooked up, not much rain, short weeks at work...

shower? yes please.

online once again

finally finally finally. internet hooked up at home. sweet sweet communication. it never tasted so good. from now on i promise more updates. more emails too. more of "hey, this is what's happening right now." ok? ok. oh... listened to part of the oilers game today. happy happy.

matthew good is recording a new album next month. he spent awhile in the hospital recently. he better never die.

halloween. what are you doing for halloween? darren's costume is very scary. no hints though... you'll have to wait to see the pictures. we are going to a party for halloween. they don't really do halloween in japan but everywhere has decorations and places are having "halloween sale"s. weird.

darren is making me dinner right now. gyoza and yakitori. delicious.

pictures? sure. i like pictures. these are of my school and such. pay no attention to how bad i look in the last picture. thank you.

roberto's list about me

For C of C&D
1. I'll respond with something random about you.
Your old love of New Kids on the Block is even more hilarious now, knowing your adult taste in music.

2. I'll challenge you to try something.
Eat a vegetable with every meal.

3. I'll pick a colour that I associate with you.
Purple.

4. I'll tell you something I like about you.
Hard to pick...gotta be the laugh that can be heard from blocks away.

5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
That's a toughie when you've known someone their whole life. Playing with you when you were little..Concentration, your Fisher Price Sesame street toys, and the Ronald McDonald doll.

6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
A really cute laughing Hyena!

7. I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you.
When did you first get the idea to go teach in Japan?

to answer the last one... about 2 years ago. d and i were just sitting around and talking about places we'd like to go. the next day i typed "tesl courses" into google and the first one that came up was oxford. they had an info session in edmonton and we entered our names in a draw. i won a free course so we decided that it was the world's way of telling us that we had to go.

and also... i had a ronald mcdonald doll?!?!?

one more time

pictures are working so...this is where darren played last weekend. i'm so proud. who knew it would take japan to get him to sing infront of people?this is looking down our street. there is a shrine in the middle of the road. a little girl was praying there last sunday. sometimes there are fresh flowers in the vases.train station and me (and some other random people).this is asaka station. right by our apartment. not busy at all. most of the time. weekdays around 7pm is madness.some kind of festival we happened upon in ikebukero (part of tokyo). lots of food and dancing...and guys dressed like this:our humble form of transportation... i rode to and from school in a typhoon yesterday. i think i might get a rain suit this weekend.and for those of you who may have forgotten how gorgeous we are...i know, i know. the lip ring. i miss it too. we will be reacquainted when i come home though. don't worry. tonight we are going to shibuya for thanksgiving dinner at a canadian bar place called the maple leaf. we've never been there before. darren is hoping hard for canadian beer. i'm hoping for unpumpkin pie. if not, a bowl of whipped cream will do just fine.

telephone hook-up on october 10th. internet within a week after that. yesssssss....

better

better week.
better feeling.
better food.
better weather.
better.

darren played at a bar last night. his first gig ever. pretty sweet. tiny place. nice people. good songs.

i missed a birthday party. first one ever i think. how am i going to feel on my birthday?

i had a dream last night that i was at john`s school and there was a christmas dinner for the students and their families. i was sitting at the table decorating cookies with all of the kids. i think i am going to do that.

teenage girls here really like my hair. for like the third time i had some of them come up to me in the hallway at school and touch my hair and then giggle. they told one of the english teachers that they think it`s beautiful and they also said that my eyes are very pretty. yay me!

i can`t wait to get paid. maybe we can finally get some furniture.

started teaching at elementary schools 2 afternoons a week. i`m like a freaking celebrity. they follow me and scream and touch me. it`s crazy.

sorry there are no pictures. internet cafe and blogger and what not. i`ll try again... nope. still won`t let me.

have you noticed that the apostrophes i type aren`t really apostrophes??

roberto... got something for you...

another day in harajuku

we found out there was a shrine right behind the harajuku station so we went back.this is a wishing tree. you write a wish and the priests read them aloud during their ceremonies.this is one of the jingu bashi girls. this is her weekend escape costume.takeshita dori at sunset. it`s takeshita not "take a shit"...
and these are some of the kids from my school. they were in a speech contest. 2nd from the right is sayaka. she came in 2nd place.
i`m very homesick right now. don`t really want to talk about it.

going to get a cell phone and the internet at home hopefully this week. within the next month for sure.

gayle`s wedding is in 3 weeks. her mom emailed me and asked me to write something to be read at the reception. it`s making me miss her a lot. we`ve emailed some pretty sappy stuff back and forth. growing up sucks.

maybe having pizza tonight for dinner. there`s a pizza hut just down the street from our apartment. ahhhhhhhh pizza hut.

the definition of massive

so we ventured into tokyo. every train station is like a city in itself. there is no "downtown". city centres are surrounding the train stations. pictures really don`t do this place justice.

my favorite places so far are ikebukero and (sorry jennifer) harajuku. i love harajuku. and it makes me hate gwen stefani even more. they have the best shops and the best prices and i saw more lip rings there yesterday than i have seen the whole time we`ve been in japan.right beside the harajuku station is a square where teenage girls hang out on the weekends all decked out in their gothy best. from what i understand, they are the outcasts and bullied kids at school and so on the weekend, they get together and celebrate their outcastness. no pictures of them, but soon.

it`s been raining so much. typhoon season and whatnot. and the rain doesn`t stop people from doing anything. i`ve seen old ladies in their rainsuits holding umbrellas while they ride their bikes to the store. it`s just what you do.

darren isn`t going to be teaching in tokyo. we figured it out and the commute was just too long (at least an hour and a half on the train and then some time on buses) and they were giving him no support at all with finding the schools and introducing him to staff. he wasn`t feeling comfortable with the whole thing.

met some people... 4 other alt`s in asaka. 2 from the states and 2 from new zealand. also met john from australia. he runs an english school. been here for 7 years. he`s as old as darren. they talked about vision streetwear and the golden days of skateboarding.

well, more pics if it ever stops raining.

sorry etc.

hey all y`all... things have been slightly crazy for the past couple of weeks. i have just finished my first week at school and i think it went very very well. i am very tired of introducing myself though. i printed out a bunch of pictures of my family and of edmonton and stuff and showed them to every class that i had (i have 11 classes). anyways, the funniest thing. i had a picture of daddy that i was showing and i asked the kids to guess who it was. one kid guessed it was steven spielberg. a couple more thought it was santa claus. daddy is famous at gochu jr. high!!

so... no internet at home yet. no pictures really to post yet anyways. i promise that we will work on that. promise promise.

haven`t cried for like a week. good on me!!

bought us some bicycles. mine is orange and d`s is silver. both have very handy baskets on them (no, not handi like handicapped, handy like useful...). i ride to work everyday... business like clothes and everything.

darren is going to be teaching elementary in tokyo starting on the 19th. i think he will be amazing. tired, but amazing.

more maybe next weekend...

love and miss you all!!!!!!