Our weekend in Tokyo -Pictures!

 It's been two weeks since the last post, and if you remember, Carmon and I were celebrating our first year of marriage at the time and we did more than just draw pictures of turtles! We actually took a weekend trip to Tokyo and had a blast.
So for today's post, instead of witty banter, I've decided to just pick out a handful of photos that I thought might help me show some of our past two weeks together.

Not two weeks ago. Yesterday.
And maybe the day before that, too.

Anniversary week in Tokyo

We really didn't have all that much on our agenda except to find our hotel and go to the Blue Note Jazz Club. We managed both. 

Our hotel was located in the Shibuya District which hosts the worlds most famous - and busiest- intersection.  

It's a hodgepodge of pedestrians, sounds, smells, noise, advertisements, and at least 6 intersecting lanes. It's a wild site to see, like a PF Chang-themed Time Square. 

Our Hotel

From the intersection our hotel was about a 15 minute walk. The APA Hotel...about $130 a night for a higher-middle class hotel.

It wasn't a bad hotel. It wasn't the best I've ever been at either. The room was... small. It was super small. I guess in Tokyo they don't have the luxury of offering human sized bedding. No worries, it was clean, it was at a great location and we were even lucky enough to get room 911.  Nothing more comforting than being in room 911 in a tall building in a foreign city and in a country thats on red-alert from neighboring nuclear threats. But hey! It's our Anniversary, and 911 is really just one of my best friends birthdays. So yay! 

Also, interesting fact about Japan. When you get in trouble and need the police or ambulance or fire department or whatever, you don't call 911, you call 119. Seriously. 

  AND there was Complimentary Origami Cranes!

So the next day the two of us got up early and, upon the suggestions of friends, made our way towards Yoyogi Park. At first I was kind of unexcited about the idea of going to a park IN TOKYO. I mean, it's like, "Come on! Let's check out the city!" But, it proved to be an awesome experience and if you ever get to go to Tokyo go check it out. 

It was about an hour walk so we stopped a few places for breakfast and coffee. 

...would still rather have Daylight. 

...would still rather have StarBucks. 

On our way to the park we passed this cool little cloth/sewing/material place. It caught our eye and we have a friend that's super good with crafts so we found some cool Japanese materials to send her way. 

Yoyogi Park

Eventually we made it to the park and got to see a lot of fun things. It was a cool park and featured an  extremely large wooded running trail with a pond in the middle of it. There were also a ton of dance groups, music groups, and toddler-fun groups to observe and snoop on. 

No big deal. I can do that. 

Have I ever mentioned how cute Japanese children are?

Well, they are.

CUTE

DOUBLE CUTE

Ok, moving on. 

Other than cute kids there were plenty of other things to take photos of. Like random musicians playing in the park. 

It was, in fact, a Saturday.

Connected to the park is an old (but renovated?) temple. Not knowing much about it, we followed the crowds of people traveling towards it.

"What do they got in there, King Kong?"

Before we made it all the way down to the temple we found some special garden that looked interesting. It was only $5 so we thought, "why not". I'm glad we did.
Because you had to pay, it wasn't crowded and we were able to see a few cool things. 

 The garden was actually connected with the Temple we'd soon visit- Meiji Temple. There was a small little house in the middle of it all that was primarily for drinking tea. There's probably a Japanese name for all this but I couldn't read the descriptions so I'm giving it my best shot!
We also found this wild Raccoon-Dog. The Japanese call it "Tanuki," and although it's famous for it's mystical powers and good fortune they're actually rarely ever seen outside of zoo's.

                     Lucky us!

Apparently this was some holy water well that does something special. Again, I can't read Japanese, but there was a guard right there by it and people were waiting in line to wash their hands with the water. We followed suit. 

I still don't understand why there was a guard there. Maybe they don't want us drinking the water. It might be too holy, you know, like an Indian Jones movie or something. 

"He chose...poorly."

MEIJI TEMPLE

We arrived just in the nick of time to see a a traditional Japanese Wedding in progress. It was a great opportunity because Carmon's really been wanting to witness one but we had no idea where or how we'd do that. Well, it was a lot easier than we thought. We just walked right in on it. 

After that, we still had the whole afternoon ahead of us before we had to be at the Blue Note.

We pretty much just walked around aimlessly and came across a lot of random and fun things like a parade full of ornamented elderly people dancing and a TGIF that gave me the best burger I've had in Japan so far, PLUS FREE REFILLS! 

After burgers, we ended up walking towards the "Sky Tree". It's the second tallest structure in the world and the tallest tower. We thought that might be cool to check out so we head that way.

It's that tall one in the distance. 

On our way there we came across a little dog that reminded Carmon of her dog (a much younger version) she left back in Oklahoma- Joey. 

The tower about 8 blocks away...

Well it turned out that Carmon and I weren't the only tourist in Tokyo that wanted to see the largest tower in the world, and, despite our love of heights, we didn't really care to wait in line for 3 hours. So we settled for the mall at the base of the tower.

"She's so high..."

...like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, or Aphrodite.

After what would have been our Tower visit, we jumped on a train and got all fancied up for our date night at the Blue Note.

Just a bit about the Blue Note Tokyo. If the name sounds familiar that's because its cousin is New York's Blue Note Jazz Club. The Tokyo club was opened up in 1988, seats about 300 people and is considered the best place for live jazz music in the city. The night we were there we had floor seating (in perfect view of the drummer) to watch "the Super Salt Band"- or as the Japanese say, "the su-pa salto ban du".

We had a fantastic, jazz-filled, romantic evening. The perfect way to celebrate our first year together!

After the show, we blew some money on shirts and stuff (sorry dad, they barely had MY size) and explored more of the Shibuya night scene.

The next morning we shopped around, ate some delicious food and took a train back home. All in all, it was a great weekend. Other than the club, we didn't have any plans and that made Tokyo easier to just take in and enjoy.

I feel like this is kind of an anti-climatic and abrupt ending to tonights post so sorry about that. Maybe this will soften it.

Yes, that IS a "cute old couple crossing" sign. 

DODGEBALL: Fun AND Dangerous.

Recess time can be pretty fun at Ishikawa Elementary. Fun and dangerous.

As soon as those kids finish lunch, clean up, and brush their teeth, they slip out of their in-side shoes and into their outside one's. So far, my recess experience has mostly been comprised of me joining any random grouping of kids, typically whoever grabs me first, and from there, attempting as best I can to interpret what exactly they have planned for me to do.

Some times I'll be ambushed by seventeen third graders wanting me to play soccer with them. Other times I'll suddenly have five or six first grade girls hanging on my legs and arms with no purpose other than to be...well, hanging on me. Every day so far I've had at least ten little girls come up right by me, stop, tag me, take six quick steps away from me, turn around and stare at me... and then hope that that'd be enough to entice me to chase them.
Still, there are other times where I am happily herded in some strange and foreign game of which I have no clue how to play. That doesn't matter though, the kids just dig me being there.
One thing Carmon and I have quickly found out - If you don't look Japanese and you live in Japan, you're kind of a novelty.
Despite my inability to speak Japanese, I've managed, albeit through much trial and error, to understand most of the games the kids play. But there is one game I've needed no introduction to.

DODGEBALL

(fun AND dangerous)

So the main reason I'm writing this post tonight is because of a horrifying and hilarious experience that happened today at recess. Well, maybe not so hilarious.
It was just like every other recess so far. The large dirt field provided no shelter from the scorching sun which further established my farmers tan and sweat stains. And if the heat weren't enough you have the extreme brightness of it all that keeps me consistently squinting. It's like the white dirt doubles as a mirror or something. The constant sea of motion from the blue red and white hats could almost be viewed as therapeutic if it weren't for the contesting screams, laughter, and "MAISON SENSEI!"'s  (admittedly, I really love hearing that).
Today's game was dodgeball. A favorite of mine and the kids. Except today the game somehow went from dodgeball to "Let's just throw the ball in the Soccer goal." I obliged. About ten kids acted as goalies, taunting us "throwers" to try and get the ball past them.
Well, I've made this rule for myself to not ever, EVER, actually throw the ball as hard as I can. You know, so I don't accidentally murder a child. However, during our game, all of us were getting pretty pumped up and rowdy. And as the game progressed I kept moving further and further away from the goal when throwing --- the kids think I'm the hulk when they see me throw halfway across the field. It's awesome.

"Let's ENGLISH!" 

Anyway, so we're playing, having fun, and the kids have me moved so far back from the goal that there's no chance I'm gonna get the ball in there. So I start thinking...

"I should just throw the ball as hard as I can and totally make it in! The kids would eat that up!"

What? There's nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, I'm totally away from any kids I can see and by the time the ball makes it anywhere near the goal it will have lost most of it's momentum. What's the risk?
Please keep in mind I don't know anything about physics. So...

I break my rule.
I throw the ball.
I throw it HARD.
It's one of those old school rubber P.E. balls with more air in it than a brand new Firestone tire.

You know what I'm talk'n 'bout...

(the following all happened under half a second)

The ball leaves my hand and instantly yields a much lower trajectory angle than anticipated.

I worry. Apparently I had forgotten (till this instant) there's over 500 children running any and every direction all over the field.

Horrifyingly, a small child runs somewhere between me and the goal.

.00087 seconds later...

...Contact. 

The ball hit's this little boy's head dead center in the side of the face.

Instantly, he hits the ground, uncertain if he'd been shot or hit by a train.

I'm freaking out. Like, "Oh no I've killed a kid." So I run to him as quick as I can and the boys on all fours with one hand cupping the side of his head. I say, "Daijobu?" "Sumimasen!" "Gomennasai!" "Daijobu?" Which is as close to "Are you ok, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" as I can get in Japanese.
The kid definitely wanted to cry but he was super tough and didn't want to do it in front of everyone so he just sucked it up and joined the game! The boy reluctantly assured me he was ok but I think he was so taken by surprise he didn't know what to think.

NOTE: For all you worries out there, he was fine. I had my eye on him the rest of the day and made sure he was feeling fine before recess was over.

Moral of the story:

Don't ever break your one rule.

Especially Batman

We're here!

So we made it. After an 18 hour day of traveling we arrived to Japan on Friday. Our first weekend was spent traveling around Mito with our AET "Buddies".  Casey and Trey are two awesome AET veterans who spent their time showing us the ropes.

Saturday we all went to Mito station, which is pretty much the center of the city. From there you can take a train or bus literally anywhere in Japan. While we were there, our buddies took us out for some for realz sushi. Kore Wa Oishi Desu. After lunch we traveled around all the different cell phone/internet providers. There's pretty much two main carriers for us to choose from. We're going with the one least like AT&T. It's likely we'll get iPhone 5's!!!!

....and you think I Instagram too much now...

Now it's Sunday.  This morning we got to visit Mito Church. Everyone was super hospitable and Carmon got to meet one of the teachers from her school. So far we haven't done much relating to our jobs (we start training tomorrow) but we've been able to get familiar with our new apartment. Not to toot my own horn (this is MY blog) but it's pretty amazing. We have a button that fills up our bath tub. All of our lights and heaters are controlled via remote. There's a call button like on Seinfeld except we have a camera too!

KONICHIWA KRAMER

Anyway, without further ado, here's a video of our new place. Enjoy!