Christmas

It's been crazy cold in the last few days. Looks like it's snowing any time now...

We spent Christmas Eve at home as Shinya was working. We ate roast chicken and cake watching Music Station Special. It's a 4 hours music program on Christmas every year. Of course my favorite NEWS was on too!

On Christmas day, we had Shinya's parents over and we played Kinect together. We've got so far Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventure, your Shape(fitness one).
For dinner we went to this steak place called Ken. They also have hamburgers(of course), and salad and spaghetti and curry and rice and fruits all you can eat as much as you want. It's nice especially I love curry! Quite good!
After dinner, we went to Aeon shopping mall to have coffee and do some shopping. Shinya's parents bought some new clothes for Rian as Christmas present. They're so cute! It always takes me forever to choose Rian's clothes when it's only 5 minutes for my own outfits:p

Miserable

It's been forever since my last post!
There's not much happening, but my daughter and husband and I have had a terrible cold all together. Rian has not been all well and she keeps coughing and having stuffy nose, and that's why I'm not feeling great yet. We had a crazy hot summer this year and it's last until most end of October, and it's ridiculously cold right now!
I can't wait to get all better...

Especially I have lots of events coming up that I'm so excited for...
Concert, Girls night out, One of my best friends having a baby!

I've also been hooked on the fitness game called Your Shape. It's from Kinect(X BOX)
I hope it's helping me losing some weight!

Mister Donuts

This is the best donuts place in Japan that I also love so much.

 They have some new donuts now and this one is soy souce flavor. Sooooooo yum!

Eclipse

So, it's finally here and I went to see it today! OMG it was so good! However I gave up on the book because it was getting harder to understand, I found it not so hard at all in the movie. It's a shame I couldn't understand the book!

Now I'm really interested in the next book! What's happening!? Bella and Edward make me frustrated... I know all the girls around the world who love Edward would kick me saying that I would pick Jacob. He is much cuter for me!
I have no idea what's happening at the ending!

Highway Oasis

We went to this place called Highway Oasis today. It's SA actually on the highway, but you can access there also using the normal way. They have many shops and places to eat, public bath (foot bath, too), and many attractions for kids to play. Rian loves riding on mini trains and cars. They only cost 50 yen for each so it's not so bad at all. She didn't seem to get bored at all with those small cars and wanted to ride on over and over again!

There were people waiting on the line for go-cart (Is this right word?), and Shinya had to be on the line for Rian while she ran away and found merry-go-round and wanted to ride on it so badly! She made it after the go-cart though. It was cute so I just had to take a picture of her keeping watching it.

Latest favorites

These are my favorite movies lately!

The Shopaholic movie, I was so shocked at first because it was way too different from the novel! I was expecting it was supposed to be in London, I mean, taken in London, but it was actually located in NY! How could it be like that!? It should've been London surely!
So, that's why I haven't got around to watch it until recently.
I just watched it the other day and the truth is... the movie was not that bad, after all.
Becky Bloomwood doesn't exactly look like the girl I was expecting, but she was still ok, she even made a cute roll I think.

The other one, I just LOVE this movie so much! One of the reason is that Drew Barrymore is in it. The movie reminded me of Love Actually kind of. I love that kind of movies:)

Asari and Squid

Does anyone know what Asari clam is? Maybe just clam. We like to go to eat the foods that were on TV once and last weekend we went to eat these. This is the way the squid is cooked... have anyone tried these before?

Poor English Skills!

Here comes the English test that I'm taking this weekend...
http://stepeiken.org/
Surely it's all around the world? I didn't know it was even in America! Is it as familiar as those like Toeic or Toefl?

I am having a hard time concentrating on this test. It seems to be much more difficult than I expected, especially tons of difficult words that I've never even seen before... some of them I can't even guess how to pronounce. I think the vocabulary is the trickiest problem for me to get over... TOO MANY complicated words!

What depresses me the most is that even the sentenses that's written in easy English, I can't even get to the correct answer.

To show you a little...
Some example questions in the textbook that I couldn't come up with the right answer.... so mad at me about this!

Choose the best answer from among the four choices for each blank.
(1) The strict diet she is on has started to (      ) on her health.
1 give       2 tell      3 catch      4 hang
The correct answer is 2.

(2) He (     ) away 20% of his salary every month.
1 put       2 entered       3 gave      4 set
The correct answer is 1.

I get so depressed when I couldn't answer these easy questions.
Of course, these easy kind of questions are only a few in the test, and most of them are much more difficult and tricky. So what am I going to do if I was lost in such easy ones!

Oh well..... wish me luck!

Trip to Toba

We went on our 5 years anniversary trip to Toba, which is about 3 hours drive.
There's a famous aquarium in Toba and we went there.

Sea otter was the cutest!!! I think I could spend all day just watching them... just so cute!

Rian had such a good time there... I think she loves aquarium. She keeps saying 'Waaa~ Ookii ne~' (Wow, it's big!!)... such cute things.

The hotel (Japanese hotel) we were staying was great. It's on top of the hill and there's a nice view from the window even though it's 3rd floor.

Dinner was gorgeous, too!

And of course, hot springs! Rian even wanted to take her bath 3 times! Is there a 2-year-old who loves hot springs so much?
Lucky for us, it was right after the public holidays so there weren't so many guests staying and we were just the only one who were in the bath! It was like our own bath!

Movie and shopping

I went to watch Knight & Day today. While I was watching that, Rian was looking around in the mall with her daddy. They spent an hour in Babyrus and another hour in the game place. This is what Shinya got at the crane game!

Just too cute for a soccer ball!

This is what we had for lunch today...

You order on the interphone above the menu whatever you want, and they serve them on the belt (where they come on). If you forget to take what you ordered, they bring them to your table later. One time, my dad-in-law got upset when somebody else took what he orderd by mistake... they didn't even realize it so that even made him mad.
Rian only eats meat balls there... she doesn't even eat the rice at all, she only ate meat ball on it:(  Then there's only rice left... that makes me nuts!

And Spicy Nabe for dinner. It tastes kind of Kimuchee, very spicy but is good:D

By the way the movie was soooo good. Honestly I don't like Tom Cruise that much but I like Cameron Diaz, so I wanted to watch it anyways. She looks old now... even if she is still 38, she is still cute in some way.

I want to watch this one next! oh and The Eclipse, of course!

Steak and Shops

We went to Outback for lunch today, they serve you steak for free on your birthday if you join the members (all free), so I got my steak today! (Happy Birthday for me:D)
Shinya and Rian are also members, so they get free steak too on their birthdays.

Shinya had humburgers. I was expecting Rian to eat that too, but she only craved french fries!

We decided to be walking instead of taking subway to go to Osu where Shinya wanted to buy his new jeans. He didn't have any luck finding a good one, though... we just checked on several shops but didn't find the perfect one. Oh well... maybe he could buy one at Right-on. That's where he likes to buy his clothes anyways.

I love Osu. There are a lot of nice shops and places to eat...

There are public baths everywhere (they're like public hot springs). Isn't that crazy?

A Tapioca drink shop.

I had a Strawberry Milk Tapioca. It was good, but made me so full:(  After having too much for lunch!

We spent about 3 hours there... then took train home. When we got off the train, there was some festival going on and it totally woke Rian up.

Tokyo

Spent 2 days in Tokyo over the weekend. It took about 6 hours by bus to get to Tokyo, and we got there at 2:30 pm. My friend and I had to check in our hotel before we went to Tokyo Dome. I was already too excited when we got there... then the concert started at 6:30.

I have to let everyone know that I LOVE NEWS!
My favorite is in the group, and he is sooooooooooo cute:)  Well, he is younger than me but he is just my type!

It was a 3 hours live and it was after 9:30 when we were leaving for our hotel and having belated dinner on our way there. The area where we stayed has a lot of Korean restaurants and places, so most of the people living there are Korean.

These were so good at the restaurant!

The next day - my birthday! - we went to Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Jiyugaoka...
almost walking around ALL day!

This is what we had for lunch...

Harajuku is my favorite - there are so many cute shops... I think I could spend all day there.

I found a cute backpack which is PINK, and the sweat shirt with zippers... I just had to get them!  If anybody wants to see pictures, just let me know! Especially the pink bag... so cute!

I was exhausted when we finally got on the bus to Nagoya... and got to my house after midnight. Bus trip is a lot cheaper, but it makes you tired.

Train and cake

Rian loves trains (actually she loves all kinds - car, train, bus, plane...), so we wanted to take her to some place called Antique Train Museum. It was so small but it's all free so worth looking.
Rian loves it! She just kept getting excited and moving around in the train until we had to eventually tell her that we were leaving and going to the cake place. She was like crazy there!  I can't believe how much she loves trains!

Some woman's sleeping in there... and I saw some people reading books or taking rests, so it looked like a real train!

Well, Happy Birthday for me! YAY! It's still early though... I am going to be away on my birthday coming this Sunday, so Shinya suggested that we were celebrating it today (it was a public holiday anyways).
By the way I'm not eating them all! Mine is on the right it's a cheese cake:)

stuff...

I love taking pictures like this...

The first one is the view from my balcony, and the second one is the park nearby...
Maybe I love looking up at the sky:D

On weekends, we often go over to Shinya's parents' or mine, and it was Shinya's today.
On our way, we stopped for lunch at Japanese restaurant. Shinya kept saying that he wanted to eat Miso Nikomi Udon
http://japanesefood.about.com/od/udon/r/misonikomiudon.htm, so he finally made it

and I just had a normal Udon.

This is my favorite Udon place around here.

So we had belated lunch and went some shopping after that (diapers, daily goods... all kinds and the all-100 yen store), then went to see Shinya's parents.
It seems like I always want Sushi when my mother-in-law asks what I want for dinner...
Because I love Sushi!
Today we had Temaki Sushi... have u ever heard or looked at it?

You put rice on seaweed, and then pick anything you want on there and put them on rice, and roll them up and eat it with soy sauce. It's just so good! I think I ate a lot today... maybe about 20. Oh goodness.



Here is some movie I really want to recommend to everyone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEHRF9AXR9M
Liar Game -the final stage-
It's based on comic books and they made it on a TV show and finally the movie!
My favorite actress is also in it, so I just had to buy it on DVD. It came actually both with DVD and Blu-ray and extra disc for 180 mins, so I was so amazed and excited to watch them all!

eat, pray, love

Went to watch this movie "eat,pray,love" yesterday. It was so good, just as I expected. Made me want to go on a trip so badly!
Especially Europe... My last ambition is to go to UK. I don't care how old I'll be, I am definitely making it to London one day!

So about the movie...
I just wanted Drew Barrimore in it instead of Julia Roberts.
It's not that I hate Julia, but anyways.
OK, to be honest, I don't like her so much...
Sorry about that:(
I just love Drew Barrimore!

Weekend

Thank goodness, Shinya had 3 days off work over the weekend, and it ended up taking care of Rian...who was sick and got 39 degrees high fever!
She is all ok now, but for the first few days it was miserable...she threw up everything she had that morning, and looked dizzy so I took her to the doctor.
I got her medicine, and the doctor said there was some summer disease going around so hers was maybe some of those...
I've never got such a high fever so I got so worried. The medicine seemed to be working and she was all better the next morning.

Sunday evening, we went over to my parents for dinner. My brother and my sister-in-law were there too, and we'd bought a present for my nephew's 1st birthday.
And we all played Wii Golf together.
It was so much fun!
I want my own in the house!
I had never known how to play golf, but now I can play somehow...not sure how it would work in real life, though:(

LIVE!LIVE!LIVE!

It came yesterday!!! The concert ticket that I'm going at the end of this month (Sep 25-26). I have never been to NEWS's concert before, I only went to Tegomass's. But for sure they are my favorite boys group in Japan!

I am already soooooooooo excited!!!
The concert is going to be at Tokyo Dome, so I am going up to Tokyo with a friend on Sep 25, and staying one night there.



And today.... one of my friends got married and I was invited to the wedding, and the ceremony. She and I have been friends since high school.
They are going to Italy tomorrow on their honeymoon... I am so jealous!

Anniversary

Tomorrow, September 8th is our 5 years anniversary! So Shinya mentioned about doing something special, he first said he wanted to plant a tree or something... but I said, traveling is better for me! I don't need trees for me! So we decided on taking a trip next month, to Toba which is about 3 hours drive. There is a big aquarium, and we are going to be staying at Japanese hotel that have Onsen.
We were thinking about Universal Studios, but it's kind of too early for Rian to have fun there. Not so many rides she could get on, so we will wait till she is a little bigger.

Donuts

Ate these for the first time... it reminded me of America!
They are TOO sweet! To much sugar... oh my goodness.
There is 1 in Nagoya that opened a few months ago, and some people were waiting on the line for 9 hours before it opened! How crazy is that!
I would never be on the line for the donuts!

Airport

How stupid I am... I went to the airport today and FORGOT to take any pictures! UGH....

Oh well... so today we went up to see my parents at around 2, and they were talking about going to the airport and having dinner there. Shinya was going to be working tonight (which is now, he is gone already), so Rian and I were joining them.
We went out at around 3:30, and got to the airport around 4.

Rian was soooooooooooo excited to see planes! There were many landing and getting off at that time. We went to this pretty nice restaurant for dinner... I can't believe how I could forget the pictures! Monica would punch me on my belly...!
Sorry about that:(
Next time I won't forget!

This is something from Rian's favorite show called Inai Inai Baa! (Peek-A-Boo!) 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8eWn7J-bxw&feature=PlayList&p=0C15275ECB0C0BAD&index=0&playnext=1

Today's Lunch

I went to see a friend today who lives about an hour away, and we went to this restaurant called Bikkuri Donkey for lunch. Bikkuri means 'Surprised!'... kind like.

I love this restaurant. All in 1 plate - rice and humburgers and salad come together, so it's so easy to eat. Also the ice cream desert, I always order it it's so good!

Summer

There are fireworks everywhere in August. There is one in my city too, and since I moved to a new place it is such a nice view from the balcony. I mean, as my house is kind of on the hill, you can see the fireworks pretty well.
If you ever decided to go where it took place, you would end up getting exhausted with such TOO many people. It's like you were stuck there! Couldn't walk straight, just too many people to move around...

I found a picture of it here.

I think this is even before the fireworks start.

I invited my friend Momoko and her family for dinner and to see the fireworks afterward.
It was such a nice view, we could even see it pretty well from the side window, even from the couch when sitting!
Rian and her friend Sakuya (Momoko's son) had such a great time together. Rian was too shy at first but she got used to it and now she seems to be more curious about her new friend. They are so cute watching the fireworks together!

What 2-year-old likes...

So, Rian doesn't really eat too many things... I've been wondering what 2 years olds in the world are eating. She seems to be growing ok, but it always occurs to me that she might not be eating healthy.
She eats rice with furikake, gyoza, humburger, udon(noodles), meat balls, katsu, curry rice... but it all depends on her mood. She loves most kind of fruits, and sweets. For now she loves ice cream!

She's been drinking this powder milk which seems better than regular milk, well that is what the doctor said at least until 3 years old because they are healthier.

Once Rian had to have her blood test, and the result wasn't too good, she needed more iron content especially and the doctor told me to give her more iron-included foods. And the powder milk seemed good too, after a few weeks I went to take her again and she had her test again, and the result turned out to be good. So since then she's been drinking it, but she is starting to like regular milk too.
This is her favorite milk for now...

This one is actually my favorite, too. They have iron content and calcium, so maybe healthy.
Rian needs to take more vegetables, but I know it's not easy... so I make up for it with vegetable juices. I think it works somehow. When does she start eating vegetables anyway?

Concert!

So here is a very famous and popular boy-group called SMAP (they are not boys any more though...), and I went to their concert last weekend! On Aug 27, 28.

http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/smap.shtml

Their tickets are very hard to get, but this time one of my friends got lucky and we made it!
It was more than wonderful! They sang about 40 songs and it took almost 4 hours, I spent such a great time with them. One of the member of SMAP... he kind of looks like my husband, as some people say so. Maybe his square-shaped face... Can you guess which one is that?


The concert started with this latest song called This is love...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yur0E_w2Cnc

and I love this song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amOmFPdeJWY


Believe me, they are the most famous people in Japan!
I've been listening to their new album that's going along with their concert.

Finally!

So here I am, starting a new blog in English, which is that I've been wanting to for a very long time. My friend Monica wanted me to start it and this is the best timing. But to be honest, I have no idea where to start... I mean I have so many things I want to talk about, but just not sure where to start... Probably I need to ask Monica for a good start:)


Here is the book I've been so hooked on....

I started it only a few weeks ago, but I am almost finishing it! I LOVE Sophie Kinsella's books, and I think this one is my second favorite! The best one is of course Shopaholic series!







I don't know anyone around me who's reading her books and it's kind of sad.... having nobady to talk about her books!


Is anybody there who loves them?