Randomness

  Juso, Japan
Tuesday, November 18, 2008

KJ enjoying the HUGE ice cream

1) KJ and have been dating for about two years so we decided to go out to the good ole' Hard Rock Cafe for dinner to celebrate. The food was alright, nothing special however the dessert was quite amazing. As you can see KJ was very excited by the large glass of ice cream that was brought to the table and needless to say we were not able to finish it! It was nice though to eat some normal unhealthy American food for an entire meal :-)

2) Upon arriving to this country we were told that we should get bikes and Japan would become a whole different country.

Go Speed Racer!

We were very reluctant because we're not really big bike people and we haven't ridden a bike in many years. But, one of the teachers in our building was going back to the states and was selling his bike for 1000 yen (10 bucks) and we couldn't turn down the offer. Around the same time, another teacher was going back to Australia and she was selling her back (a bit nicer then the 10 dollar one) so we figured if we had one we might as well get two. I got mine first (not the 10 dollar one) but KJ needed to test it for me before I could ride on it :-). They have come in handy for riding to the train station, making runs to the store, and when the weather turns hopefully exploring up and down the river.

The apartment cat

3) In our old apartment (1E) there was an empty apartment next door.

"Mommy" the dog

Apparently an older woman had died in there and had been left for about a week before someone finally found her. So, since she has passed away in the apartment no Japanese person wants to live there and the company can't rent it out. It's been vacant for about 2 years now. However, she did have a cat in the apartment with her and since she passed, the complex has kind of adopted the cat and takes care of it. It's a very cute cat that loves to meow. On the other side of that apartment was our other neighbor who was also Japanese. She has a tiny little white fluffy dog named Mommy. Sometimes when we would come home, if the neighbor's door was propped open the little dog would come scurrying out and say hello. Although we are glad to be in a bigger and better apartment we are very sad that our animal friends are on the other side.

Purple potato...or something!

4) So I'm not really sure what this actually is but to me it looks like a purple potato. In the fall time, they are very popular and in front of the Indian restaurant they have a big cooker thing where they sit and cook the purple potatoes. After walking past them every day, KJ and I finally stopped to get one. They only cost 100 yen (1 dollar). The man took the hot purple potato out of it's cooker, broke off one chopstick, stuck the potato on the chopstick and gave it to me like a popsicle. We found the whole thing quite humorous!