Wow! Fantastic Baby! Bigbang concert in Nagoya!

This past Saturday I went to a Bigbang concert in Nagoya! It was soooooo much fun! Last month I posted a picture of an ad for their tour and said I was sad that I couldn't go. Well, that was because Jonathan and I were going to go to Sapporo for Christmas, but those plans fell through because we thought we had made plane reservations but we actually hadn't. But now I'm happy that happened because it meant I had money to buy a ticket! If you don't...

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Thanksgiving, Hattasan, and the JLPT

The Friday before last Jonathan and I celebrated Thanksgiving. I successfully made apple tarts in my toaster oven! I bought premade crusts so they were super easy to make. They were especially delicious with vanilla ice cream. ...

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September and October Randomness

Here are a bunch of random pictures from September and October. I've been meaning to do a random post for each month, but I'm kind of behind. I've been busy studying for the JLPT which I took today. Anyways... I will also soon have a post for November. Mmmm! That's some omurice that I made. Well, it's not much of an omelet I guess because I scrambled up the egg and mixed it into the rice, but it was still delicious. Here's the recipe: Omuri...

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Jubilo Iwata 10k

  This past Sunday I ran my first 10k! It was also my first race in Japan. I ran in the Jubilo Iwata Marathon. The word "marathon" here is used loosely. It basically means any long distance race. The Jubilo Iwata Marathon had a 3k, 5k, 10k, and half marathon. So despite the name, there wasn't even a full marathon. Jubilo is the name of Iwata's soccer team. Jubilo means "joy" in both Portuguese and Spanish. Thank you, Wikipedia.  I...

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Christmas Shopping in Tokyo

The weekend before last was a three day weekend so I took advantage of that and went to Tokyo. I did a lot of Christmas shopping. I could have easily found Christmas presents in Iwata and Hamamatsu, but Tokyo is even more awesom...

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Happy Halloween!

Last weekend I celebrated Halloween. Well, sort of. In the past few weeks I've picked up some Halloween stuff from 100 yen stores, including the stuff in the picture above which came from Dais...

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Matsuri! A Small Festival in Iwata

On October 12th Jonathan and I were invited to a small neighborhood festival in Iwata. Some neighborhoods in Iwata had their festivals the weekend before (the same weekend I went to the Backstreet Boys concert) and I had wondered what they were about.   It was a nice day, so Jonathan and I biked from his apartment to the festival. It took about an hour and a half....

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Backstreet Boys in Hamamatsu!

This past weekend I went to a Backstreet Boys concert in Hamamatsu! I bought the tickets back in early July and knew about it for a while before then so I had been looking forward to it for a long time! Earlier this year one of my roommates from college posted about going to a Backstreet Boys concert in her city in the US. I knew that when BSB toured they usually went to Japan so I checked online for tour dates. I got really excited when I saw...

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Leopalace Apartment Video

I took a video of my apartment back in August (between climbing Mt. Fuji and going on my Osaka/Hiroshima trip) but hadn't gotten around to uploading it to YouTube. I finally did that today so here's the video: Overall I really like my apartment. I would like to have a bigger kitchen but I still prefer this kitchen to the one I had in Toi. That one had stained walls and was just really old. Oh yeah, and cockroaches every once in a while. I haven't seen one yet here... I hope it continues that w...

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Random Stuff - Cute Stuffed Animals, Hello Kitty Pasta, and More

I bought a neat melon soda cell phone strap. It has bubbly stuff in there that floats around and makes it look like sod...

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Even More Random Food

I have so many random posts and I can't ever think of what to call them, haha. I have quite a few photos from July up until now. I'm splitting them into two posts. This one will have all the food photos and the next post will be everything else. The picture above is of the candy I bought at Candy Show Time in Tokyo....

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Shizuoka Prefectural Forest Park and a Thunderstorm

My summer vacation is over and my first day back to school was this past Monday. I wasn't looking forward to going back to school after having 46 days in a row off (counting weekends), but it wasn't too bad. This post is out of order because I was excited to post about more exciting things that I did, but the day before climbing Fujisan (in early August), Jonathan and I visited the Shizuoka Prefectural Forest Park in Hamamatsu. We wanted to either...

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Tokyo - Candy and Cuteness

Thursday the 22nd was our last day in Tokyo and the end of our summer traveling. :( We started out the day by going to Tokyo Station to put our luggage in a coin locker. First Jonathan got a drink from a fancy vending machine. There were a lot of Star Trek ads all over Tokyo that wee...

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Tokyo - Shibuya, Shinjuku, and a Storm in Ikebukuro

We started the next day, the 21st, off in Shibuya. After stopping in Starbucks so that Jonathan could eat some breakfast (he slept too late for the hotel breakfast) we spent some time in Loft where I bought some more cute stickers. I'm not sure but it seemed like they had fewer cute stickers than they used to have. They still had some really cute ones thoug...

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Tokyo - Odaiba Part Two - Trick Art Museum and Oedo Onsen

After lunch we finally made it to the Trick Art Museum. We had to wait maybe about 5-10 minutes to enter because they limit the number of people so that there aren't too many people trying to take pictures at the same time. I love taking random pictures so this was a great place for me. So much fun! There's not too much to say so I'll just let you enjoy the pictures....

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Tokyo - Odaiba Part One - Vintage Arcade

  We spent Tuesday the 20th in Odaiba. I took a ton of pictures so I'm going to split this into two parts. I probably should have done that with Miyajima as well. That post had about 100 photos! To get to Odaiba we took the Yurikamome monorail. The escalator railing in the station was decorate...

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Tokyo - Ikebukuro, Ueno Park, Ginza, and a Cute Parfait

The next day we went to Tokyo which is only about two hours (by slow local trains) from Atami. We arrived around lunch time so we first went to Namja Town because I wanted to eat gyoza there....

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A Day at Shirahama Beach in Shimoda

  After spending Friday and Saturday in Iwata and Hamamatsu, we headed back out for more traveling. On Saturday we went to Shimoda which is in the southeastern part of the Izu peninsula. I used to live in Izu, but I only visited Shimoda once because even though it wasn't far, there wasn't very direct transportation there because of the mountains. I either had to take an indirect bus route that didn't run very often or take a bus east, a train...

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Miyajima

  On the 14th we went to Miyajima, a small island near Hiroshima. From Hiroshima station it takes about 30 minutes by train and then a ten minute ferry rid...

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Hiroshima

  The next day, on the 13th, we headed to Hiroshima. We used our Seishun Juuhachi Kippu again so it took almost seven hours. It wasn't too bad though and it didn't really seem quite that long....

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Osaka - Universal Studios

  We spent our second day in Osaka at Universal Studios. I originally wanted to arrive at opening, but we arrived about an hour later because we stayed up late the night before. We took a train to Universal City Station. I thought we had to transfer, but we didn't really have to, so we got off the train for no reason. We had to wait about ten minutes for the next train but it ended up being a good thing because the next train was decorated...

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Osaka Aquarium and Umeda Sky Building

On the 11th, the day after the fireworks, Jonathan and I headed to Osaka. We took local trains instead of the shinkansen because we used seishun juuhachi kippu. That ticket gives you five days of unlimited travel on local and rapid JR lines. It's only 11,500 yen so that's only 2,300 yen a day. It's a really good deal if you have the time to take slower train...

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Fukuroi Enshu Fireworks

  Last Saturday (August 10th) I went to the Fukuroi Enshu Fireworks festival. Fukuroi is a town to the east of Iwata and it's only a five minute train ride away. The fireworks show took place in a park about a half hour walk from Fukuroi statio...

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Biking and the Beach

Last Friday Jonathan and I too a bike ride in the late afternoon/evening. Before setting out I bought some snacks at a konbini. I got peach mango gummies, tea, and Cheeza crackers (So good! Better than Cheez-its!) The tea came with a Rilakkuma bottle cover! :)...

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I Climbed Mt. Fuji Again!

On Monday night, Jonathan and I climbed Mt. Fuji. It was his first time, but my second time (here's the post about my first time: Fujisan! I Climbed a Volcano!). The forecast I saw for Mt. Fuji was constantly changing, but it consistently said that Monday night would be clear. It showed PM rain, night clear, and AM rain, but the rain was only supposed to be a few millimeters. As we rode the train from Iwata to Fujinomiya station it got cloudier...

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My Summer So Far

I have been on summer break since July 18th. I haven't done too much yet though. I'm saving my money for when I go to Osaka, Miyajima, and Tokyo. So I haven't done any traveling, but I've done a few things around here. I've been to the malls a couple times. At Ichino in Hamamatsu I saw Pon de Lion, Mister Donut's mascot! So cute! Jonathan thought this was embarrassing, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity, haha. ...

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Ryugashido Cave

About a week and a half ago Jonathan and I went to Ryugashido Cave in Hamamatsu. I think it took us only about 20 minutes to walk through the cave and I've seen more impressive caves in the US, but it was still worth the 650 yen entrance fee. It was cool in the cave so it was a nice break from the summer heat. We're saving money for our summer trips so this was something nice and inexpensive to do. ...

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Biking in Hamamatsu

Last weekend Jonathan and I biked to Tenryu which is a small town in Hamamatsu. We went there because it's near the mountains and we wanted to bike to the mountains. First, here are some pictures of my bike. I took these pictures a couple of months ago for this blog, but I never got around to posting them. This type of lock is very typical for Japanese bicycles. The lock is built into the bicycle so you can park the bike anywhere and don't...

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