Hairtcut....Very short this time

Today (December 22) I am getting my haircut by Stacie form the Kakogawa Baptist church. I met her at our train station and then she came over to our place. I still wasn’t sure what kind of hairstyle but I managed to find one that Marc and I liked. I know that it’s my hair and I get to choose but I thought to ask and see what he though. Anyways, when she came over I showed her a few hairstyles that I liked and then chose one. I told her I want my longest layer just touching my shoulders and the layers from the cheekbone down. Well, as she was cutting away, I noticed that the back of the head felt a lot lighter than before. I proceeded to ask her what she was doing because I saw a lot of my hair on the ground. I trusted her that she knew what she was doing and she did. In the end, she didn’t want me to look in the mirror because she wanted me to be surprised. She also styled it…I mean put hair wax, hair spray and she randomly curled it.

During all of this, Marc comes home very early buzzing the door. He came home to go to the doctor for some acid reflux pills. Same story again…he went in the office and waited to be called back. When he did he asked the doctor for a refill but this time for more pills. The doctor thinks that acid reflux is just something that can go away in like a month. The doctor only wants to give him 14 pills. Marc says no I need more. The doctor doesn’t understand that this is an ongoing thing. It just doesn’t stop after 2 weeks!

Later we went to MaxValu that is 15 minutes from our place. We bought a few items that we needed. Then we decided to eat at good old McDonald’s. It tasted ok. I kept playing with my hair because it is so short.

BE-ING Christmas party

Today (December 20) is a Christmas party at the church. Our individual cells are putting one on. I rushed around to make my costume and get my food ready to take. If you want to know I am going to be a candy cane. What I did was I used Marc’s old white t-shirt and placed red tape as stripes on it. I also used an old mop handle as my candy cane stick. I also put red and white tape around it. For my costume I had to look around for anything that was red and white. I know that my high school colors were the same. I am wearing my senior shirt with the red and white striped shirt over it. I also found my varsity volleyball socks, which are Dr. Seuss red and white striped. I am not quite sure how I am going to wear those but we shall see. Oh I forgot another part of my costume…I bought a Santa hat that lights up for like $5.00.


With the entire morning running around today, I still need to make my food (Bacon Wraps) and finish vacuuming this place. I need to make sure I get the gift and the personal size cake of some sort. Yes, I sound excited about tonight! Anyways, Stacie and Yuko are picking me up around 6:15pm for the party. Now I know how my mom feels when she is getting ready for a party. It’s like running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Then you have someone bothering you like kids or your spouse. Speaking of which…….Marc wants to know what he should take for his group. I am not sure and I think if I have them time today, he wants me to make something ☹ I think he is going to go to SATY’S to buy the cake item, gift, and food. Talk about last minute huh? He just found out last night.

I received my family’s Christmas box yesterday. It had many snacks in it that we can’t get over here. We also received some gifts but mom said to wait until Christmas. I can already guess what a couple are by the shape and feel. I know that sounds bad doesn’t it?

The party was great. Everyone liked my costume and how unique it was. I am going to keep it for next year. I got some pictures of the party and my cell group. Also we played some games, exchanged gifts, had dessert and ate food. We had some fun times there at one of the girl’s houses. Inside of the house looked like a regular house. It wasn’t too small but it was a decent size for her and her husband. The costumes included, a star, 2 trees, 2 angels, a gift, a Santa girl outfit (almost like a elf), and a few more. I can’t remember them though. I think there were about 15-20 people.

This Friday I am going to get my haircut. I am not sure whether to get a trim or a cut cut. The last time I got my hair highlighted and cut was in July by Destiny. Marc told me that since we are living here for 2-3years, why not try something new? But make sure it is something that you are going to want. I thought I would like some of them in this magazine on me but I really wasn't sure. I took his advice but I chose a different style. I placed a picture up on the website but right now we have too many on there, so I will have to go through it and delete some. Sorry if you haven’t seen all of them.

USJ or Universal Studios

Today (December 16) we went to USJ or Universal Studios with 2 other women (Stacie and Ai-Chan). Even though it was overcast we still enjoyed our day. We are meeting them at 11am at the Kakogawa station. It’s one station over (we live in Higashi Kakogawa) The train that we took to get there was a special one and it had USJ rides on it.

One of the first rides that we rode was called Spiderman. It wasn’t your typical ride but it was like a simulator but you’re on the coaster inside of the building. The car looked like a Lamborghini because of the structure of the car and the doors. Each car can fix about 12 people. When you ride you have to wear the “special glasses”. They are 3D ones to make the characters pop out. All 4 of us were split up so that was a bummer. The ride was like you were watching a cartoon on the ride. Man oh man that was a great ride. When there was water or fire you could feel it either sprinkle on you or there was a heater above you.

Some of the rides were like this and some were just shows. We went into the Terminator and that was totally different from Spiderman. This one was in the theater so yes it was s show. We wore the 3D glasses for this show. At first, someone was talking and people were fighting. Then a motorcycle rode in and then vanished into the screen. Well, that is what it seemed. Even the chairs moved at the end and all of us screamed…ahhhh. We liked this even though it wasn’t a ride. While we were waiting for this we were playing cards. That was interesting because many people around us were staring at us. Sometimes you just want to tell them off.

At times we would get something to eat or drink. Oh at lunch we went to a pizza place and guess what? It was real pizza not this Japanese way of making pizza. It was so good. Both Marc and I got a slice and then creaser salad. Stacie and Ai-Chan got a drink and a slice. The pizza was either pepperoni or sausage and egg. Believe it or not the sausage and egg looked good. I think it was because I was hungry. Also when we went on the Jurassic Park water ride, it was almost like the Snake River Falls at Cedar Point but you didn’t get soaked. I remembered some of the scenes on the ride from the movies. It was cool.

Every year at USJ there is a special tree lighting show…The tree is fake but it was so neat to see the lights. We took some pictures of that was well at a short video of the fireworks. Many I mean hundreds and hundreds of people came to see this. USJ was crowded that we had to make a train to get through the crowd. At times when people weren’t looking they would just run into us. Mainly watch out for wheelchairs and children. Anyone else is up for pushing…

After the ride Marc noticed a food stand that had turkey legs. Yes, real turkey legs but they tasted very dry. They were very expensive but Marc didn’t care. Both Stacie and Marc said it was our Thanksgiving turkey. It tasted very good since we haven’t had any since when we were at home.

Before we left the park I wanted to get something that said Universal Studios Japan (USJ). I got something small and not too expensive considering it was a theme park. We also ate dinner at the Hard Rock Café right outside of the park. We all ate American burgers. Oh they tasted so good!! We also shared a brownie sundae. All 4 of us couldn’t eat it but in the end Stacie and I finished it off.

On the way home we wrote another special train but this time we were on the Sesame Street train. It was quite neat. Then we got on the JR train line. There we were so tired that Ai-Chan just wanted to sleep. Stacie wanted to stay awake and play cards. We played a old one. When we played we would laugh and get loud. Since we were foreigners, the Japanese people around us would stare. We played like 3 rounds. So during our trip we played 4/5 different card games either waiting in line or on the train. We were all so tired that during the card game on the way home, I noticed that a business man was making faces at his cell phone. I just cracked up laughing and since I was laughing hysterically Stacie did too. I was tired that’s what happens when it’s passed your bedtime. It takes a little over an hour to get back. When we got back we crashed.

In the morning, we have to get ready for tomorrow (Sunday) for the Luminary in Kobe. But this time we didn’t have to get up so early. We were dreading on going because Matsamura was very pushy when we were at USJ. She would call us and ask “when are you going to get done?” She asked us because she made plans so we could stay the night at a stranger’s house. It was an elderly lady. Personally, we both didn’t feel comfortable and secondly she calls us and tells us what we should be doing when we already had made plans. About staying the night thingy…she called us the night before and tells us that we are staying at some lady’s house for the luminary thing. The thing was, was that the Luminary didn’t turn on until 5:30pm and we were meeting Matsamura at 1pm. Why would we stay at someone’s house we don’t even know? She says because we can experience a larger house.

Anyways, enough of the frustration…..we crashed when we got back. But before that I checked my email and my brother Ray has a heart catheter on Jan. 3rd and he has blood work that needs to be done on the 28th. A heart catherization is where they put a camera up your arm and into your heart and it takes pictures of what's going on with the heart. Heart caths are considered surgery.

It's cold

Yes, it's come - all day cold weather!

There hasn't been any snow yet, but it's quite chilly. In fact, we frequently see our own breath while doing our daily tasks around the house. It feels like we're camping out, and found a little log cabin to relax in for a while, except it has a rudimentary bathroom, gas, and electric. Speaking of the bathroom, showers are difficult; it can get really chilly very fast, since it's basically the same as taking a shower in an outdoor facility in 40 degree weather or lower. Once you get in and take the shower, the harder part is getting out and into the cold.

We have a couple utilities to keep warm, which I've told you about before, but will mention again. We have a small eletric fan heater, but we have not chosen to use it yet. We also have a heatlamp that looks like a fan without the blades; we used it for the first time last night before bed, and it was very nice. We also have a heating blanket that we haven't used yet. However, our best weapon against the cold is the kerosene heater, which is a small black device that lights a flame using the kerosene and then blows that heat out with a fan. It's the cheapest, fastest, and best way to heat a room. And that's precisely what we do -- heat a room. We don't heat the whole house, that'd cost far too much. We simply close off a room and heat it individually.

You'd think we'd heat our bedroom, but in fact we don't. We simply jump into the futons, suffer for about a minute while we heat the futons up with our body heat, and then we use several blankets to keep warm. Perhaps it's time to bring out the heating blanket.

We're getting more involved with the church. We just had new small groups made last night (Wednesday night). My group has gone from a small group of all guys to a slightly larger group of a few more ladies than guys. I went from being the youngest person in my group by at least 3 years, to being one of the oldest by 7 years. I'm looking forward to interacting with new people.

Well, I hope you are enjoying yourselves wherever you are reading this from. I'll try to post some pictures up soon.