Japan fun Stuff!

Cultural differences:

Sorry I did these posts backwards, but that's okay. I'm trying not to bore you guys too much, so I am trying to give you the abridged version. We went for ten days and it was so much fun!!! Where we stayed the first night. They provide the slippers for you to wear inside the room as well as different slippers for the bathroom. No furniture!

Just enough room for us to sleep and store our luggage.

Of course the shared bathroom...

And the lovely sqatter toilets! Ryan didn't have to suffer with these at all because he literally can't squat because of his knee. Luckily there were a few western style bathrooms for him every now and then.

Public transportation is used way more than cars. We took several ferries, trains and buses.

There are tons of signs everywhere.

The doorways are not meant for people over 6 feet tall! :)

One place we stayed actually had furniture, but this is not very common. We went to a thrift store and found all sorts of amazing furniture for way cheap. There just isn't a demand for it in Japan. They had a 5 piece modern-style sectional couch for 50 bucks. Crazy!

No one really eats cereal for breakfast, usually they eat miso soup and other heavy foods.

Inside one of the houses we stayed in...

No couches, but they do have TV, fax, and computers.

Tiny cars driving on the left side of the road.

This is Stef and Jesse's western style toilet room. (Sorry it is dark)

Note the top of the toilet has a hand faucet that runs when you flush.

They have to separate garbages EVERYWHERE! There are four different ways to separate your garbage at home and everywhere in public you have to separate burnables from plastics.

Tons of shops are all packed together and are usually super small. There's 120 million people in an area the size of California, so they are always busy!

There are spiders everywhere, but this particular one was on the island of Uoshima, so they have the opportunity to grow really big. This one is the size of Ryan's palm!


A special shout out to the public bath houses is also in order. Ryan got to go twice, and luckily I only had to once. They have a time set aside for women and then the men. They just have a big open room with no stalls. They have an area where you sit on a bucket to rinse and scrub over and over. It has a shower head, and extra bucket and soaps. After you scrub and rinse a few times they have a giant bathtub that fits 5-6 people where you just sit and relax. It was actually very relaxing and not nearly as weird as I thought it would be. Of course Ryan loved it.

FOOOOOOOD!!!!!

They have a plethora of fish and pork, but beef and chicken was a lot more rare. Cabbage is a staple, not so much lettuce.

My mouth is watering just thinking about all this stuff! It's soo freaking good! Curry anything here is amazing! As children in the US love pizza, children in Japan love curry!

Glorious ramen! We had to have this twice because it is so delicious. We have to find a recipe for this one!

Any of you who know me understands how epic this moment is. I do NOT eat fish let alone raw fish. It is gross and smelly and what's the point if you are going to smother it in butter? GROSS. But that is coming from a Utah girl who doesn't get fresh fish. I had a whole meal of sushi and it was delicious! I know, it is a miracle.

This was not delicious, it made me gag. Ryan didn't think the fish eggs were too bad.

I couldn't even taste the yucky seaweed!

The sushi place was awesome, they had a mini moat around the whole restaurant and little boats of different kinds of sushi were floating around. If it looked good, you take it and eat it!

So cool!

Again, this is so pinnacle that I actually ate two pieces of raw squid. This was served to us by the cutest couple on Uoshima, the Azumas.

This is breaded mackerel, swordfish, and chicken. Mr. Azuma caught this fish and everything else was grown in their garden. Amazing!!

A type of seaweed that I actually like, Mrs. Azuma gathered this and prepared it.

More sushi caught that day by the Azumas.

It was the most amazing feast. We enjoyed ourselves very much!

I have to mention the fabulous Okonomiyaki . We didn't get a picture unfortunately, but it was so good. It is a Japanese pancake, but it isn't at all a pancake. It is noodles and egg, pancake, sauce, and meat. So delicious! Also Stefanie made some amazing curry and skiaki. We will be doing our best to make that stuff here. It was so GOOD!!!

Arigato Gozai Mas!!!

Places we went:

There are hundreds of pictures for me to sort through and I don't want to bore you guys too much, so there will be two more posts. One will be dedicated to food of course, and the other will be about cultural fun stuff. This is the VERY abridged version of the places we went to in Japan:A-Bomb dome in Hiroshima. One of the last standing structures after the atomic bomb dropped.

Peace Park in Hiroshima dedicated to promote world peace.

Peace Park Museum

A tiny island called Uoshima where Stef and Jesse lived for a while. The population is about 250 people.

Uoshima had it's fall festival with a Karaoke night and other festivities.

Part of the festival the was the carrying of the shrine. This was an amazing opportunity to see all of this because it only happens once a year.

One shot of the beautiful island.

An amazing park on the island Ehime, in the city Imabari.

The slides were ginormous!

Another part of the park, it was HUGE!!

This is Imabari Castle, it was one of our favorite places that we visited. It was amazing!

It was quite the sight, surrounded by a huge moat and walking in and around the castle was just gorgeous!

There is a museum inside the castle now, as it had to be restored after it burned down in one of the wars. This clam is real and it would easily fit a 3 year old inside of it!

One of many additional shrines within the Imabari castle grounds.

This is the Osaka castle. It is quite beautiful as well, the grounds here expand several blocks. Crazy cool!

The title of this post is one of the few phrases we learned in Japanese. We used it constantly as it means Thank you!

Finally a picture!

It's hard to see, but literally after the surgery, Ryan's knee was the size of a cantaloupe!

Again, this pic does not do any justice to how bad his foot and toes were swollen.

This is by far the best pic we got after he was able to take the dressings off. OUCH!!!

Ryan is doing better. He saw the dr. today and he said Ryan can start trying to partially weight bear with the crutches. He hasn't been able to work because of how badly his knee was injured and the repair was quite extensive, so he'll be going back in a couple weeks. It's been nice having him around, Sadie is especially enjoying it. He can't do much other than play with her and do homework. We still have to get a babysitter when I work because Sadie is just way too fast for a man on crutches.
We are happy with his recovery so far. Thanks for your kind thoughts and such. We love you too!

Bleh!!!

1. Ryan was on crutches when we got married 5 years ago because he had meniscus surgery. He was on crutches for 2 months.
2. Ryan reinjured his meniscus about 16 days ago... it was bad.
3. Ryan had surgery 10 days later... it was bad.
4. Ryan is supposed to go back to work today, but is feeling...bad.
5. Erin feels bad for Ryan.
   
6. Ryan will be on crutches for a month. That is.... GREAT! Two months was just way too long the first time.
7. No pics because our computer isn't working, nor is the computer we borrowed.
   

I'm sure next month will be better!

Thank Heaven for Paid Time Off!!!

Fun hike

Sadie loves the water!

I went out to lunch with my cute friends from high school and here are the kiddos that tagged along.

Sadie's first piece of black licorice. EEEWWWW...

Ryan:
This summer has been fun, but has been seriously lacking our beloved father and husband. He has been working full time and doing school full time, but it is almost over!!! Finals are next week and the summer of HE** will be over!!! Wahoo!

As for the title, Ryan hasn't used much of his PTO this year and in the next 4 months we are going to live it up! (I really think we'd both go crazy without it.)We have our anniversary coming up, my brother and his family are coming to town, and we are already excited to go to Cali for Thanksgiving. But the biggest news is that we are going to JAPAN!!! Ryan's sister and her family are living there and we are finally going to go visit. We are so stinking excited we know exactly how many days are left. (We are going in October.)


Erin:
So the original dance camp planned was to introduce the studio to new girls with the idea that they'd stay for the school year as well. As we all know I failed. But to my great fortune, I've planned a dance camp for the girls I already have and it is definitely going to work out. It is next week and thank goodness it'll pay the lease for the studio! YAY!

I get my husband back in five days. I know I'm a little dramatic, but I get lonely really easily. I don't know how spouses can be gone from each other for months or years like those that serve in the military. God bless them!!!

Sadie:
Says: water, dog, duck, hi, oval, puppy, banana, night-night, go, pull, toe and other varieties of sounds.
Loves to climb, swim, read books, run, run, run, and climb some more.
Has 12 teeth
Is so stinking cute.