Sunday Past (continued 3)

Adam and Chris spot a roller coaster that spins while moving forward. Aki and I don't do well with spinning rides so we watch while they ride.

After we're done with the rides we head over to KFC for a quick bite.

Adam and Chris in serious contemplation of something?

We head back to our place out of the cold to relax for the rest of the afternoon...getting a nap in before going out later that night. For dinner we find a food court and some really good Indian food. Our friend Honda meets us at the food court and we head off for a few hours of Karaoke! Highlights: Chris and Adam singing 'Barbie Girl' and 'Endless Love' duets, and Honda and Adam's Japanese 'Funkastic' song :) No karaoke pictures yet--they are on Aki and Adam's cameras.

Sunday Past (continued 2)

Pictures taken after getting on the Ferris wheel...

To the right of the brick building you can just make out the outdoor ice rink

Rooftop Foot Spa

Rooftop Miniature Golf

Sunday Past (continued)

Just a few amusement ride pictures, more to come...

The Ferris wheel

People ride the log ride even when it's freezing outside!

The log ride

Really fun looking roller coaster

Same really fun looking roller coaster

Sunday Past

Adam and Aki arrive Sunday morning around 9 am tired from the long bus ride, but ready to go out and do things. From one of my walks earlier in the week, I saw a building which I assumed to be an aquarium (pictures of sea creatures on the outside) so we decided to walk to the aquarium.

building with sea creatures

walking to the building with sea creatures

After getting much closer to the building we realize that there is a big "P" painted on the side of the same building. It's not an aquarium, it's a parking garage. So...we decide to walk in another direction--towards an area we are a little more familiar with. We go off in search of riding the huge Ferris wheel not too far from us.

On our way to the Ferris wheel we come across a street performer. He is a foreigner who speaks (from what I can tell) perfect Japanese with a large crowd of adults and kids watching him juggle.



After watching his juggling act we continue on our way to the Ferris wheel. It is reportedly the largest Ferris wheel in the world, but may just be the largest in Japan (I may have my facts completely wrong here). The Ferris wheel is actually a part of an amusement park right by the Yokohama Bay.

(continued...)

Saturday Past

Chris wasn't feeling too good most of the day on Saturday from the previous night's food so he spent most of the day indoors. I took a few trips to different stores in search of some blankets, pillows and other things we were going to need for our first real overnight visitors. Adam (Chris' best guy friend and best man in our wedding) and Aki (Adam's wife) were taking a 13 hour bus ride from Shikoku to come visit us!

Chris washing dishes

Me wiping down the floors with a paper towel (I really need to buy a dry-mop)

Friday Past

Friday night Chris and I went out looking for a restaurant to eat dinner. Our restaurant choices have been pretty limited to those where I see some picture or plastic food* outside the restaurant window that contains something with no meat and no seafood. (*many restaurants in Japan display their menu items in a display window outside their restaurant in plastic food form) Chris has been very accommodating to my vegetarian food needs, but lately I can tell he has gotten very frustrated because we pass by all these really good looking restaurants that he would love to try, but I shy away from because I can't find anything to eat without some meat or seafood in the dishes.

Many ask why I'm vegetarian in the first place... It's not about cruelty to animals or even not liking the taste. Meat tastes good to me. Easiest way of saying it bluntly is, I can't digest meat and fish. Not digesting it equals to some serious pain which I've been able to completely avoid going vegetarian. And also I've noticed I feel even better, and have way more energy as a vegetarian. Unfortunately, in social situations and in everyday life, being vegetarian is not easy, especially being surrounding by a culture and people that aren't vegetarian.

I would love to just eat anything. I always prided myself on being able to eat almost anything before. I would still love to be able to feel as great as I feel as a vegetarian, but still eat meat and seafood. Or at least seafood! I made a deal with Chris that I would be more adventurous with our restaurants from now on. I've decided myself that I am also going to slowly introduce seafood into my diet, as it doesn't have as bad of an effect on me as meat does. Eating out will be much more fun for both of us if I didn't have to feel so limited by food choices.

Friday night we ended up picking an Italian restaurant. The food tasted good, but we had some individual pizzas which (we think) caused Chris' stomach to hurt all Saturday :(

Pictures of Buttons

Buttons, buttons and more buttons. We're getting more used to all the buttons in our place. I thought I'd include pictures of some of them in case someone else is interested in seeing all the buttons. And besides, I don't have many pictures of the outside surroundings lately because it's just so cold to stay out for very long or to venture far :)

The interface above is in our bathroom sink room (separate from shower and bath). These buttons regulate the temperature in the shower/bath room. You can see most of the buttons in Japanese have a sticker below for us English speakers.

















In order to get any hot water in our place, we have to turn the gas to our place "on and off" when we want the hot water. You can see the "on/off" button in the lower left hand corner in the picture above. These buttons regulate how hot you would like the sink water (kitchen, bathroom, etc) and bath water (in Celsius). There is even an auto-fill button for the bathtub on the lower right (press it, water fills up and it stops at the level you specify). <--I think that button is pretty cool.
















Ooo! The bidet toilet buttons. You can wash yourself in ways you never imagined! I personally haven't used these buttons yet, but I think Chris is sold on them. He describes it as a "car wash" for your nether-region :) Hehe. ...I'll try it eventually...but it just seems so strange for someone who has never used one, doesn't it?


The below buttons are some emergency buttons we are not supposed to press--of course, unless it is an emergency and we want a squad of people knocking down our door.
These buttons are in 4 different locations in our place!