SUNDAY 1/30
We had church in the morning, and after church Becky, Carol and I went to eat with a few of the girls from church. We went to a restaurant that I can't currently remember the name of that I'd never been to before, but I had some delicious kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) and ham pasta.
As far as I recall, I spent most of my afternoon after that sleeping, lol, and then in the evening we had our Purpose Driven Life Bible study at Carol's house, which was great. We have a wonderful group of people, and lots of interesting discussion about the purpose of our lives. Afterwards, Becky and I went to the onsen (public bath). There are various kinds of baths there, and there's one that always changes. This time, it was filled with a whole bunch of rubber duckies! It was awesome!
MONDAY 1/31
Carol, Becky and I went to lunch at Pure-na, a restaurant that (I think?) is supposed to be all organic (or something?). Anyway, it's all you can eat and it was really good. :D
Round One
Round Two
Needless to say, I was really full after lunch. That afternoon, Carol and I decorated the Center for Valentine's Day, and then Becky made nabe (hot pot) for us, so we ate dinner together. Super good! And for dessert, we had brownies and ice cream, which Becky decorated for us:
Pretty normal Tuesday, meeting with Carol and Becky in the afternoon, and then gospel choir in the evening. Fun times. :) I'm sure we went out to dinner and I remember having really awesome food, but maybe I didn't take a picture. Oh well...
Oh! But I did do something exciting earlier that day: In the afternoon, I got a haircut! My first one in Japan~ :D I only got a little bit of a trim, so my hair is pretty much the same, but the way she styled it made me look pretty different that day! This isn't the most amazing picture of me ever (I took it myself lol), but so you can get the idea:
Also, Japanese salons are amazing! I'd heard about them before but now I know for myself. My hair has probably never been so thoroughly washed, and they make a lot of effort to make you comfortable. Then I got my actual haircut, and then they washed my hair again (didn't take quite so long this time), and then offered me a drink (I got coffee), gave me a shoulder/back massage, and then styled my hair. American salons are super lame by comparison!
WEDNESDAY 2/2
Okay, I did properly document this day with pictures! Carol's and my Japanese teacher, Ishikawa-sensei, who has taught many NAB missionaries over the years, had her birthday the previous week, so we celebrated with her on this day. We went to a Russian restaurant! :D
The bread was fried and had some kind of meat and potato mixture (?) inside. It was amazing!
The main course. It's mushroom soup underneath the bread.
And dessert, of course.
Obligatory group shot!
The rest of my day was spent teaching my classes, and I think we had the Mie University Bible study as well. :)
THURSDAY 2/3
I had Japanese in the morning, and then I spent most of my afternoon chatting with people online~ This day was a holiday called setsubun in Japan, so to celebrate, Becky bought special setsubun sushi rolls. They're not cut, so they're pretty long, and you're supposed to eat them while facing a certain direction, without talking, for good luck or health or some such thing. Also, I think setsubun is probably based on Chinese New Year, so many Japanese do a ritual cleansing of their homes. How do they do this? By...throwing beans. Not even kidding. You're supposed to throw beans out from your house while saying "Evil out!" and then throw them into your house while saying "Good luck in!" Sometimes someone will even play the role of a demon by putting on a demon mask. Not all Japanese really believe that this accomplishes anything, of course, but many still follow the practice anyway. There are celebrations at shrines too. All I did to celebrate was eat the sushi roll though haha.
Anyway, Becky, Carol and I went to Casa Mia for dinner that night, and I properly documented what we ate that day.
Smoked salmon penne.
Spinach and ham in tomato sauce.
And my new Casa Mia favorite, kabocha and sausage with homemade pasta. <3
FRIDAY 2/4
Carol, Becky and I went to lunch at Tomiya, a karaage (fried chicken) place that is right in front of our building. It was really, really good!
And apparently being friendly with the owner in the past has its rewards: We got free coffee. Super nice of him! <3 After lunch, Becky and Carol went to do some shopping, so I did some stuff around the apartment, taught my usual classes, etc.
After my last class was movie night! We watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was a first for some of the people there. That movie never gets old. <3
SATURDAY 2/5
Super exciting day, because I went to Nagoya with Jamie, Nick and Shar, three of my good friends from college! Nick and Shar are JETs (English teachers) the next prefecture over from me, and Jamie's visiting her fiance in Tokyo, so the four of us met up in Nagoya around 11am. Our biggest goal for the day: eating delicious food. We definitely succeeded.
Miso katsu donburi at a restaurant called Yabaton. And also giblets on the side. Okay...? Everything was delicious though!
After lunch, we went to karaoke. The fanciest, shiniest karaoke place I've ever been to. Which required dramatic posing in the hallway. Jamie's pose is my favorite.
And then Nick took a picture of me. Which ended up being kind of awkward because he didn't realize the girl bringing our drinks to our room was right behind him, waiting for him to get out of the way. lol probably wondering why the crazy foreigners were taking pictures in the hallway...
lol this is the best picture I got of Nick and Shar... Sorry guys!
After karaoke, we walked around, got Starbucks, and did a little shopping. We happened to pass an ice skating rink that had lights up (actually there were a lot of lights in Nagoya, like on the trees lining the streets and stuff), so it was a perfect photo opportunity!
And then, because we are mature adults, we decided to eat dessert before dinner. Unfortunately, Shar's phone's GPS led us astray and we kind of walked in circles for a while haha. After I used my iPhone (which gave me different directions), and asking a random store worker for help, we finally found the place: Quil fait bon.
I loved these decorations they had above the counter!
It was a little place on the bottom floor of a big building.
Nick is happy and Shar is sad.
And vice versa.
I don't think Jamie was expressing a proper amount of enthusiasm in this picture.
My cake! I don't really know what it was haha, but it was good!
Everyone's dessert~
Next stop: Sekai no Yama-chan for tebasaki chicken wings. Group shot before we got our food! The metal urn-looking thing is for the bones.
Their appearance does not do justice to their deliciousness.
Slightly off-center group shot. Not bad since I couldn't tell exactly what my camera was taking a picture of haha. We also had some yakitori, fried rice, edamame, kimchi, etc. Awesome dinner!
After that we decided to call it a day. But there were still more adventures to be had, because Jamie came back to Tsu with me! But, since this entry is really long (and since I'm going to go eat dinner soon), I'll end here for now. If you guys are really lucky, maybe I'll post about this past week later tonight!
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