Mommy needs a time out!

Seriously. This wonderful family of mine is very quickly sucking every last drop of Christmas cheer from my spirit. The kids, the husband, the dog, all of them!!! The nearly constant bickering, whining, complaining and crying that is going on inside this house, among the other four inhabitants, is driving me INSANE!!! I'm not sure what the problem is, but even the dog has been unusually naughty the last few days! And Otis just started two weeks, yes, I said TWO WEEKS of vacation. Lord, give me strength.

Today I spent a nice afternoon out Christmas shopping, treated myself to a very rare Starbuck's yummy and I was feeling so happy and excited about the things I had found, knowing how much they would all love what I had bought. I walk in the house and within 10 minutes I'm ready to flush every single present straight down the crapper!

While making dinner (which inevitably someone will complain about, no one will thank me for and the clean-up that will only be accomplished after threats of an early bedtime and loss of computer priveleges) I decided that I need a major break! One big, fat TIME-OUT from my family. So plans are now in the works for a night away in Tokyo, just me, myself and I. I'm planning to stay at the New Sanno if I can get a room, if not I think I'll stay in Akasaka, I've really been wanting to check out that area and this seems like a great time to do it, since no one in my family has any interest in it at all, and dragging them to do any sightseeing is pure torture for all involved.

Now that I've got something exciting to look forward, a little light at the end tunnel, maybe I can make it through the week without any felony murder charges.
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Holiday pix

Last weekend I took the kids to Showa Park to take pictures for our Christmas cards, I think they turned out pretty good. It is so hard to get a decent picture of Ethan, we quickly ran out of good light, the park was closing early because they do a Winter Illumination starting from 5:00p and I had bribed Ethan with some time on the playground, so out of the 63 pictures I was able to take, only about 5 came out decent. But that's certainly better than none, so I'm not complaining! Next time, Otis is definitely coming with us to be the photographer's assitant!
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Kawaguchi-ko

Last November we took a bus tour to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji, the trip included at stop at Shiraito Falls and Lake Kawaguchi. We had a great time, but as with all Japanese tours, we had a limited amount of time to spend at each location, the tour WILL stay on schedule, the bus WILL depart at the exact minute it's supposed to, whether you're ready to go or not.

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Kawaguchiko is one of the beautiful lakes surrouding Mt. Fuji, in what's known as the Fuji Five Lakes area. Most of the amazing pictures you've seen of Mt. Fuji reflecting in a lake were probably taken at Kawaguchiko. There's a cute little town, Kawaguchi, on the shores of the lake. The tour bus stopped there for lunch and we really loved it, but of course, we had no time to explore, just scarfed down a bowl of yummy ramen, grabbed a few souveneirs, and piled back on the bus.

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Pictures from last year's trip:

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> Getting close to Fuji-san
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Shiraito Falls (Meg wasn't here yet)

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G at the ramen shop

This year, the kids were out of school for Veteran's Day (Nov. 11) and for a change Otis wasn't on call. For the last year, since he's the newest person in the OR, he's had call nearly every holiday; when on call you have a 15 min response time, meaning O has to be at the hospital within 15 min if he's paged, so he can't leave the base when his on call. That means every time the kids have had the day off, we couldn't go anywhere. Anyhoo, Veteran's Day...........
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We headed to Kawaguchiko, driving ourselves this time, so we could spend the whole day there. We made good time on the drive up, only about 1.5 hrs. It was a little cold and overcast, but not too bad, just fine for exploring.
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There's a ropeway, or cable car, that you can take up Mt. Tenjo, to get beautiful views of the lake, Fuji-san and the surrounding area.

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Heading down

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We ate lunch at the same great, little mom n' pop ramen restaurant, it's just a little hole in the wall above a souveneir shop, but it has huge picture windows with an awesome view of the lake, and the food is delicious, even the kids like it!
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O sluprping down his ramen last year. (He had a bum paw, he'd sliced it open, down to the bone, with a surgical scalpel)

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We had a great day, taking our time exploring the shops and town.

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Unfortunately, this was the clearest view we got all day, but it was still so amazing!

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My beautiful girl

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The eskimos

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The drive home went just as well. We stopped at the Dangozaka Rest Area, the mother of all rest stops. This place is seriously huge, with a full food court, bakery and tons of other food, drinks, snacks and souveneirs. They set up stalls outside selling food and vegetables, and often there are bands performing out there as well. And there's a real, sit down restaurant, kind of an upscale place, sounds weird, I know, but there was a line, so it must be good.

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I don't know why I didn't take any other pictures:

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> This is the bathroom map! With a choice of Western or Japanese toilets, orange means occupied, green for open, and the request that you "Please stand in line in case of congestion".

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Merry Christmas? Ba hum bug!

WARNING: L-o-n-g post full of lots of bitching and whining!

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I was really doing well this year with my Christmas lists, I planned so well and began preparing so far in advance that all my shopping and mailing was done 3 days before Thanksgiving! This is a monumentous feat for me. And this is the FIRST Christmas that I have ever created a gift-buying budget and really STUCK TO IT, I actually came in about $9 under!!! Woo hoo! Go me! I was really feeling proud of myself and had big plans of being able to relax and enjoy the holidays for the first time in a LONG time.

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And now I'm finding out that I'll be crapping out almost $300 in Xmas party expenses between all my English class and culture group parties!!!!!! Merry freakin' Christmas!!!!

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I knew there'd be parties, and had planned to give out small goodie bags to all my students; even at only $3 a piece that'd be close to $70, and I knew I'd have to drop $40 on gifts for my first culture group, fine, that's the price I have pay in return for a year of fun and culture in Japan. But in the last few days I've found out that this is only the tip of the iceberg!

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I learned today that one of my classes (the biggest, w/ 12 students) always receives gifts valued around $6/ea., double what I had planned, and while my students would NEVER just assume or expect anything at all, how can I not do it when that's what's been done by every teacher every year for 30 years? Then my second culture group is another $40; when I was the only member of the group I was just going to make them a bunch of homemade yummies and felt fine with that, I knew the Japanese ladies would understand and would never expect me to buy so many gifts on my own, but now that 3 other people have joined, it's "expected" (by the other American members and leaders, never the Japanese) that we'll buy gifts. The Japanese ladies won't blink at spending $40 a piece on gifts for us, how can I balk at spending $20 on them? (Because there are only 4 of us, we have to buy 2 gifts each)

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Now, back to my first culture group, at the begining of the culture year we planned the events we wanted to do, one month the Americans host an activity, the next month its the Japanese side's turn, the hosting group pays for the activity. December happens to be our month and the Japanese ladies wanted to come on base for the Seafood Buffet. Okay, it's $20 per person, that'd be $40 bucks a piece, expensive, but do-able, and they do so much for us, you feel like a complete jerk when you don't give back just as much.........fast forward to this week and we are down from 8 American members to only 3, which means 3 of us footing the bill for $160 worth of Seafood Buffet, that's about $53 each, plus the $20 for our own meal. Again, nearly double what I had planned.

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Crap, this is adding up fast!

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Then Otis decides to tell me, THE DAY BEFORE THE POST OFFICE MAILING DEADLINE, and AFTER I had finished all my Xmas shopping and mailed all my packages, that we need to buy presents for a couple of extra family members. Great. And when I'm I supposed to accomplish this? I have absolutely no time left in this week to go shopping! That means not shopping until Friday afternoon, which means going to the post office on Saturday and standing in line for HOURS, with all the other last-minute-morons, waiting to mail my packages. And the packages aren't guaranteed to arrive by Christmas! Damn it! I planned months in advance to avoid being in that group this year!!!!!!! Thanks. No, really, thanks a lot. Butthead.

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Okay, I'm done whining, time to put on my big girl panties and get on with making this Christmas the merriest ever!

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I am seriously grateful that my biggest problem this year is that I have so many wonderful people in my life to buy gifts for and celebrate with. And while I'm disappointed that all my planning went straight into the crapper, I'm glad to know that I am capable of making the plans and sticking to them, and still feeling pretty proud that the things that were in my controlled were handled on time and under budget. And I am beyond joy-filled that we have the means for me to do all this additional stuff. My list of blessings is long and I really do appreciate just how incredibly lucky I am.

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I hope everyone has wonderful holiday season!

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(Revenge is sweet. Muwahahahaha!)

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Thanksgiving week - Part 1

We spent 4 days in Tokyo Thanksgiving week, we went so many places in that small space of time, I'm going to break the posts up by location.
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We arrived at the New Sanno on Sunday afternoon and jumped on the subway, headed Meiji-jingu Gaien, I read about it on Blue Lotus and put it at the top of our list; it's a huge park where you'll find Icho Namiki - Gingko Avenue, a street is lined 146 gingko trees that are spectacular in the Fall. We were about a week or so early for their peak color, but it was still very beautiful.
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Heading down Icho Namiki, there is a festival in the park from Nov. 16 - Dec. 14, so it was extra crowded.

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Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery, a museum and cultural center

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Escalator fun.

The subway system in Tokyo is amazing, a huge maze of tracks stacked on top of each other, at one point we were 7 stories underground!

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Mitake Valley

At the end of October (yes, I'm that far behind!) my Wednesday class took a field trip to the Tama River in Mitake Valley. It was beautiful Fall day, we had lunch and hiked along the river.

I knew we were "going to a park" for lunch, but I mistakenly assumed we'd be picnicing at the big park right behind the school. Nope. The place we went in the valley was an hour away, because I thought we'd just be walking behind the school, I only had on a pair of mules, so, so, so NOT appropriate for hiking. I also only brought my purse, again, not appropriate for a TWO HOUR hike along a rocky riverbank. But, it was a great day and we had a really good time.

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We had lunch at a cute little restaurant with a beautiful view of the river. It was called Imotoya, Little Sister, a bit further down stream on the opposite bank was the Ani (Big Brother) restaurant.

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Several swinging bridges crossed back and forth across the river, giving us great views down through the valley.

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Looking back at the bridge.

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The old guy painting this beautiful picture was 94 years old!

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An old temple, the smaller hut at the bottom of the hill is the bell you ring to let the gods know you have arrived.

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Yuasa-san and Shigeko-san goofing around with the bell. I think we may have been a tad-bit disrepectful, I was surprised that they acted so goofy. They were standing up inside the bell and trying to gong each other, making silly noises, laughing and shouting. Not entirely out-of -character for any of them, but I was surprised that they weren't a bit more reverent at a temple.

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Sweating bullets, nearly puked - Updated

Wow. Yesterday was the Xmas party for the culture group I chair. I just took over the chairman position at the end of October and had to put the party for our 86 Japanese and American members together from scratch, in less than 6 weeks.

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These are the two groups (out of the 5 that make up the YOSC Culture Club) that I lead. Group B has 8 Japanese members and 4 Americans, Group D has 7 JP members and 3 Americans.
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> This was my first experience organizing an event bigger than my daughter's 13th birthday party, so I was a wreck, but I had a lot of great help and the party was a big success! And......I gave a speech in Japanese!!!!!! It was horrible. I probably told my audience that their feet smelled like corn chips and that their mothers were fat, when I thought I was saying "Thank you all for coming, have a Merry Christmas." But, everyone laughed when they were supposed to, and I got an enthusiastic round of applause and cheers of "Great job!". Although with a Japanese audience, that's probably not saying a whole lot, even if I had insulted their moms, they still would have clapped politely! And none of the Americans had any clue what I was saying.

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The party program

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This is Pacific Trends, our entertainment at the party. They are so great, and they're free, compliments of the U.S. Air Force! They're an ensemble from the USAF Band of the Pacific - Asia. Not only did they perform for free, they also gave us 60 copies of one of the CDs they've recorded to give our guests as gifts. So, so awesome.

Anyway, I'm so glad its over. Our next big group party is a New Year's party hosted by the Japanese side. The only thing I have to do for that one is get a count of how many American members will eat sushi!
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One quick minute to spare

I'm so far behind, blah, blah, blah, I know you've heard it all before! I have so much to post about that everytime I sit down at the computer I get completely overwhelmed and don't know where to start, I'll get it together soon, I promise!
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In the mean time, here are a few teasers:

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Obento, obento ureshii na....

Here's a sampling from Ethan's school lunch menu for December:

Sauteed marlin w/ tomatoe sauce
Boiled radish
Fried beans w/ lotus root

Fish curry
Fried quail eggs
Spinach dumplings

Sardine burger
Fried pumpkin
Simmered mushrooms

Oishii, desu ne? (Delicious, isn't it?)
Ethan says "Mazui!" (roughly translated: Yucky!)

But, he has come to like "noodle days", these are the days when the school cook makes udon, this month they will have: Fried tofu udon, curry udon, chicken udon and E's favorite, pineapple udon. He usually eats all his lunch on noodle days and gets the big, smiling ice cream sundae stamp in his lunch book (as opposed to crying hot dog he usually gets, indicating that he didn't eat anything). The school cook makes lunch once/twice a week, the other days lunch is brought in by a bento company.
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Yes, we're still alive

I've been a bad blogger the last few weeks. With the holidays closing in I'm so stinkin' busy! I don't seem to have a moment to spare, I'm involved in so many things and spinning in so many different directions, half the time I don't even know where I'm going until I get there!

One bit of exciting info (a bit of bragging too): On Wednesday I drove home from Disneyland ALL BY MYSELF!!!!!! I had no map, and I only drove on local roads, no expressways/tolls!!! Woo hoo! Go me!

I've never been to the Disney area before, so it was all new to me, and we didn't drive there from our house, we started at the New Sanno hotel, so it's wasn't like just back tracking along my original route. This may not seem like a big deal to those of you who have never been to Japan, but let me tell you, it's a major triumph. Can you tell I'm proud of myself? LOL It only took us a little over 2 hours, just about what it would have taken on the expressway, and we never got lost. There were a lot of u-turns as I realized I needed to make a turn as I was whizzing past it, and several times I wasn't sure which way to turn, so I just guesses (a couple of times I even let the kids decide which way we should go!) but we made it home in good time!

We spent a great 4 days in Tokyo, posts and pictures coming soon.

Happy belated Turkey-day!