Thursday, October 31, 2013

And I selected the Donald Duck milk tea.

So, Angel has been harassing me to make another blog update. Sorry it's taken so long~~ Nothing really interesting has happened, truth be told. But, here we go~

I guess, first thing I should point out is from about a week ago. David and I were meeting in Izumi after work, since I work there and he was near there that day, too. I was done work first, so I toddled to the local Bux for a drink and got a Chai Latte~ They make their cups sooo strangely in Japan. I was taught to mark them differently, so maybe times have changed? Anywho, I got my lovely Grande 5 pumps nonfat no water chai and it was glorious. Not as good as a Chai Eggnog Latte, but that will be for Christmastime at home~
While waiting, I ended up walking around the mall. There were already stores with Christmas displays! It made me so happy~~~ I found a store that had a Christmas Village type display. They looked like something from Canada. There were townsfolk decorating a tree infront of the city hall, a moose touching it's nose to a showman's carrot nose, and a group of people curling. Awesome.
We ended up getting dinner from a little restaurant across the hall from the Starbucks. They made amazing pizza. It was really good! We got one with tomato, basil and mozzarella and the other was onion, bacon and italian salami. Very tasty!
Also last week, David and I made plans to meetup in Sendai after work. I got there with about and hour to kill, so naturally I went to the Disneystore to kill some time. Their Halloween stuff was on sale, so I bought a bag of Halloween snacks. Curry or Barbeque flavoured cracker things. They're actually pretty good~
After exiting the Disneystore, I wandered around the arcade. And then I noticed that they were already putting up Christmas lights! Lets be honest here, people~ I'm a Christmas Geek. So, seeing Christmas lights in October actually excites me.
During my break recently at work, I ended up buying a new seasonal drink and snack from Family Mart. A cinnamon donut and a Kirin brand Chai Latte. Can't lie, I wasn't expecting much from that drink. But, it was surprisingly good! Will probably get it again~
On the subject of drinks, last Sunday David had a work Halloween thing he needed to do. It was basically a big show Halloween party thing that anyone in the mall could go to. He asked me to go, just in case no one wanted to participate in the Q&A portion and they needed someone who would. He bought me a drink for my troubles~ And I selected the Donald Duck milk tea. Hahaha. I like this brand. And now it has Donald Duck on it. Of course it was a good choice! David had to wear his costume for the event, and I thought he looked quite cute.
After the event, I wandered around for a bit and managed to find the cute Sailor Moon themed eyeliners that I had wanted to try~ They're really nice, actually! I've never tried liquid liner before, and I reeeeally like it. I got black liquid liner and a white pencil that had gold shimmer to it. They're both quite nice!
Recently, Sailor Moon keychains were available in gashapon machines. I managed to get almost all of the girls, except Mercury! I was kinda bummed, but I'm sure I'll find it somewhere! They keychains are reeeeally cute, actually! I'm using Sailor Moon as one of my keychains right now!
Oh, and in Preschool recently, we did a series of vegetable planting with the kids. We planted radishes which are supposed to grow up and be ready to eat by mid-late November. Real radishes~~~ I'm kinda excited. I hope I get to try one!

Friday, October 18, 2013

Like, buying crackers SPECIFICALLY to feed them to seagulls.

Well, last weekend was eventful! My friend Hope came up for a day trip and we got together for a date~ :D She's a sweetie. We met when I was working at BH and she popped in during Golden Week. She lives in Fukushima, but she comes to Sendai about once a month, usually. We usually get together for coffee or lunch and just sit and chat for hours. I love just sitting and talking with her~ She's awesome. :D

So, last weekend, she was up for the day and had no real plans aside from breaky with me. So, we ended up going to Matsushima! I'd never been, so it was quite nice! Although, it was a bit of a crap day to go. Hahaha. Kinda overcast and yick. We took the express train there and wandered around to the port area first.
We ended up walking across the bridge to Fukuurajima. The bridge was cool~ Painted red and about 250m long if I recall correctly. It was pretty nifty.
We wandered around the island taking some of the paths and looking around. There's a picnic type area in the middle and we stopped for lunch. It actually started to drizzle while we were eating, but there was a handy dandy covered pavillion there, so we nipped in and waited it out. It was ridiculously peaceful. Like, really zen. There was no one else but us and no noise except birds and the water and whatnot. It was amazing. I just wanna go back and sit. All day. The rain just made it feel like something from a book.
We wandered about and explored a bit more, then decided to return to land. We wandered over to a temple that was built on an island near shore. Godaido has a couple foot bridges connecting it to the mainland. You could see through the steps, which makes me think Angel will never set foot on it. Hahaha...
From there, we wandered to a temple pavilion area. We didn't wanna pay to go in, so we just enjoyed exploring the outside areas. There were a bunch of caves and statues there. Kinda reminded me of Petra from Indiana Jones. It's a kinda burial ground thing, too. It was neat, though.
Around this point, however, my camera died. 8D;

Sorry.

We ended up catching the ferry tour to Shiogama and catching the train back to Sendai. The tour was nice~ We floated around some of the islands and whatnot. Would've been nicer if the water was calmer, but it was cool. One thing I found weird, is people were feeding the seagulls off the back of the boat. Like, buying crackers SPECIFICALLY to feed them to seagulls. Weirdos.

Anywho, at this point Hope had to leave. She was catching a bus back to her hometown, So, we bid each other adieu and I ended up meeting David right after. He had just finished work. We popped to the Disney Store to take a peek around and then we walked back to the station.

We ended up walking by a dancing festival thing. There were a lot of talented dancers! And they came from all over the country! At the end of all the performances, everyone danced together. It was really cool! I managed to get photos with my iPod, which I forgot I had earlier in the day.
Kinda neat. The next day, we had a work Halloween party to attend. We had to get us at riduculous early oclock to be there on time, but it was worth it. We saw a rainbow on the way. They invited David to go, so we went as Mickey and Minnie. I didn't manage to get a photo of us together, but here's me.
The party was fun~ The kids were all adorable and they had a lot of fun. We carved pumpkins and did some dancing and played games and whatnot. Big turnout, though! Like, 40 kids and their families. There was a lot of people! After the party, Midori and Chiga treated everyone who worked the party to lunch which was super sweet of them. I got the Canadian beef hamburger. It came with a REAL baked potato. I was sooo happy. We had a nice time and just chatted about random stuff. It was nice.
After we said goodbye, we boogied on over to Sendai Station to meet Mika, Kazue and Melissa. We were celebrating Melissa's birthday at Sweets Paradise! Yummmmmm~~~~ It was awesome. I ate sooo much cake. And pasta. They had this amazing maple chiffon cake. Sooo good. Anywho, they brought out a special cake for Melissa and everyone in the restaurants clapped and sang Happy Birthday which I thought was sweet~ After that, Mika pulled out a gift for me and I was severely confused. But, it turned out to be omiyage from when she went to Hokkaido, so it's all good.
Which brings us to Monday when I ran into Mika and Melissa out of the blue while killing time and waiting for David. His bus was 2 hours late getting in from wherever he was teaching that day. So, I wandered around SPAL which had a cute pumpkin decoration for a bit then toddled off to check out the Disney Store. I actually walked past them without realizing until they called my name!We all wandered off together and watched Disney cartoons on the big castle TV for about 15minutes. Hahaha. They kept showing Goofy's The Art Of videos. Awesome. We ended up having dinner with them once David showed up.
And that was my last week or so in a nutshell. Nothing else to report at the moment. I have a cold and I'm hoping it'll go away. But other than that, yeah. See y'all later~ :)

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

They are freaking adorable and amazing and awesome and lots of other words!

So, it's been a bit of a quiet week. We've got a lot of new kids in preschool, so that's keeping me on my toes. Although, the new kids are turning out really nice! One of my new kids' mum speakings English, so she often chats with me after class. She's really sweet~

In class a few days ago, one of my students gave me a Canada flag! He went to a festival thing I guess and he got it and thought of me! So thoughtful for a 3 year old, eh? :) And it was funny~ I stuck it in my hair, like how we wear them on Canada Day and another of my students, H, came up and said, "Ashley! No! T's!" And then gave it back to T. Hahaha. They had a bit of a discussion about what was going on, then H brought it back and stuck it back in my hair with a laugh. It was cute.
And~~ My new Sherlock figures arrived this week! They are freaking adorable and amazing and awesome and lots of other words! I got them from a seller in China, but I found out about them through tumblr. They're actually pretty well made~ And they're quite heavy and durable. Which is awesome. Sherlock came with a skull, which I have sitting next to his chair right now. Lovelovelove!
SOOOO COOL~~~!!!

Anywho, that's actually about it. Like I said, it's been a quiet week, really. Payday is on Thursday, though, so hopefully we can get our plane tickets bought later this month. Keep your fingers crossed! >__<! And maybe, I can still afford to go to Disney for Halloween... Nooot likely, though. Oh well~