Saturday, August 18, 2018

Weekend number 2 in Nagoya


While many of our NIS counterparts head to music festivals in Osaka and Tokyo this weekend, the Pearlzes are still in heavy-duty set up and back to school mode. We spent the week, and the weekend, getting ready for school to start....gulp...tomorrow! It's been a whirlwind...new teacher orientation ended Monday, everybody reported back Tuesday, and we've been head down trying to get set up and figure out all these new systems in order to stay one step ahead of the students next week. The boys have been bored out of their gourds with no tv, friends, dog, etc, but they have been troopers! They are appropriately nervous and excited for school to start tomorrow.

Here are pics of our weekend...couch and school supply shopping at the 100 Yen store (one billion times better than the dollar store in the US); and Gar and I took a great 2 hour walk through the giant forest park right next to our house/school. Emm and I practiced his walk to/from school, through which he has to go through dragonfly alley. He also took some pics of some things we found amusing while poking our noses in nearby stores. We're blogging from our neighborhood Starbucks, as our bottomless wifi at home seems to have found a bottom.
 Missing Burta Reynolds, so we turned Emm into a cat; 

 First lake near our house

 Abandoned baseball field in the park; planning for Peca playing and kickball matches


 Gar in mid-stretch 

 G enjoyed the extensive labeling at this park

 Beautiful man-made lake; lots of fast runners passing us by

 cool cloud!

 Jeff Dungan tried to get G to upgrade this hat (I think the new one is in the shipment...)

 Tried to snap this dragonfly; much cooler looking mid flight!

 We enjoy the colorful tile roofs of the neighborhood

 Ample signage to pick up your poop; gardens everywhere!

Pretty street; this is the size of the neighborhood roads!

 At the fancy lifestyle store...why snood? 

 We think Aunt Katie will approve of this level of sun coverage

 Just fyi

strange message from a drinking vessel

Saturday, August 11, 2018

So, we live in Japan now

Hey again loyal readers. Sorry for the 4 year lapse--won't happen again, or at least not soon.

Here are some pics from our first week in Japan. We are almost over jet lag, and excited for our real beds to arrive after our shipment clears customs.

In no order:

1. One thing I notice is mascots. Maybe our ward (like a district of a city) used to have a lot of squirrels? I have seen zero, but that's the mascot anyhow. I took this pic while waiting for our residence registration to get done. Turns out we also get a stipend for the kids. A few hundred bucks per quarter, nice!


2. First dinner out was okonomiyaki. Grill it yourself savory pancakes. Pretty meh, we thought. But fun to go out with new colleagues. Boys are only teacher kids among new staff, so they have been troopers. Bored some but helping out with classroom setup too. Other kids will be around as of next weekend.



3. It's weird how much baseball we have been seeing. The big summer tournament for High School teams is on all the time. Even soda can be named for crappy American teams:


4. This looked cool:

5. Hard to read, but this old dude I saw on a gym tour is sporting an Oregon Project shirt.

6. This name is not a euphemism. Actual marshmallows, I think.


7. These had better be the bomb for $39!


 8. The store called Donki has great costumes, as poo head and squid head discovered.



9. At a random corner downtown, we saw a mini replica of Mannekin Pis. Denis--how about it!?





10. obvi

11. Learned the ropes on subway today. Pretty chill. People here let you get off before they board. Unlike in some countries (cough, cough, China).


12. On a walk near home, several ponds to be enjoyed.


13. Safety Bear.


14. Hill near home makes for a great hike. Gary has been up it 3 times already.
We went Thursday in honor of Ellie B, who loved her some mountains.


15. This morning we powered up at Mister Donut. So good. Sarah caught D with his mouth full in this shot.


16. Hey South America fans--you can get Inka Kola here. so come visit!


17. This pig hosted us well, in so many ways, for lunch today. Tonkotsu!


18. The view from the empty lot next door. Storms are coming, and should be here for a lot of August. Could be a wild drive to IKEA tomorrow.


Bed now. We are happy and healthy and have AC and like our new school so far. One more week of prep and then school for real on Aug 20.

Love, G