First Full Day part 2

After finishing at the Meijing Shrine we left to do some shopping. Right outside of the shrine is a large area where the teenagers hang out, they dress pretty weird and if you are lucky allow you to have your photo taken with them. We ending up walking to the Harishuku shopping district next, it was so packed full of people that you could hardly walk and breath. I did manage to get the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted. We continued to move on and managed to find our way to the Tokyo Tower. It's not as picturesque as the Eiffel Tower which it is said to be an exact replica off except I'm guess for the bright orange and white stripes. It was also very commercial, like everything else in Japan it's about selling you something. It was great to go up to the viewing gallery though and take a look at Tokyo, it was all alight for the holidays. After the Tower we finished our day off with a late dinner and birthday celebration for Albert at the Hard Rock Cafe. Visiting the Hard Rock at it's many locations is a bit of a tradition for Albert and he has quite a collection of drum sticks from around the world.

First Full Day in Tokyo

Wow, after looking through the photos from our first day in Tokyo I think I'm going to have to add this day in to parts I am a little amazed that we managed to get so much done in one short day. We started the day with a long lie in. The beds at the New Sanno are so warm and lush it was great to be able to spend a couple of extra hours in bed before we headed out for the day. Upon making it out of the room and onto the ground floor we headed out for breakfast and had a wonderful breakfast buffet, keeping our tummies full for the rest of the day. Our first stop was to one of the larger shrines in Tokyo The Meijing Shrine. We happened upon it on a great day and where able to see three wedding processions, who would have guessed that so many marriages would be happening in the winter. The Brides and Grooms where beautiful in their traditional dress. Ben managed to grab himself a few photos with a wedding guest and some typical high school girls, he's a bit of a rock star when it come to the Japanese girls and usually gets lots of giggles as he walks by.

The Drive Down

Day One. We start our drive down to Tokyo from Misawa-Ishi , six of us in a step wagon, for everything else in Japan these are pretty large family vans that can seat up to eight quite comfortably, how comfortably we will find out as we get to Tokyo. We manage a pretty good drive, about 8hrs covering 660km ( you can legally drive at about 80km/hr on the expressways). We arrive still friends and only get lost once ending up in the Giza district, which was beautifully decorated for the holiday season. We manage to make it to the Rappongi district where we had pre-planned to pick my brother up at the Mori Tower an overly large building in the Rappongi district you can walk around it has a 360 degree viewing gallery so you can see all of Tokyo from it. After picking the brother up we head on over to The New Sanno to stay for a couple of nights while we explore Tokyo.

It's been along time

It's been such a long time since I last added something to the blog, December has been one wild and crazy month. Anyway the good news is that my brother Paul came over for a visit arriving on the 19Th and we spent Christmas with him in Tokyo. We managed to keep a really hectic schedule and visited more places than seems possible. We became very familiar with the Tokyo subway system loving every minute of it. Our good friends Mary Lou and Albert where also able to spend the week with us. I am hoping to be able to update you on our antics on a daily basis as life gets a little less crazy.

Thanksgiving a Week and a bit late.

We had Thanksgiving a week late this year so I could invite my English Classes to join in with our family for the holiday it was so much fun. I teach 2 classes one with 4 Japanese ladies and the other with 2. All the ladies are 60+ years old and so much fun. They had a great time sampling the American style food and where very impressed with the amount of desserts we has to offer. They have take very well to my children and love to spend time with the family. We usually have a New Years (Japanese) party with them too where we get to share the local food . Albert and Mary-Lou where also able to share the evening with us, we sure love those guys and they have certainly made living in Misawa a lot better.

Home Stay

One of the cool cultural things we get to do staying in Japan is to invite Japanese Students into our home to experience a little American/English culture with us. This weekend we had Shiori stay with us. We did some very American things with her and had a great time. We went paintballing (She got hit with one ball and that was enough pain for one day), Sleding, baked some cookies and went carolling, a little early but it was a lot of fun. We found out we had a lot of things in common, we all like to watch movies, Shiori had just returned from a trip to England and had visited some of our favorite touristy places like Warwick Castle, the Museums in London and of course Liverpool.

It's started to snow in Misawa

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone. So, we got up early this morning about 6:00am to find about 1 1/2 feet of snow on the ground. Joe and Jonah went outside to start shovelling and arrived back in 2 hours later, it looks like it's going to be quite a winter this year. Ben,Jonah and Abbey are all very excited about the snow and are looking forward to spending their last winter in Japan snowboarding like crazy. We'll see if they still feel like that after 4 months of shovelling us out the front door every morning.