Thanksgiving Feast/Wednesday...

Wednesday was our school’s Thanksgiving feast with a short presentation for the parents given by the preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten. We each did our own little poem and song then we sang a few songs all together. They were adorable but I was unable to get a picture with their hats cuz one of my little girls decided to get shy on me and wouldn’t detach herself from my side the entire time. After the kids left my classroom was transformed from Fall to Christmas…YAY! It will be fun to walk in there on Monday morning.

After school Alison and I headed back to our apartment to change and pick up our luggage for Tokyo. We met up with Rachel then headed to the airport. We arrived a bit early so we sat and observed the fact that we were the ONLY white people in our whole terminal. Anyway, we took off at about 7 and landed in Tokyo at 9. Pastor Wes told us the best way to get back to our hotel from the airport and that if we stood looking at the map for about 30 seconds someone would definitely come over and offer to help us. He also said that if we ever needed to ask someone directions we should always ask someone older…well, we stood, and for the most part the help came. We found our way to the Marriott, exhausted and ready to crash! Our room had 2 oversized twin beds so instead of someone sleeping on the floor Alison and I decided we could share the bed…haha she and I both slept on the edge of the bed and our shoulders still touched in the middle…we slept, kind of.

Thursday...

Thursday morning came early as we needed to be in the lobby at 8 for our tour pick up. Alison and I found this cute “local starbucks” called Tully’s Coffee Shop. We had a delicious bagel sandwich and coffee and went back to our hotel to wait for our ride. Our pick up service was not the tour but just a bus that would take us to the bus terminal where our tour actually began. There were 11 adults and 2 kids on our full day tour. Our group represented many places; Canada, Texas, Birmingham, Australia, and us…we didn’t know what to tell people when they asked where we were from so we got into our whole story quite a few times throughout the day. The guide was a local Japanese man to had 3 sons and 1 daughter, his princess. He also had a 96 year old mother who is very active, walks everyday, and is very strong (he repeated himself a lot!!! hehe). We made our first stop at the Tokyo Tower, then to a Japanese tea and Bonsai garden, a fabulous barbecue lunch, a stop by the emperors palace, a (lame) river cruise that went under too many bridges (I slept through this part), and finally a stroll down a popular shopping area that leads up to a very famous temple (so famous I can't remember the name ;) ).

View from the top of the Tokyo Tower

A view down from the top of the Tokyo Tower... We received quite the stares as we took this one :)

Garden scene at the traditional tea house

More scenery...

Our tour guide and the tea master

My favorite...:)

in the city...

In front of the Emperor's palace...I was a little cold ;)

On the river cruise...aka the one I slept through. This must have been taken prior to my nap time :)

If you saw "I Survived A Japanese Game Show" then you've definitely seen these guys...

The Temple

These people are drinking from the fountain then spitting the water back in...yup it is as gross as it sounds!

Thursday was a COLD day with lots of rain. By the end of the day my shoes were wet as were my jeans up to the middle of my calf…I couldn't feel the toes on my left foot! Our nice tour guide dropped us off after the tour right near our hotel, even though he didn’t have to! We went to our room and changed shoes and socks then headed out to the large shopping district in Ginza. We were bound for H&M. The store had just opened in September, just in time for us! There was a line to get in and guys standing by the door! After searching through 3 floors all three of us left with a few purchases… one of my purchases was a pair of gloves for the remainder of our Tokyo stay! We continued to wander the streets feeling intensely underdressed. I have NEVER in my life seen so many men in dark suits and women in boots! After walking for too long we finally agreed to eat dinner at Quiznos, I know I know you’re asking yourself why we are eating that in Tokyo. Well, knowing we are not coming home after this trip we wanted to eat as much “home” food as possible…that and we couldn’t read any of the posted menus for other restaurants. All three of us had achy legs by the time we made it back to the hotel and once again we crashed in preparation for Friday which included a hotel transfer to the Ritz Carlton (WOOHOO!) and Disneyland (WOOHOO again!)

Ginza Street shopping...

Friday...

Friday morning began with a great breakfast at Tulley’s Coffee with Tiramisu Latte and Hot Bagel Sandwich followed by a stroll down Ginza St. again, this time for the Gap. Sadly, though, we found no treasures here. Oh well, we’re going to the Ritz Carlton!! We went back to our hotel and checked out then headed to the subway, which we were getting quite good at, to the Ritz. Let me preface this by saying that my brother SERIOUSLY hooked us up with this (and the Marriott as well). So do not think that I am now rolling in the money. We got a CRAZY deal! Anyways, when I stepped up the counter to check in the guy looked up my reservation then went to the back and came out with two ladies who escorted Rachel and I to the room (Alison was wondering around since I was only supposed to have 1 guest). When we got up there they showed us everything we needed to know about the place and then another woman welcomed us. Wow, you’d think I was some important person! Continuing on, Rachel and I found Alison and we basked in the awesomeness of our room with an amazing view of Tokyo. The concierge helped us find our way to the Hard Rock Café, a typical stop anywhere you go, right?! We found it and enjoyed our English music videos and a yummy meal.

The front entrance to the Ritz Carlton...

A view of our hotel from the back...the main lobby was on the 45th floor, our room on the 50th...WAY UP THERE!!

A glimpse of the bathroom...
Yes, there was a tv in the bathroom

Outside the Hard Rock... At our table inside...

Today was also our Disneyland night beginning at 6pm, we went for the special nighttime ticket price. We took the subway out there and could see Disneyland before exiting the station. It felt so good to experience something that reminded me of home. Main street was entirely under an awning due to the extreme weather conditions here. It looked quite similar to what we know as Disneyland. Our familiar rides were split between Disneyland and Disney Sea, which is tomorrow's adventure. We rode Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain (see picture about the wait time), Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and Autopia. All of which were mostly similar to home with a few slight differences. Their big snack here is popcorn…any kind you can think of, strawberry, honey, chocolate, pepper, soda, coconut, and cappuccino. We tried the Soda popcorn, which literally tasted like soda….so odd! The park was beautifully decorated for Christmas, my favorite time of the year. I was so excited to see the Christmas firework show and was pretty impressed when it started right on time….only to see it come to a pathetic end 5 minutes later. That is a HUGE plus for Disneyland at home which always has awesome shows! I was quite fascinated with the kind of clothing worn to Disneyland in Japan. Many women had on incredibly short shorts or skirts, while other wore high heels. I’m pretty sure we experienced rush hour subway traffic when we left Disneyland at closing with the gillion other people heading home via subway. I decided Tokyo Disney does not need incredibly large parking lots as most people travel by tour bus or subway. And if they were planning driving I’m quite sure they changed their mind when they found that parking at Disneyland is $20!! We made it back to our hotel safe and sound.

Here we are sitting on the window ledge inside our hotel roomThis is the outside courtyard out the back entrance of the Ritz...

Sign right off the subway

Entrance

See the roof over Main Street?

Disney's Christmas tree...celebrating 25 years

Being tourists...

This is the kind of wait line I like...

Nighttime view from our hotel room...

Another view...

Saturday, Sunday...

The plan for Saturday was to walk to the Outback Steakhouse, another all American meal, get some yogurt at Golden Spoon (this was a definite unexpected plus!) then head out to Disney Sea, another discounted ticket beginning at 3pm. Lunch and yogurt were great as was the following trip to Disney Sea. This place is nothing like any amusement park I have ever been to. It had a European feel and the buildings/ structures were awesome! We only went on two rides here, totaling about 3 hours wait time. We went on Journey to the Center of the Earth, a 2 hour wait (the last 10 seconds of the ride was great….I’ll just leave it at that). Then we went on a Star Tours meets Honey I Shrunk the Audience with Weather/Storms. Think about that one for a bit! The part that made the night here was the Candlelight Christmas show in “Mediterranean Harbor.” I video taped most of it since it was really hard to get a good picture. It is a great example of a Christmas in Japan moment…The best parts of the video are after the 1 minute mark (sorry I couldn’t edit it and it’s too cool to skip) I'M HAVING SOME TROUBLES UPLOADING...STILL WORKING ON IT. After we finished browsing through the scary shopping zones we decided our cups had been filled with Disneyland adventures and it was time to leave the Happiest Place in Tokyo. Sunday was a lazy day that began when our human alarm clock decided she would sleep till 9:45 (Thanks Alison! :) ) We went downstairs and out into the Tokyo midtown courtyard for some Starbucks before checking out and beginning our trek to the airport, a trek that turned out to be much longer than expected after we followed a sign that should be taken down due to its inaccuracy! But don’t you worry we still made it in time to sit for about 20 minutes before boarding! Now it’s 9:20pm and we're back with some laundry going and the Christmas music playing!

This weekend was a great time to get away and see a bit of what’s out there in Japan, away from the Hawaii part. Overall it was a great trip. We had a few different encounters with people wondering where we were from and fascinated with the fact that we were in Tokyo; some on the subway and some at Disneyland. Now if only I could have a vacation after my vacation to recuperate from all that fun that was had. Oh well, 3 more weeks of school until Christmas break!

Disney Monorail handles and windows were definitely Mickey themed! :)

One of the Disney hotels...don't know which one though...oh well

The entrance...

One view of the Mediterranean Harbor...

Tower of Terror...

2 days to go...

...until the oh so anticipated trip to Tokyo! It's unbelievable to me that this week is Thanksgiving already! I feel like it was just a few weeks ago that we booked our trip to Tokyo and Thailand and thought it would NEVER come! These last few weeks have been exhausting and I am grateful for a chance to get away and enjoy this foreign country! :) I'm ready for a break from bathroom accidents, smelly trash, ankle biting bugs, and a set time schedule...in exchange for shopping at H&M, Disneyland, an actual tour guide, and jacuzzis.
This weekend I talked Alison into letting me get a Christmas dish towel for our apartment and hopefully some little white lights to hang in our apartment to get us in the holly jolly spirit as well! I love Christmastime and am so sad to miss my beautifully decorated home back in Cali. I hear there may be an on base Christmas light tour in our near future :) That makes me happy! One of the couples from church said they hung their Christmas lights this weekend and their neighbor kept saying it's not Christmas yet....eh whatever, it should be decorated for Christmas everyday! hehe Wouldn't that be a sight? I'm sure Alison is going to miss having to move her car from in front of my house to the spot in front of the "dark" house across the street this year. We've already reminisced about that quite a bit.
Tonight will be our weekly Starbucks trip, tomorrow is dinner with Pastor Wes and Carol, and Wednesday we are having a Thanksgiving feast at school with a presentation by preschool, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten. I'll take pictures for you all to see! :)...Then it's off to Tokyo!!!

LON and Shuri Castle...

Friday night Alison and I went to church for a LON (Ladies of Neighborhood) meeting and fellowship time. We had some yummy food and good fellowship...continuing to shock people with the idea that we are not military. It is really a hard concept for so many people to grasp! I'm over it! :) I earned myself a nickname though...Apparently when I met Kim, one of the ladies at church, I told her she could remember it by thinking about Rocky "Yo Adrienne!" (in my best Rocky voice of course)...Well, on Friday night when she was introducing all the new ladies she said, "We have a new lady from China her name is Yo....like Yo Adrienne!" lol it was funny and now I am Yo. Like this morning I went to get a bulletin at church and Kim handed me one and said, "Sorry we don't have any that are translated into Chinese." hehe I'm really getting a kick out of this!

Saturday, Alison and I made plans to go to Shuri Castle. It is quite the popular places for "locals." We drove to Naha and found it with little difficulty (surprise, surprise). We were definitely two of the few Americans there. The castle park consisted of several different gates to walk through, including stamps to collect on our little park brochure. Then we came to the castle part, which cost money. Now the tour book never said anything about having to pay, so Alison and I had to stand there for a bit and decide whether we would pay to go in or just skip the actual castle. Though we really didn't have the money for it we chose to go ahead and do it, after all we're in Japan and at this popular place, gotta see the whole thing! We entered the main gate of the castle to see this huge open courtyard. Come to find out it is the gathering place for a three day new years celebration and each row is designated for a certain rank official. The only people that get to walk down the middle isle are the king and other high ranking officials.

When we entered the "usual route" of the tour and entered the castle a lady greeted us with plastic bags for us to carry our shoes in. We spent a few moments giggling about that and moved on, not without a picture of course!

We were able to walk through the halls and see the many rooms that held certain activities like the tea room or the kings office area. Eventually we came into a room that had a little stage area where the king would sit and also places for kids and grandkids.
Then we saw a portion of glass floor that showed old remains under the floor. Due to fires and the Battle of Okinawa during WWII the castle had to be rebuilt 4 times and the current building was raised a bit to protect the ruins of the state hall.

Once we made it through the castle we walked around for a short while, saw a pond and some other buildings, found our car, and headed to the shopping district of Naha. We found a small parking lot and decided since we couldn't read any of the signs this one would be as good as any. We spent a few hours walking around and going into EVERY single store that had at least one piece of glass in order to satisfy Alison's glass crush. We ate dinner at Charlie's Tacos and went back to the car only to find that we owed $18 for parking! Oh my! I think I almost had a heart attack. Luckily we had a few extra bucks in our gas envelope otherwise we may have had to say goodbye to Thomas (a name given with good reason), our car, and walk home! hehe We spent our Saturday evening at the sea wall...a place of clarity and free of charge! :)

Today was a great time at church. Church Rocky, not to be mixed up with School Rocky, commented on how he was so glad we made it to Sunday School and that we must be working our way up to the early morning prayer meeting, which in fact is exactly what our thought process was! He also mentioned that he might be able to give us a chance to fly a plane simulation...how awesome is that!?!? So aside from the fact that I tweaked my back while cleaning today and can hardly move right now, it's been a great weekend! I can't really complain considering I've made it about 4 months now without my monthly chiropractor visits. Oh I also feel quite accomplished with my lesson planning progress this evening. Time is flying by...Can't believe Tokyo is right around the corner!

I am so blessed with the emails and comments I have received regarding my blogging. They always seem to come at the moment I need it most! I love you all and miss you much!