Sun, Ships, and a whole lotta Manju

Last Saturday, Karleen and I were invited to a ship launching at Naikai Innoshima. One of our students, Mass, who works for Naikai was the Head of speeches, so he had to do a speech in English and Japanese. So, needless to say, we were there for support.
We were picked up at 10am by one of the other Japanese teachers here, Suzuka, and proceeded down to the docks. We met some of Suzuka's friends, 2 Japanese teachers and a girl from Florida who works at one of the schools. The gates opened at 1030ish and we headed down where they gave out "snacks".

I believe they are called Manju. I'll talk about them more later

The ship

Suzuka, Karleen and I with a box o Manju

When we got to the ship, we could see the podium where we saw Mass. He saw us, gave us a big old wave, then took our picture from the podium. Awesome.
We were in the actual shipyard, so construction was still going on while we were there. So, it was pretty loud and smelled of spray paint.

We met up with another student of ours, Takeshi, and talked with him for awhile. He explained to us that this was a continental ship for a German company, and technically it's a "small" ship, since it can only hold 2000 containers.We also saw a bunch of our younger students running around, so of course they had to come up to and see us, and they kept coming back, but bringing their friends who don't come to Ark...very cute. During this time, we both noticed a girl "lurking" around staring at us. She finally came up to us and started asking us questions. She's a student at Hiroshima University and taking English there, so seeing 2 white people, she REALLY wanted to speak with us. Although she didn't know much, she asked us everything she knew, from our favourite Japanese food, Japanese city, season...etc. Mass came on the speakers, so we knew it was starting, after waiting almost an hour outside. He said one paragraph in English, then in Japanese. He did very good, we were able to hear the English and understand it. This was when they unveiled the name of the ship...
So with the raising of the Japanese Flag and the German flag on the podium, singing both the national anthems, they were finally ready to release the ship. With balloons and streamers they
dragged the ship into the water, as we clapped and music played.
During this, I had the camera out waiting for that perfect shot, and Karleen was filming. As soon as it was done, she gave me the video camera and said..."I'm going to faint"...wha? I quickly took the camera and held her up. She said that she felt like she was going to throw up and that all she could see was white. I guided her to a spot to sit down and Suzuka went and grabbed some drinks. Karleen felt better and we headed home. She was supposed to work, but she was in bad shape, so I took the day for her. During one of my classes, one my students asked me why I was so Pink...Pink? Then it clicked in. We were out in the afternoon sun, which we haven't yet, and I was burnt and Karleen had Heat Stroke. Fantastic. We are all better now, it took a few days for Karleen, but she's back to normal now.

That night I decided to break out some of those Manju's that we got at the launching.
It's a snack with the outside made from flour, rice powder and buckwheat and an inside filled with sugary red bean paste.
I had tried one before a few weeks back, but we needed a few pictures of me eating them. They are very strange. The taste is pretty bland, it's not bad...but far from good.
That was our fun day at the Ship Launching, and look what happens...Heat stroke, sunburn, and manju...

Nobody's going to ask us out anymore....

Woah Ooh, here he comes...He's a ManjuEater!

Earthquake

So speaking of crazy weather yeasterday morning Cam and I woke up to something new an earthquake. We had been told that they are fairly frequent and not at all dangerous usually. So 7:00 am we were awakened by the room shaking it last for about 5 seconds. Long enough for us to look at eachother, look around the room, see everything moving, and at the same time when it was over we realized nothing even fell off our table which is packed with stuff. HHMMMM it was all very weird. Also we probably should have been scared but we weren't we didn't even move. Then we were like is that it. Do you think there are going to be more. Nope!! So we went back to sleep. All this new crazy weather!!!!

Typhoon

Last Saturday we were told a typhoon was coming. It would hit either Sunday or Monday it wasn't hitting us directly we would be on the outskirts but our streets could flood, there could be landslides, a curfew, and school closures. Ok freaky. So sunday comes and its on and off pretty rainy, and pretty windy but not too bad. In fact Cam decided to take the scooter to the grocery store, since it was our day off. Monday rolls around sunny skies and a little bit of wind. Well were thinking I guess the typhoon wasn't so bad after all. Turns out our island was just lucky, Hiroshima was hit really bad 5 people died in floods. This crazy global warming I guess they get more and more typhoons every year. We were all prepared to take pictures and video but I'm glad we didn't get hit like Hiroshima after all.

Whole lotta nothin

It's been a while since the last post because, as the title states, a whole lotta nothin has happened. We've been getting much better at the job, and don't need as much time preparing as we did. That's really all I can say about the job right now...yah.

The weather here has turned rainy, since it's...ah...now rainy season. It'll rain off and on for the next 2 months then it'll dry up for winter. To fill up the free time we have at home, we've been watching all the tv shows that we've had piling for a while. Here's what we've watched so far:

-Scrubs -seasons 1-5
-24 -seasons 3-5 (presently watching season 5)
-Battlestar Galactica -Season 1 (waiting to watch S2 after 24 is done. Also this is the NEW series, not the 70's version)
-One Tree Hill -season 3 (Karleen watched it...I played video games)
-Clone High (we watch an episode every 4-5 days or so)

We've been HOOKED on 24 and Battlestar. Gord gave me the first season of Battlestar more than 2 years ago, and I don't know how we survived this long without watching it...it's fantastic! And 24, well...too good...although the 3rd season felt like 24 years, while season 4 was amazing.

I'll leave this useless post with a cute story. On Friday, I went to the grocery store in between classes, since we needed food badly. I was in my work clothes (plaid shirt, tie, black pants), wearing a back pack to bring the food back, and my mp3 player on my arm. I was walking down one of the isles when out of the corner of my eye, I see 2 little girls who had to be 3-6 years old, with their mom, staring at me with their mouths open. Totally adorable, right? It gets better. I continue to walk away, when I feel a poke on my leg. I turn around and there is the 2 little girls, smiling at me and wanting to play. For a couple of minutes I played "walk, walk, BOO!" with the youngsters. They were laughing like crazy. I made a circle around one of the isles and made it back to their mother. She was apologetic in a I hope they aren't bothering you way, which I showed it was quite alright. As their mother took them away, they screamed BYE BYE at the top of their lungs until I was out of sight. I had a smile on my face the rest of the time I was there. Too cute.

Our Crib

We shot this the same week as the Poopamatic 3000 video (almost a month ago), but I haven't had time until now to edit it together.

I hope this is a little informative on how we live, even if it just shows a little.

Enjoy, people!

Tabs, Drinks, and Bugs

I thought I’d just do a mishmash of a post, since I have some things to say, and I don’t want to spread it out over 3 posts. Karleen is working today, and I have the day off, so I thought I’d toss one on the site.

First up! If you look to the tool bar on the right at the top you may or may not have noticed 2 links, Our Videos and Our Pictures.

Our Videos goes to my YouTube account so when the posts get archived, so don’t have to go through them all to see the vids, and the same goes with Our Pictures. I’m only allowed so much room per month at Flickr (where the pics are) so I might have to come up with another solution.

Second thing; MORE DRINKS TESTED!!

Body Cooler FX - I decided that I was having too many sodas, so I thought why not try some of Japan’s energy drinks. This one is…well…bad. The taste is ok, it’s citrus-ey. That’s the not worse part, the after taste is. There’s something in the drink that makes your throat and stomach feel cool, like the cool burst cold tablets. 2/10 I couldn’t finish the drink, it was JUST that bad!

Aquarius- Another energy drink, along the lines of PowerAde. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t all that bad. Like Body Cooler FX, it has a citrus taste, but in a good sense. 7/10 I would definitely have it again

Fanta Loves Berry - Good ol’ Fanta, never disappoints…yet. Loves Berry is a pretty generic taste, Crystal Light/Kool-Aid Raspberry taste. I would recommend it if you are a Fanta lover. I also had the Orange flavor, but I’ve had that before so no review. There’s a few new flavors that I’ve never seen before, those will come in another session 8/10 Will have it again. DON’T CHA WANTA FANTA!! FANTA!!

Canada Dry Peach Fizz – It was nice to see the old Canada Dry logo, felt like home. The only real problem I had with this drink is that it wasn’t Peachy enough, like soda water with some peach juice. I was half way finished the bottle when I noticed that there’s a 3% sign on the bottom left, and realized that this was a cooler…wha? 5.5/10 BC Grower Peach cooler is FAR better.

????? – Another venture into the world of Cold Coffee. This one was coffee AND milk mixed in a milk container. Fantastic. So good, in fact, that I let Karleen taste, and she liked it, so I had to buy another container of it today. It’s not priced that bad either, $1.26. I bought some new stuff today as well to try that’s under a buck, so I’ll review that next time as well. 9/10 I think I’ll grab some now….mmmmmm

And a late addition to this bunch:

Bubble Man II – OH that’s right! The sequel to Bubble Rocket is here! And it’s better than the first! It really is. I could see myself having this more than Bubble Rocket, but not all the time. While the tastes were similar, this one had more of a candy taste, an odd one though. Good for a laugh, and a really sugary drink. 7/10 The Bubble Penguin on the bottom rocks!

And Now, for something completely different...

Kitkat Lilac – While not a drink, I had to put this on the site. It’s too cool. I saw this at the supermarket, and HAD to get it. Karleen and I looked at it for a bit, and I let her have the first go…she liked it. So I had to have a bite…Oh My Gawd, that’s doolish! Karleen thinks it tastes like a strawberry wafer, like the kind you buy with chocolate and vanilla (like Nana always had). I could see where she was coming from, even though I didn’t like the strawberry wafers. I think that the taste is closer to the Crunch Berry’s that you could get with Cap’n Crunch back in the day…anyone? Anyways, TOTALLY gonna have again 9.5/10 I never knew Lilacs tasted so good

Last thing!

We had a crazy bug day on Thursday. I’ll talk about the last 2 then I’ll talk about the first one. We went out for dinner with Narumi, Matt, Oki and Narumi’s daughter to an authentic Chinese Restaurant...in Japan (It's supposed to be a big deal here) When we came back, I looked in the closet and found a good sized Cockroach on one of the chairs. Out comes the shoe and “Gotcha Suka!” Karleen though it was so big that we needed a picture. If you look closely, you can see the hairs on it's legs...super.

The next bug wasn’t that bad, almost like a baby cockroach, but it happened 30mins after the big one, so Karleen was a little edgy.

Now for the doosy. Before we left, I was playing video games and Karleen was getting ready. I noticed something on the ceiling by the front door. THE BIGGEST SPIDER I’VE EVER SEEN! I mean, this thing was HUGE! I slowly went to the door, got a shoe and hit the bugger…it was still alive. It fell off the ceiling, but didn’t drop…it fluttered. This is when Karleen noticed, and she thought it was a giant moth. As soon as it hit the ground, I hit it again…and again. FINALY I killed it. We don’t have a picture of it, sadly, but honest to god, it’s body, not it’s legs, was bigger than a twoonie. No Joke!

Until Next time.