Happy Holidays

Details

So people not one comment about our move, nobody cares. Fine Geez Louise. I suppose I’ll write the details even though no one cares. Ok I know it all seems like a big surprise but it’s actually been awhile in the making. So here are all the sordid details. In Mid November our employers informed us that they didn’t have enough work to keep both of us working for our full contract. AAHHHH what does that mean. First it meant they were cutting one of our hours drastically. Then they figured they had enough work to keep us both on until January then only enough for one of us. They didn’t seem to think this would be a problem for us though because Cam is the Man he would keep working and I could be a housewife. Well we on the other hand said we’d have to think about it and get back to them. Besides the drastic cut in pay we didn’t really come halfway around the world to experience the inside of an apartment. This is basically what we’ve been doing. Maybe we could think about me being a housewife if #1 our town was full of things to do. (Which it’s not) and #2 Cam was happy bringing in all the income for no reason (which he’s not). In the end we decided this isn’t the best idea for us and gave our 30 days notice. Now What? There are four things that make it hard for us to get a job somewhere else.

1. Our visas will expire in August so we can’t sign a year contract, which most places want.

2. We only have holiday visa’s meaning we can only work part-time.

3. Neither of us has a degree. Which most places require.

4. There are two of us. Most of the places willing to overlook the other three things are small places and only need one person.

We are beginning to realize just how lucky getting this job was. Well here’s a plan let’s just tour Japan until all of our money is gone and then come home. At least we’ll get to see everything we want to see. Meanwhile well we’re traveling we’ll keep our eyes and ears open for a job. Ok great idea all set. Wait we have enough stuff for a year we can’t go backpacking around with 4 giant suitcases. Maybe we can rent storage. Hmmm maybe we can leave some stuff in Steve’s apartment in Osaka. Good Idea. Steve works for a big company called Nova they have 850 schools throughout Japan we looked at there website they require a year contract and a degree. Damn. So we’re in Osaka and guess what. There website is a lie, well not totally but I guess since they are usually interviewing people in their home country the requirements are a bit stricter. Since we are already here, they don’t care about a year contract, and since we’ve both had at least two years of college that’s enough. We got interviews. Then we were offered the jobs. We get an apartment rent comes out of our salary just like Ark. We’re getting paid more, we get every weekend off. We’re living in Osaka and we both work in Kyoto which is a 20min train ride. But we happened to live only a five minute walk from the station. Our apartment is really nice there’s a living room and a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen and there not all in the same room. We live on the 11^th floor (penthouse). We even have a balcony and an elevator. Our schedule is the same as one another. Yay. Monday-Friday 5:00-9:00 that’s right we work 4 hours a day and we get the whole weekend off together. More exciting news The Jones’ are coming to visit. We are so excited we can barely handle it. Mama and Papa and Brother Jones will be here from Jan 10-23. That’s two full weekends so we’re planning some traveling too. This is the NOVA website for anyone who would like to check out where were working now www.teachinjapan.com

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!

Surprise we moved. . .

Or we are moving tomorrow. To Osaka. More details to come. I know this post is evil but I wanted you to have a heads up not to send us anymore mail at our old address. If you have sent us something recently and your not sure if we received it please send us a quick e-mail. Thanks. It might take a few days for our internet to be up and running so not only is this undetailed but you might have to wait too. Aren't we mean. It's a good thing we're cute right?

Here's our new address. . .

Shin Osaka Nanai Building #1107
1-8-41 Nishimiyahara
Yodogawa-ku, Osaka-shi
Osaka-fu, Japan
532-0004

Rocka Osaka P2: Osaka

We came home from Osaka Sunday evening because we had to work on Monday but then we had three days off YAY!!! At first we thought about going to Tokyo Disneyland but we didn’t think three days was enough time considering it takes half a day just to get there and another half a day to get home. Instead we decided to head back to Osaka.

We left early Tuesday morning and went straight to the aquarium our hotel knew we wouldn’t be checking in until late so we found a locker for our suitcase had some lunch and we were ready to go. It’s weird seeing everything decorated for Christmas with no snow.

The aquarium was playing Christmas carols over the speakers and there was even a diver dressed as Santa in the big tank.

The Osaka Aquarium is designed like a spiral staircase (only it’s a ramp) around one giant tank filled with all sorts of different fish, and sharks, turtles, manta ray, sting ray, they even have a whale shark (which are bigger than great whites)

You start at the top of the ramp and make your way down meanwhile on the outside are many different tanks filled with different things like dolphins, sea otters, seals. . . you get the idea.

It was huge. Cam and I discovered a brand new sea creature we had never heard of. It looks like something straight out of Mario World and it’s called a Mola Mola which is just the funnest and funniest name ever. We still can’t stop saying it. More on the Mola Mola later.

They also had these. . .

GIANT MOUTH WATERING CRABS

Imagine these babies at red lobster MMMMMMM.

The giant sea turtles were pretty awesome.

And we went a little crazy on the jellyfish pictures. . . it must have been in honor of our friend Johnny. When Johnny was on vacation with his fiancé in Europe last year he was stung by a jellyfish (in the most intimate of places) Hey Johnny!!! Hey Tina!!! Hee Hee

Anyway right outside the Aquarium they have a giant Ferris wheel which was all lit up. We watched the sunset over the harbor.

Then we walked over to the IMAX where they were showing The Deep Sea II in 3D. We got these awesome headsets so we could hear it in English because it had been dubbed for everyone else.

It was really good and sidebar it was narrated (at least the English version) by Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp. Low and behold there was a whole part in the movie about the Mola Mola. Now the one we saw we figure weighed about 350 to 500 lbs. In the movie they told us they can weigh up to 4000 lbs ours was just a wee little thing. WOW Mola Mola’s get cooler all the time.

Then when we came out of the Movie it was dark and there were all sorts of Christmas decorations lit up so we took some pics and headed for the hotel.

Also they were having a Bayside Christmas but Zach and Screech were no where to be found. Saved by the Bell Anyone. . .

We ate a lovely 7 11 dinner because we were too tired to take the subway again and there was nothing around our hotel except that. Then we planned out our Wednesday.

Universal Studios.

This took a lot of planning because we wanted to do it all in one day. Now I know your thinking why not go back on Thursday. Well Thursday was a holiday here in Japan. Sort of Thanksgiving and Labor Day mixed together. They translate it as thank-you for working day so it’s a day off. We knew Thursday would be really busy. So our plan was try your hardest to do everything on Wednesday if you have to you can always come back. As it was we planned out every show we wanted to see and what time they were on where we would fit in which rides and coordinated it all with the map all the night before. We were there a half an hour before the park opened waiting in line. It was really busy. So we decided to spend the extra 70 dollars and buy 2 fast passes. It was 7 front of the line tickets but they couldn’t be used on anything they were for specific rides. Spiderman, Jurassic Park,

Shrek 3D, Terminator 2 3D, ET, Back to the Future, and Jaws. We headed for our first planned ride Spiderman. The line up was down the street the wait time said 4 hours. Then Cam notices that it looks like that is the fast pass entrance. Oh no we bought these stupid things and they’re not even going to help. Well let’s just check I say. So we walk to the front take out our fast pass book show it to the lady hoping that that will be enough and she’ll point us in the right direction. She smiles opens the gate takes our tickets and leads us to the ride. YAY. Just like that!!!

One thing we were expecting that didn’t happen at all was things to be westernized a bit. You know it’s universal studios. We figured things would be in English or at least have English subtitles but no. Now that we think about it, it makes sense they have such a huge population of Japanese they don’t need to westernize anything. It made things really interesting for us. Like on the Spiderman ride Spiderman and the bad guys are yelling at each other in Japanese but it doesn’t take a genius to figure there saying things like “I’ll get you this time Spiderman.” And the what not. Some off the rides we’ve been on before in LA so they were even easier to follow along. Like Back to the Future, I gotta say soon they’re going to have to update that ride it’s not looking like we’re going to have flying cars in the 2015. I could be wrong but…

We also got to see something really exciting for me which was the Broadway show Wicked.

This Universal Studios has a Section called the Land of Oz.

The Musical is based on a book all about how the Wicked Witch of the West became wicked. So we got to see it (well they only do about 40 minutes) it was really neat it was half in Japanese half in English. There are two main Characters Elphaba the wicked witch and Glinda the good witch. Elphaba was played by a white girl, Glinda was played by an Asian girl. So Elphaba’s songs were in English Glinda’s in Japanese. And sometimes they were a mix. Most of the talking was in Japanese. It was really interesting. They had Japanese subtitles on either side of the stage for whenever it was English. I was Jealous.

It was so good. I bought the CD (in English), then when we got home Cam found that someone had videoed the play in New York with the original cast and we could download it. (I’ve already watched it twice)

You know when you on the back lot tour and Jaws pops out how it’s awesome but you also never get a good enough look and part of you always wants a little more. Well here they have a whole Jaws ride. We go for a lovely boat ride with our tour guide I like to call him Tim ( maybe his name was more like Noritake or Masaya) but we’ll call him Tim. Tim tells us there is a Shark but don’t worry he has a Shotgun and besides the shark is never a problem anyway. (At least we think that’s what he’s saying) Then suddenly a distress call comes from Tim’s friend Joe (probably Osamu or Takeshi) but we’ll say Joe. We come around the bend Joe’s ship is sinking Joe is nowhere to be seen oh no. Tim tells us to stay calm. (we think) suddenly the shark attacks one side of the boat then goes under we see his fin in the distance then he attacks the other side. Tim shoots but Tim is not a very good shot. Joe’s boat is on Fire. We should go inside this boat garage Tim tells us (we think). Inside it’s dark but Tim has a flash light the garage starts to shake things are falling down Tim is shooting recklessly, a fire is spreading. We have to get out of here Tim shouts (we think) On the other side of the garage fire is spreading everywhere and things are exploding. Tim is still shooting. Joe is dead for sure. Then we see the fin in the distance it attacks one side then the other. There’s something in his mouth a wire. Shoot it Tim Shoot it. He Shoot’s it’s a direct hit. He pops up one more time but he’s dead. Jaws is Dead a charred mess. Tim tells us we’re safe (we think). I start clapping he saved us from Jaws Go Tim Go Tim. Everyone looks at me then reluctantly they clap too. Tim bows proudly. Hello he saved us from a killer shark remember it ate Joe. I’m a Loser. But it sure was fun.

All in all it was a great day we stayed until closing we saw everything we wanted to see. We went on every ride. Then we went to the Hard Rock café a got an awesome zip up hoodie that says Hard Rock Osaka and we finally got to try Mo’s Burger which everybody has been telling us are the best burgers in Japan. It was delicious. Osaka has an amazing subway/ train system that was super easy to use. We headed back to our hotel full and exhausted.

Thursday we decided to check out this place called Namba which has cheap places to shop we needed to head back to Innoshima no later than 6 o’clock. We checked out of our hotel at 10 am. Headed over to Namba and found a locker for our suitcase. Then we noticed they had a Movie theatre. They had a matinee of Children of Men playing which both Cam and I wanted to see so we went and bought our tickets, again assigned seating so we left went and got something to eat then walked in to perfect seats just as the movie was starting it rocked. The Movie was really good and we miss movies. Then we shopped we didn’t buy anything but I’m on a mission. Flashback it all started in Barcelona on our Honeymoon we were in a mall and I saw the perfect boots. They were a canvas running shoe but they were a boot. I truly casual boot. Of course they were 100 euro. And we were backpacking not really room for extra boots. We figured they’d be in Canada before we knew it that’s how it usually works. If I had only known. Not only have I never seen a boot like that again but they have haunted me ever since. So we search for them and I mean search for them. It’s sad but I have faith we will find them eventually.

Anyway the search was fruitless that day but it was still a nice day fun and relaxing. Then we headed home. I know you are so jealous of all the fun we’re having right!

We love you and we miss everybody tons.