Home and Back

Published on Tuesday, January 19, 2010.

I went home to America for the holidays and I have to admit that I had a lot of fun. I had missed spending time with my family and friends. In the 2 weeks I was there, I ate tons of food, watched a lot of late night reruns of shows, such as Bridezillas , & received and gave a lot of hugs. I also took pictures, so that I could show my students when I came back to Japan.

 The students loved seeing the pictures of Christmas decorations, my Christmas tree, snow (it doesn't really snow in this area) and a couple of pictures that I took in NYC when I went there with my mom to do some shopping. 

However, the picture that seemed the most popular was the one I took of our main dish on Christmas day. It was a picture of leitão (suckling pig), which is a popular dish in the region that my parents are from in Portugal,  which is known as Bairrada. Both teachers and students were amazed by this picture. There were all different reactions to it. Some were disgusted. Others were confused, amused and even interested in knowing more about it. I even heard some girls say "Kawaii" (cute). When I said that it was delicious, a lot of them looked at me incredulously and others giggled. lol. Yes, the picture was a hit among my students.



I've realized that a lot of people here take pictures of their food when the food looks really good, cute, or just different from the norm. I should have taken more pictures of the different foods I ate back home, both the American and Portuguese stuff. I think they would have liked that.

For more pictures, you can go to my Flickr Account

Song Listening to At the Moment: "Yours Only"by Nishino Kana

Getting Ready for Christmas Vacation

Post first published on December 16, 2009.

I'm going to go home this Saturday. Well, kind of. I'm going back to Jersey for Christmas, but I will be going to a completely different house. Since I have been in Japan, my parents have moved from a small apartment in an urban area, where I was born and raised, to a bigger place in a suburban area. Truthfully, I think that this move was great for them. Their landlord is a friend of theirs and their neighbors are also good friends. The house looks nice and the area is much, much better from where we use to live. I'm actually really excited to see the new house and to put my imprint in my new room.

This will also be the first time I go back home since I have been here, so about a year and a half. I can't wait to see my family and friends and hang out in all of the places I have missed. I have a list of things to see, people to hang out with and things to buy, but I'm not sure if I can do half of what I want.

Although I'm super excited, I'm also a bit nervous. A lot has happened with people back home since I've left. Friends have gotten new jobs, become engaged and so on. I just wonder how people will interact with me and how they will react to my own changes. I think it should all be fine though.

My flight is also super crazy. I'm going from Miyazaki to Osaka. Then, in Osaka, I have to change airports (domestic to international). Then, I leave Osaka and go to San Francisco. From San Francisco, I finally go to Jersey. It's going to be a long flight.

Last year, I did a similar crazy flight, except I was going to see my family in Portugal. I went from Miyazaki to Tokyo Haneda (domestic). Then, I had to switch airports to fly out of the international airport, Narita. From Narita, I went to Germany. Finally, from Germany, I went to Lisbon. Whoah, tiring!

I have so many things that I want to take back home, but I don't want to make my bags heavy because of all of the airport changes.


Before even going, I have to buy gifts, clean, pack and see some of my friends here before I go.

For example, today I have a Japanese lesson at my house. We are going to play the Japanese version of Life (the board game). We began it last time, but we didn't finish. Yes, I am losing. lol. Most of the time, I have no idea what is going on. I really must improve my Japanese.

Then, I will try to end the lesson 10 minutes early, so that I can catch a bus to go downtown. I need to buy a Christmas cake to take to Lauren's house and some other things for tomorrow's class.

I also have to meet up with my friend Minjin. She is also part of the Jet program, except she is a CIR not ALT. When we can, we do conversation practice to help her improve her English. In return, she teaches me a bit of Korean. To get ready for today, I have been trying to memorize as much hangul, Korean alphabet, as I can. My memory is horrible by the way, but I really want to learn.

We are also meeting up because we have omiyage (souvenirs) that we still haven't exchanged with each other from places we went to in November. We wanted to do that before I left for America.

Edit- Minjin is not feeling well, so we are not meeting up. :( I hope she gets better soon. ::Drink Tea, Rest & Stay Warm Minjin::

Wow Japanese and then Korean in one day. My head will be super confused. I guess it usually is on most days. lol.

Anyway, after that, I will go to Lauren's house because 4 of my friends who live in the west side of the city are having a Christmas gathering. They are bringing the KFC and I will bring the Christmas cake - Oh yeah, Japanese Christmas (lol). However, they will start at 6:30 PM, but I will only be able to get there at 8 something. Ahhh...they might be kind of mad at me for that. Hopefully, not too mad. (-_^)

It sounds a bit chaotic, but I think it will be fun.

Fukuoka Sumo Weekend

First published on November 26, 2009.

This past weekend, I went to watch a sumo match in the biggest city in Kyushu, Fukuoka.

My adventure started Saturday morning. A group of ALTs, including Kim, Asha, Lauren and myself, took a 7:45 AM bus from Miyazaki to Fukuoka. It takes about 4 hours to get to Fukuoka, so we couldn't wait to get up, stretch our legs and explore the city once we got there.

We first went to look for our hostel. After putting our stuff down, we went searching for Hard Rock Cafe. OK, I know how strange that sounds. Just remember that we have been in Japan for a long time, so we were craving things like huge hamburgers, steaks & mashed potatoes. Asha also really loves the Hard Rock, so that's why we went there. It was actually next to the Yahoo Dome and a mall. After lunch, we went shopping. A big part of our trip, besides sumo, was to go shopping in the big city. Living in Miyazaki, we rarely have the opportunity to go all out in super shopping sprees. Maybe that's a good thing. lol.

Anyway, after the mall, we went to look around the Tenjin area. I ended up buying cute gloves and a couple of things from Muji. When things started closing, we began walking around. There were Christmas decorations everywhere already. While we were crossing a random street, we saw this cool looking place. It was like the 3rd floor of a building, but the windows had writing on them and it just looked interesting. We went to see what it was. We were happily surprised when we found out that it was a Sri Lankan restaurant. None of us had ever had food from Sri Lanka, but the restaurant smelled really good. Actually, because of the spices in the air, everyone was coughing and sneezing. A couple of people put a napkin to their nose and mouth, so that they wouldn't cough as much. After awhile, I got use to it though.

We ordered curry noodles and a spicy rice thing with chicken (not exactly sure what it was). The food was really spicy and DELICIOUS. We enjoyed every bite.

When we finished, we had a bunch of bags, a full tummy and a decision to make. How were we going to meet up with the ALTs at a club called "Happy Cock"? Yes, "Happy Cock". I'm not kidding. It's an international club in the city where many foreigners go to party. We decided to just take the bags and then figure out where to put them when we got there. We knew that the club at lockers, but we didn't know how big they were.

It took us a long time to find the club. We basically walked in circles. The funny thing is that the club was only a couple of minutes walk from the Sri Lankan restaurant. We had to wait in line to get on the elevator that would take us to the club. The girls in front of us were stupid drunk. I was not happy. I was tired and I was not enjoying the behavior of the people, who were also waiting to get to the club. Kim and I wanted to go back to the hostel, but we decided to just go with Lauren and Asha. When we got up there, I was even more hesitant. The club was packed.

Anyway, we ended up going in. We could barely move in there. At one time, I was stuck for like 10 minutes. I couldn't walk forward, backwards or to the side. The people in back of me were trying to get to the bathroom, while the people in front of me were trying to get to the bar. NO ONE COULD MOVE. It was impossible. I got really, really scared. I started panicking. I kept thinking "What if a fight breaks out?" or "What if there is a fire?". There was a big guy to the side of me. Once he was able to move, I just followed the path he was making.

When I made it to the other side, I stayed next to a table that they had there. It was the area that I had the most room. I basically stayed there all night with Kim and Asha. Once in awhile, someone I knew would come and I would talk to them. The night wasn't completely horrible because I was able to talk to my friends, but I HATED that club so much. I even got groped by this random guy. He touched my chest while he asked where I was from. I was not amused.

By the time we got back to the hostel, it was almost 3 AM. We had decided on checking out at 8:30 AM, which didn't give us much time to sleep.

On Sunday morning, we checked out of the hostel, put our stuff in lockers at Hakata Station and waited for some of our ALT friends at Starbucks. We then went all together to the sumo match. We were there really early, so we got to see most of the matches, even the ones that were not considered that important. At 4 PM, the place suddenly filled up. All of the big matches occurred after 4 PM. It was really interesting to watch the matches. There are a lot of rituals involved. The matches themselves are really quick, but there are different rituals done in the beginning, such as throwing salt to purify the area in which they fight. It was definitely interesting. I'm really happy that I got to go.

At almost 6 PM, we went back to the station. Kim and I ate some udon. It was so different from the udon we were used to because instead of thick noodles, the noodles that they used were thin. We were really surprised. By 7 PM, we were on a bus back to Miyazaki.

All in all, Sumo Weekend in Fukuoka was a good experience.

To see pictures, you can go to my Flickr account.

Song I'm Listening to At the Moment: "Hearbreaker" by G-Dragon

Remaining Positive!

First published on November 17, 2009.

Catching up on my life.

On Saturday we had a play meeting. Every year, the JET community puts on a bilingual play in the city's International Center. Last year, we did Jack and the Beanstalk in English, but Monica played the Japanese narrator. This year we are mixing a lot of different languages, English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and some Portuguese. It's basically about a group of people who work at the International Center and they have to put on a talent show. However, the language barrier causes a lot of misunderstandings and funny scenarios. It's supposed to be mostly physical comedy . Kim and Matt were inspired by the play we watched in Korea, Nanta, and that's how they came up with this idea. I hope we can pull it off.

Anyway during the meeting, we found out that it was the birthday of one of the new ALTs. We all celebrated it at the Mexican restaurant. We were also surprised to learn that the restaurant was hosting a salsa night, so after dinner, we danced some salsa. It was so much fun. Wow Miyazaki has salsa nights. We might not be a well known prefecture and our city might be small, but we still have a lot of cool things happening here. lol.

I've also reduced my stress a bit this week.

The mid-year seminar is on Friday, but I think that Valerie, my presentation partner, and I will do fine. Valerie is awesome and made the worksheet. After seeing it written down, it doesn't look as scary as I first thought it was. I think we can pull it off. At least I remain positive.

I've been studying for the JLPT. That test is still worrying me because the more I study, the more I realize how much I don't know. Whenever I do practice tests, my high percentage of errors brings me down. However, I know that the only way to solve this is to just study harder. Can I pull this off? Probably not, but I will try. Time is ticking away and I still have to cram my brain with lots of vocabulary, kanji & grammar points. I usually have Japanese lessons on Mondays (1 hour a week) but next Monday is a holiday here, so I'm paying for an extra lesson, which will be held tomorrow. I NEED IT! lol.

Tomorrow is also the annual teacher's volleyball game at our school. Last year my team came in last, but it was a lot of fun. (^_^)

Today is Matt's birthday. We surprised him by sending him balloons to his school and the biggest one even played the birthday song when he tapped it. He seemed to enjoy his present. Yay!

This weekend, we are celebrating Matt and Yoshi's birthday on Friday, after the mid-year seminar. Then, Saturday morning, Kim, Asha, and I have to take a 7 AM bus to Fukuoka, which is the biggest city in the island of Kyushu. We are going there to watch a Sumo Tournament. I haven't seen sumo live, so I'm really excited. We also have really good seats. I think it will be a really interesting experience. I hope everything goes well. (^_-)

Music Listening to at the Moment: "Wedding Dress" by Taeyang

Seoul- Birthday Weekend Fun!

For my birthday weekend, I went to South Korea with my friends Kim, Matt and Asha. We stayed in Seoul from Sunday night to Tuesday afternoon.

Seoul was amazing. We found great shopping areas everywhere. Insadong had great souvenir shops and an interesting mall with tons of cute things to see & buy.

When I was shopping in Dongdaemun, I felt like I was in the K-drama "Cinderella Man". I thought that I was going to turn a corner and bump into Yoon Ah trying to sell me a dress. (^_-) It was really cool. I also loved the Myeong-dong area. This area had both street vendors and regular stores like Forever 21 & Zara. It had the best of both worlds.

Just by reading this, you can tell that I did a good amount of shopping in Seoul including a sweater, winter hat, coat, souvenirs for school, a cute necklace & socks.Yes, I bought many , maybe too many, socks. lol.

Another thing we did in Myeong-dong, besides shopping, was watching a play. It was called Nanta and it was about a group of chefs that had to prepare a variety of dishes for a wedding. There was barely any dialogue and yet it was really funny. Most of the music in the show was performed with things found in a kitchen, such as utensils, pots, cutting boards, etc. All of us enjoyed it.

Seoul wasn't all about shopping & entertainment. We also did a bit of sightseeing. We went to Gyeongbok Palace. It was really beautiful. The fall leaves made it even more stunning. Even the cold couldn't damper my excitement. I took tons of pictures and videos with my camera.

We also went to the DMZ (the demilitarized zone), which is the strip of land between North and South Korea. When I was there, I kept thinking about how I was taking part in dark tourism. However, it was really interesting. We were able to walk through the third tunnel, which was a tunnel that crosses the dmz and was dug out by North Korea to invade South Korea. We were also able to see North Korea through binoculars that they have for tourists.

Another place we went to was Samcheong-dong. I loved this neighborhood. It had really cute coffee shops, restaurants, shops and galleries. We went there on our last day before we had to go to the airport. It was a nice place to have our final goodbye.

Ok, and now for the most important thing: FOOD. I love Korean food and it was one of the many reasons that I was excited to go on this trip. The food that I ate there did not let me down. Everything I ate was super DELICIOUS! My taste buds and tummy were very happy.

By the end of the trip, we were all extremely happy with our trip, sad that it was over so quick and singing along to SHINee's "Ring, Ding, Dong" song.


What is "Ring Ding Dong" you ask, well here it is for your viewing pleasure.





You can check out my pictures of Seoul in my Flickr Account

Tokyo Tower Video

I put a video up on Youtube that I took when I was in Tokyo Tower. If you are interested to see the view from the observation deck, you can check out the video here:

Tokyo/Saitama Adventures: Concert, Shopping & Hanging Out

Today I will be posting about my Tokyo/ Saitama trip that I took last week.

First, let me rewind a bit. On Friday (the 9th), my friends and I went out to dinner and then we went to a karaoke bar. It was me, Asha, Matt, Kim, Alex and Sarah. We had a great time. First, we ate super delicious food. Then, we sang our lungs out in a smokey karaoke bar. What else could we have asked for?

Anyway, by Sunday, 4 of us were really sick. I was having problems with my asthma and I felt feverish. Asha, Alex and Sarah were throwing up and having flu symptoms. I went to the doctor on Monday with Paul and found out that I had bronchitis. My other 3 friends had swine flu. Whoah!

I felt really sick on Monday, but I had tickets for a Mariza concert in Tokyo on Wednesday. I was really worried that I wouldn't feel better on time. However, I did feel better on Wednesday morning (the 14th), although not fully recovered. I rushed to the airport to catch my plane from Miyazaki to Tokyo. I arrived there right when they were boarding. Close Call!

Once I got to Haneda Airport, I had to take a bus and a train to Saitama, where my friends, Monica and Eric, live. It is also the place that I stayed at while I was there. Monica and Eric used to be my neighbors last year. They were Miyazaki ALTs, but now Eric is studying in Tokyo. Basically, Saitama is to Tokyo what New Jersey is to NYC. It's where many families live although a lot of its residents travel daily for jobs, shopping, entertainment, etc to Tokyo.

Anyway, by the time I arrived in Saitama, it was midday. Eric, Monica and I hung out a bit in their house and ate lunch. Then, Monica and I got ready to go to the Mariza concert. Mariza is a Portuguese fado singer. We were in the third row, so we were super close to her. The concert was AMAZING!!! The audience was mostly older Japanese people, but there were also people from all over the world. At one point, she asked where people were from. There were Portuguese people, of course, but there were also people from Russia, China, Italy, Iran, Mozambique, Angola, Sweden, etc. At one point, I grabbed Monica's hand and raised it and said "America". She came to us and asked us where we were from in the States. I said Jersey and Monica said California. Then, she talked about how she was going to Jersey for a concert next month. I was just super excited that she talked to me during her concert. SOOOO COOOOL!!!

I think that I used up too much of my energy on Wednesday night. On Thursday, Monica and I were tired and I still wasn't fully recovered from my bronchitis. We just ended up hanging out in her house, watching Nana (both the movie & anime) and just catching up on what had been going on in our lives lately.

On Friday, we met up with Eric at school. Eric is in grad school at Keio University, so he showed me around the university. It's beautiful. Then, we went to Tokyo Tower, which is nearby. When we got up to the observation deck, we were able to see great views of Tokyo from all sides.

Tokyo Tower

View from the Tower

There were also lookout windows on the floor. Scary! I was the one on the bottom that barely had her feet on the window. It was too scary for me. lol. Monica was rocking her moon boots though (^_-)
.

On Saturday, Monica and I went to Harajuku to do some shopping. I went to Harajuku the last time I was in Saitama when I was helping Eric and Monica move and I really like it there. Our goal was to go to H&M & Forever 21 (I haven't been to a Forever 21 since I left the States and I haven't been to an H&M since I went to Hong Kong last May) , but somehow, we kept getting distracting by all of the cute stores on our way there. I bought tons of things. I bought a black hat for the winter. It was my second one that I bought that day because I bought a pink one in Saitama before getting on the train. I also bought hair accessories, 2 skirts (1 skirt was kind of tutu like), scarf, boots, and cute socks. My goal was to buy a winter coat, but I didn't find any that I really liked. I wish I could have bought a super cute lolita outfit, but they are really expensive. Monica had to leave to go to a farewell party for a friend, so poor Eric, who had met up with us, had to follow me around while I went from store to store. lol.
Anther highlight, I ate Wendys. Why is Wendys a highlight? Well, Miyazaki doesn't have any, so I hadn't had Wendys since I left the States, which was over a year ago. It was mighty delicious, but they had no baked potatoes. I really wanted one.


On Sunday, I decided to do some more shopping/ sightseeing before catching a train to the airport. Monica and I went to Akihabara because I wanted some cute headphones. Akihabara is like a men's world. It's full of electronics stores & stores that have anime products. Because of this, there are tons of guys all over the place. At one point, we were crossing a busy intersection and it was like a sea of men walking our way from the opposite side. Do I exaggerate? I don't think so.

Akihabara also has a lot of maid cafes, so there are girls in cute maid costumes passing out flyers for the cafes that they work at. I would have loved to go to one just to check it out. It must be really cute, but we didn't really have that much time. In Akihabara, I did find cute, pink headphones for cheap and a nice keyboard for my laptop. Woohoo!!!

Since we had a little bit of time left, I decided to go to Ginza to buy some shoes that I saw at the Muji store on the first day I arrived in Tokyo. ( We were window shopping before the concert. )

Shopping in Harajuku

Akihabara
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I had fun on my trip and I bought a lot of goodies.
It was hard to leave Eric and Monica again. They are such cool people. I miss them being my neighbors. Although I think I was at their apartment way too often when they lived in Miyazaki. lol.

I want to go to Tokyo again in the future. Actually, I wouldn't mind just living there for a year. How cool would that be? (^_^)

Plenty of Sunshine Headed My Way...

I have to admit, my weekend was pretty darn good. Don't be jealous (Diva Snap!).

On Friday night, I finally ate some Korean food. YUMMMMM Korean food. First, Kim, Asha and I went to the new Korean restaurant in the city called Hot Pepper. However, when we opened the door, we realized that it was completely full. We ended up going to the other Korean restaurant close by. The food was delicious, especially the Kimchi Pancake we had. Yummmm, I am drooling just thinking about it. Then, we ended our night at the coffee shop chain, Tullys.

I wanted to go to bed early because I had a Japanese lesson in the morning, but I ended up being on the phone (Skype) with Kim and Asha until 2 AM. There was a reason for this. When Asha arrived home, another ALT called her saying that he was drunk and if he could go over and talk (something like that). I'm not exactly sure what happened, but all I know was that Asha called us because she was a bit afraid. Apparently, this other ALT went to her door in boxers and a t-shirt (he lives in the same apartment building) ringing her door bell non-stop and banging on her door. Asha told him to leave because it was late and he was drunk. He insisted on going in and talking to her,so banged on the door for a bit until he decided to go back home. Asha was both embarrassed because of her neighbors and because the entire episode kind of shook her a bit.

I think that the other ALT didn't understand why Asha and Kim were pissed at him the next day. In his mind, he was just trying to talk to his friend. However, in a girl's POV, it's strange when you tell a guy to leave and he continues to pound on your door and ring your bell. It wasn't cool, but maybe after talking to them, he understands that what he did wasn't right. At least I hope he understands. I think that it was bad judgment on his part, but he should mature and learn from it.

The strange part was that Kim today had a dream that he was doing the same thing to her. lol.

Anyway, on Saturday morning, I had my Japanese lesson (I switched it from Tuesday to Saturday last week). Since it was Saturday morning, I was a little out of it. Then, I got a call from Paul asking if I wanted to do a cosplay thing in the city. I haven't done cosplay in a long time and I kind of don't feel like starting it here. lol. He also asked if I was going to the Pillow Fight. Yes, there was a pillow fight going on in the park that was being done by a group of ALTs, but I was way too lazy to get up and do that. I also wasn't really into it. Could you imagine if my students saw me and took pictures of me? "Mom, look she teaches me English". Yeah, I skipped on that.
I ended up talking to Kim and Asha on Skype for like 3 hours.

Anyway, I ended up going to their side of town in a taxi, which was like 24 bucks and I still got a bit lost. lol. Then we went to dinner at PoPos, where we had awesome taco rice, cesar salad and seafood pasta. After that, we went to karaoke. We did karoke for over 4 hours. lol. At first we ordered a karaoke room for 2 hours, but we ended up extending it because we were having so much fun. We got there at 9:30 PM and ended up only leaving at 2 AM.

Here are some good Artists to Karaoke to:
Ace of Base
Britney Spears
Kelly Clarkson
Destinys Child
Utada
Heart
Bon Jovi
Andrew W K "Kiseki"
Aha "Take On Me"
Barry Manilow and Phil Collins of course
Aqua
Paul Abdul "Straight Up"
Spice Girls
Pat Benatar
Natalie Imbrugalia "Torn"
Disney Songs
Akon
and many, many, many more

Karaoke is hours of fun. :)
Monica would not approve that list. lol.

We then ended up taking taxis home. My taxi driver was kind of confused about where I lived, but he was extrememly genki (hyper), so it was all cool.

My Sunday post will come later with pictures.

Music Listening to AT the Moment: "Say My Name"- Destiny's Child

I Feel Muppety Today!

"Kermit, you need to take care of your eyes. You have wonderful eyes. They are like......two ping-pong balls floating in a sea of mildew."
~~Grover


Today Eric, Monica and I were watching the latest episode of 30 Rock. In the episode, Kenneth pictured everyone as muppets. Eric said "I wonder what I would look like as a muppet?" That got me thinking, so I borrowed his laptop and wrote in my Twitter "If I were a muppet I would be bright pink with purple hair. I would also have cute dimples. One can imagine."
Eric read my post and then wrote in his twitter " If i were a muppet I would have angel hair and my skin would be Jewish purple. I would have a giant triangle nose."

After the episode ended, Monica decided to draw us all as muppets.

Here is my picture as a muppet:



Here are Eric's and Monica's muppet faces.





Aren't they cute? Good Job Monica! :)