Johgi-Nyorai Temple

Today instead of having our weekly Japanese class our teacher and a few others, picked us up and took us to Johgi-Nyorai Temple. It was about 30 minutes from Ayashi on the out skirts of Miyagi perfecture. Here is (from the left) Masako, Nobuko, Yumiko, Rachel and Dan standing in front of the temple. Rachel is a girl who is visiting Yumiko from England. She has taken a year off from her life in England and is traveling around Asia. What a daring girl!! Here is Dan hitting this huge gong. It was sooo loud. Lots of people were sounding it today, so he tried it out too.

This is a foundtain that you are suppose to use for taking a drink before entering the temple or for washing your hands. I thought it looked to freaky to anything with, so I didn't try anything. The next picture is of the inside of the temple. Everything was decorated with gold and wood. It was very interesting to actually be able to enter a temple, usually we can't.

This 5 story is pretty interesting. It is one 1 of 32 pagoda's that all completely made from wood in Japan. We even watched a short video on the making of it. Everything is built tongue and groove. The only sort of nails that were used were wood ones that came from the remains of larger pieces of wood. Quite interesting. Also, Yumiko, who is a famous painter in Miyagi prefecture, was one of two artist that painted the artwork on the inside of the pagoda. It was her and her mentor who painted everything. The other picture of the gardens behind the temple. They were very pretty and peaceful.

We tried some fired Tofu which turned out to be delicious, but not so great for my system! It was pretty greasy! Kinda like cheese curds. The last thing we saw as we were leaving was this huge water dam that supplies Sendai city with all of it's water. I have never seen a huge dam like this. It was so pretty. It was crazy to look at both sides of the dam and see one side full of water and other side a big empty valley.

Hanami

This afternoon my students from Minami Yoshinari Church, Dan, Pastor Zenniya and Yoko Narita had a picnic celebrating the blooming of the Sakura (cherry blossoms) trees. This event, a picnic under the sakura, is a Japanese tradition. It was about 55 today and sunny, GREAT weather for Hanami! This is my first time ever seeing cherry blossoms blooming in Japan. Last time I was here, I was in the hospital during this week.

Here we are sitting along a pathway near a small river and close to the cherry blossoms.

Alpha Team!

Tonight we had our first Alpha training session. It went really well and we are so thankful for the six other individuals that are helping with the Alpha course! From the left: Junko Sasaki, Maya Stensvaag, Manami Sato, Yoko Sasaki, Ayumi and Hiromitsu Sasaki.

Tree Trimmer

This morning I looked out my kitchen window to see my neighbor giving a MUCH needed trim to the bushes that separate our two properties. I have never met this neighbor, but after today I am going to. He started by cutting off the top of the bushes to even it out, then came around to our side, laid down tarps and started trimming the whole length of the bushes. After he was finished he picked up his tarps and put all the trimmings in bags and pulled out some of the weeds in out flower bed. Talk about a great neighbor!!! Do you have a neighbor like that? Are you that sort of neighbor? He really rocked my way of thinking when it comes to being neighborly. He ended up doing a fabulous job and the row of bushes in our backyard now look so nice.

Goodbye Stephanie, AnnMarie and Janine

Stephanie, Janine and AnnMarie left this morning at 8:30 a.m. They were up and at 'em at 6:00 a.m! They were such wonderful guests and we had a very nice time with them here. We are really looking forward to seeing them again after moving out to Long Island.

Matsushima Monday

Today we all went out to Matsushima to do some sightseeing. We took a train out from our house, then took a ferry over from Shiogama to Matsushima. This way we were able to see all the islands as we entered the bay.

We got some great pictures of the oyster farms, which was especially interesting for Janine since this is in her line of work. And here's Stephanie catching some fresh Pacific breeze!

Here is AnnMarie, Stephanie, Janine and Dan all eating raw oysters at a resturant. We stopped there around 1 p.m and had some oysters and soba noodles. After lunch we walked across this large red bridge and noticed that all four of us girls were experiencing some kind of crazy stactic electricity. It was really funny and strange!

This big red bridge led us out to one island that we could explore. It was very cool to be on one of these islands and get a better view of the trees and the water. Before we went home we finished out the day with some ice cream and shopping.

Easter Sunday Afternoon

After our Sunday morning Easter service, the five of us, plus a Japanese friend of ours, spent the day sightseeing around Sendai. First we went out for sushi. It was the first time the "NY girls" have had kaiten sushi. Kaiten sushi is when plates of sushi are going around on something like a conveyer belt. They had a great time! I was really impressed by how willing they were to try all kinds of sushi.After sushi we went up to Sendai Castle and viewed Sendai city. It was cloudy, but we were lucky to see the city as the clouds were parting. Here are the five of us taking a moment, grabbing a cup of coffee and taking some fun pictures with this beautiful Japanese umbrella.
Here are the girls posing as Date Masamune and a Geisha. Aren't they great!Here are the four Massapequa, New Yorkers in Sendai, Japan.
The grand finale was singing Karoke at a local Karoke building. We sang all kinds of English songs and had a blast!

Easter Morning Bike Ride

They are off! ...and in the rain. Today is Easter morning and before church this morning Dan took the three girls on a rainy bike ride through the rice fields! What troopers; I stayed home!

NY Visitors!

This afternoon we went into Sendai to meet some of Dan's friends that came to visit us from New York. One of them is a childhood family friend and the other two are sisters that he went to high school with. From the left are AnnMarie, Stephanie, Janine and Dan.

This is Janine playing a game, trying to win some green tea Kit Kat's.
Here is Stephanie and me eating crepes.

These are a brother and sister duo that were playing a Japanese Shamise (Japanese guitar). They were playing in the Sendai Arcade, so we stopped by to listen for a while.

I can't wait!!

I am getting so excited for spring and summer. The weather today is so strange. It was chilly, then warm, then cold. Now, I am wearing a sweatshirt. I can't wait for spring!!

More Teachers Weekend Pictures

It's no surprise that when forgieners get together they HAVE to go to McDonald's!
Sarah (the one second from the left) found this great Mexican resturant in Sendai City. It had authentic Mexican food and even had live Mariachi musicians from Mexico! It was awesome!
Of course we needed to do a little shopping...I mean four girls together, what else do you do?
This is the five of us at the top of the AER building. You can go up there for free and look out over the whole city. We had hoped to catch the sunset, but it was a little too cloudy.

Opening Day!!

It has finally come! Opening Day of the 2007 Baseball Season. And the Mets already have the best record in Baseball. There has only been one game and the Mets beat the Cardinals 6-1. Has anyone ever seen the Musical Damn Yankees? There is a song in that called "6 Months Out of Every Year." It describes how many wives lose their husbands for 6 months out of the year... also known as baseball season. That is COMPLETELY TRUE, unless of course your husband's team makes the Playoffs... then it is 7 Months.

LET'S GO METS!!!!

Teacher's Weekend

This weekend we had 4 other LB English teachers come to Sendai to visit us. We had such a fun weekend together! They arrived on Friday and will be here until Monday. It was really nice to be surrounded by English and other people our age. This picture was taken at Minami Yoshinari Church, Sunday morning. From the left is: Brian, Sarah, Erika, Kaila, Christine and Dan.
This picture was taken on Sunday afternoon, after spending 3 hours of pampering at a Beauty Salon. The four of us got our hair trimmed, got hand and back massages and our nails painted. It was a treat for all of us! On Saturday after sightseeing all day everyone came back to our house and enjoyed some pepperoni and hamburger pizza. It went over big! Some of them hadn't had pizza in over a year!I was really happy to make something they enjoyed!
This is Kaila and Sarah just relaxing after being at the beauty salon.

An ending to the Plumbers

If you read my plumber story, you will realize that I didn't tell you whether or not it was fixed. Well, it did get fixed eventually. To top the story off the plumbers gave us our bill before they left after fixing the drains, but called four days later and said, "We need to get paid, so please hurry!" What characters... I suppose they thought we would be running back to America or something!

Seriously...so GREAT!

How can you not love these kids to death. I just got some new pictures of my nieces and nephews. They are getting so big and look more and more beautiful everyday! I'm so proud of them and thankful that they have such great parents who are bringing them up so well!
Miss Ingrid... Holly's 9th Birthday!

Making Gyoza

So, lastnight I decided to finally try to make one of mine and Dan's favorite foods. It's called Gyoza. It's similiar to a potsticker. (kind of) Anyways, I spent about an hour chopping up all the veggies, then put them together along with some beef and cooked them. They turned out good and we decided we like them even better than the store bought ones. Now, I can say that I know how to make gyoza. That's one more thing to add to my "Meal list." New wives have to figure out this whole making meals thing, you know.

My Lovely Plumbers

(VERY FUNNY-PLEASE READ)

This morning as I was getting out of the shower I heard someone say, "Konichiwa?" (Hello)Great!! I am in a towel and my plumbers are here! I asked them to hang on, threw something on and put up my sopping wet hair. I went out to the entry to see these two older men talking Japanese a 100 miles an hour. I had no idea what they were trying to say to me! So I asked them to hang on and I called my "Everyday Angel," Junko Sensei. She hurried over to talk with them and tell them the problem. After hearing what was wrong they went right to work.

As the morning progressed I would occasionally look outside to see what they were up to. One time I looked out to see that my lovely plumber was peeing in my evergreen trees... I laughed! The next time I looked out, I saw my lovely plumber enjoying a smoke. As he finished it up, he ever so carefully dug a small hole in my flowerbed and BURIED his cigerette butt. I mean, COME ON! Just throw it someplace where I don't have to DIG for it later! Trying to keep a positive attitude about these guys, I looked outside after lunch to see them hard at work. Thankfully, no one was peeing on my evergreen trees.

My Lovely Plumber....
Digging....

Scrapbooking

This weekend Bonita Nordaas and her husband came to Sendai for some business and stayed with Dan and I. Over the course of three days Bonita worked on a wedding scrapbook for one of her friends. She started and finished the WHOLE thing in three days with some help from Yoko and one other girl. The two girls wrote out all the comments in Japanese. I joined them on and off, chatting, and worked on one of my own pages, but was mostly busy with other things. After all was finished they had had a great time together!

Plumbing problems

Boy, did we wish my brother, David was here yesterday. We had plumbing problems and Dan was trying to unclog as much as he could, but there was more than he could get to. David!!!!Help!!!! I haven't washed laundry for five days because it keeps backing up and leaking all over the floor. What a mess!! At least we have a clean floor now! It should get fixed today or tomorrow, hopefully....! At least my wonderful husband is doing as much as he can!