Current Events...(more pics to come!)

More listing just for you!

JUST WEIRD!!!
I was in Tokyo for the New Year’s Sale and did not buy one thing! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?! Gotta go to the doctor to get that checked out!
The Vice Principle at my close [not so smart] school waited til all the teachers were in class to blast ABBA’s “Dancing Queen, ” and walks over to me and says, “Do you know?…ABBA!”
Same school…I happened to glance at the fish tank and to my surprise 2 of the 3 remaining goldfish were dead…I’m assuming they had been there for a while. I’ma need them to be more diligent about cleaning the tank!
Bus drivers who bite their nails…Or so I thought. I noticed that he was spending a lot of time on the nail on his left index finger…just to realize that this man was digging his nose then sticking his treasure in his mouth. AAAAAH!
Bus drivers who pull over to let cars pass. Why is this weird…HE WENT TO SLEEP FOR LIKE 10 MINUTES! Since when is it no longer public transportation operators’ priority to get passengers to their destinations on time?!?!?!


IN OTHER NEWS:
Learned a little bit of Chinese cooking at my far way school (aka Heaven) at the Happy Smile and Love Party that they have every year. Each year they invite a new guest to learn how to make dishes from different countries.
Mount Fuji is so beautiful…haven’t seen it up close but it’s amazing from the air and from the highway. Went to Tokyo for New Year’s and witness the beauty of bringing in the new year at a temple…then stood there dumbfounded by the silence. Where was the drunken debauchery that goes down in the streets of America on New Year’s at midnight??? Then I found it in Roppongi.
Went to Hokkaido for the 58th Annual Snow Festival where they create works of art out of snow and ice…AMAZING! Since Michelle and I didn’t end up in any clubs (Tiffany and Michelle: Getting Japanese folks loose since 2006), we’ve adopted a new slogan…Tiffany and Michelle: Adding a new hue to ski slopes since 2007. Snowboarding is SO MUCH FUN!!! Even if I did think I broke my neck twice and came home with a nice knot and cut on my forehead. I decided that they were collateral damage for all the fun I had. We ate the biggest snow crab legs I’ve ever seen…and you know we throw down on some big ol’ crab legs in the Tyson residence. The ones in Hokkaido are like something out of a Gojira (Godzilla) movie! Had/dodged a snow fight a bunch of drunk folks. You would think people would drink less when walking on ice is involved.
Went to Tokyo to hang out with Justin in mid February. Ate at Garlic Joes; a restaurant that specializes in dishes loaded with garlic. I don’t know how they managed to keep the flavor so mild when there were gobs of garlic everywhere! Took in the sights/sounds/tastes of Yokohama’s Chinatown. My plans to take him to Tokyo Disneyland fell through because there were no buses running in the middle of the day on the weekend…Does that make any sense to anyone? So, we hung out in Yokohama instead and rode “the world‘s largest Ferris wheel“ next to “Japan‘s tallest building.” I’m kinda skeptical about both of those facts…
February 1st marks the first time that the students managed to get on my last nerve!
Q wrote me a letter. I was so excited to find a real life letter in my mailbox!
I used to think electric toothbrushes were for lazy people…Now I love them! And no, not cuz I’m lazy.
I made egg drop soup…So now I think I’m a chef extraordinaire!!!
On January 14th my taiko drumming group performed in a town called Tachibana.
During my computerless existence, I began the plans for my entrepreneurial venture…walking in my parents’ got-my-own-business footsteps!
I changed my first bike tire inner tube the other day after riding around with a hole in it for like 2 months cuz I’m a bum. I’m pretty sure that now makes me THE [WO]MAN!
I presented a Black Inventors slideshow to my students for Black History Month. Their teacher was like, “ Oh my goodness. So many things we still use today were invented!” I said, “Yes. Black people did all the work during that time.” I thought that was a subtle enough hint…hehehe.
Japanese folks love them some Obama…still trying to figure out if it’s because he’s a man (as opposed to Hillary Clinton, a woman) or if it’s because he’s Black…hmmm?

Saturday and Sunday I went Tachibana towns Kanbaikan (Plum blossom festival). It's amazing how Japanese folks make a whole day of walking around looking at trees! I did get some great pictures of flowers and a display of hand crafted bamboo lanterns in a wine cellar that used to be a fallout shelter when the US was acting a fool in the Far East...It was beautiful. I was a local celebrity and even posed for some pictures with the sweet potato vendor. The photographer is entering an amateur photo contest and I told her that as long as she sends copies of all the pictures to me I had no problem with her entering them in the contest. It even scored me a free potato! One of the vendors had a bajillion types of citrus fruits. So I bought 3 haruka. They look like big lemons/small grapefruits but they are surprisingly sweet and mild...I got some good donuts and fried chicken too! What? I'm American...hahahaha!

QUESTIONS
Ever been on a bus alone and had gas?…teehee! (ok I know, TMI!)
Why was I bitten several time during the winter by mosquitoes??? Why won’t they just die?!

ALL OF THEM! I mean really, what purpose do they serve aside for annoying me and spreading disease? Huh?
Why were girls walking around Hokkaido with booty shorts and heels in the middle of winter?...Anyone?

TWAS THE SEASON!!! (pictures coming soon...)

Well well long time now see right?! The answer is yes. The reason…let’s just say that it was my computer’s time…So I was computerless from December 25th to February 20th. In technology’s stead, I’ve become quite the bookworm as a trade off for keeping up with current events (i.e. we all knew that Brittany Spears wasn’t right before the head shaving/rehab thing…DUH!). Thanks to this new fangled contraption, I’m back in the loop. So much for literacy! Thank you all for the Christmas cards and gifts!!! Thank you momma and daddy for giving them folks at Best Buy the business for their slack customer service practices. There is so much to report since December so I’m going to update you all in list form for the next few posts to catch up. Enjoy!

Monday December 18
I was on the internet with Justin asking him to send me whatever Christmas music he had because my box with my cds had not arrived and guess what happened less than 10 minutes after I asked…The box came! Talk about uncanny! Inside were a number of smaller boxes with instructions written on them about when I was to open them. In the box labeled open now, my folks sent some candy cane striped converses and a super long santa hat that I wore to the elementary and junior high schools for my Christmas lessons. I made games…pin the hat on Santa…pin the nose on Rudolph…then they got to make their own respective Christmas art projects (1st grade = santa face with cotton ball hair and beard, 2nd grade = Christmas wreaths out of construction paper, 4th grade = A Christmas Wish Tree made of cutout of their traced hands) while listening to the reggae version of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.”

Monday December 25
Well folks I managed to have on ok Christmastime despite my computer being on the blink and being at my desk at the Board of Education thinking about how I was supposed to be ripping gift boxes to shreds…not staring blankly into the same page of a book that I’d already read over and over. The tip of my plug melted inside the socket on my computer. Luckily, I was able to put all 10 gazillion of my pictures on my desk nearly burning off my fingers in the process while holding the melting plug in place. When I got home from work, I went to work on my Christmas box...Thank you so much to everyone who sent me gifts and cards! I really enjoyed everything. I can't thank you enough for thinking about lil ol' me way over here!!!

Friday December 29
Off to Tokyo to hang out with Justin for about a week and a half. We exchanged gifts when I got there. Believe it or not, 75% of the gifts we bought each other were nearly identical!!! After that we headed out to eat Chinese food and do Purikura (Print Club photo booth pictures)!

Saturday December 30
Grocery shopping for New Year’s dinner. I brought black eye peas and seasonings that my parents sent with me from home. We walked around the mall near his house a bit and I caught up on movies! YAY!

Sunday December 31
New Year’s Eve…we met up with some of Justin’s friends for dinner near Tokyo Tower. Near midnight we made our way to (the Temple near Tokyo Tower) for the countdown. At midnight everyone released clear balloons with wishes tied to them. It was so beautiful…but anticlimactic! Where was all the hooping and hollering that I’m used to on New Year’s?!?!?! Answer: in Roppongi as we soon thereafter found out. We went to a multi-story club called Vanilla and hung out on the techno floor.

Monday January 1, 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
New Year’s Day Menu:
Black Eye Peas
Rice
Collard Greens
Neck Bones
All prepared by whom??? None other than yours truly! DE-LI-CIOUS!!! ( I surprised myself…I done did good for my first New Year’s meal!!!)

Tuesday January 2
Went to Odaiba to shop…futile! So we headed over to Asakusa, where I managed to get seriously lost when I was over here in 2003. It’s pretty much a flea marketish tourist trap where you can actually find some good souvenirs and stuff if you look well enough. After meandering around Asakusa we made our way to Akihabura, Tokyo’s premier electronics district. Although we didn’t buy any laser beam battering ray armbands or anything we did get some really good crepes from a mobile street stand! I had a choco/ banana/almond/whipped cream crepe Justin had a choco/ strawberry/whipped cream crepe. We wandered around stopping here and there to look at the occasional action figure...and Purikura!!!

Wednesday January 3
We stayed in because I woke up feeling terrible. It’s so nice to wake up when you wanna, make good homemade breakfast at noon, and watch South Park in pjs all day!

Thursday January 4
Went to Kawasaki in search of good buys…futile! It's not that I don't love Japanese clothes...it's just that the cool looking stuff is terrible quality and the quality stuff is terribly expensive...soooo...

Friday January 5
Went to Kamakura to see Daibutsu, The Great Buddha statue. We got a lot of great pictures and Justin had the famous purple sweet potato ice cream and I had a purple sweet potato croquette.

Saturday January 6
Michelle ( my roommate from Tokyo Orientation) had an overnight layover so we scooped her up and headed to Bamiyan for dinner. Bamiyan is a Chinese chain restaurant that I frequented back in 03 because it was right down the street from where I lived. Then it was off to find some...PURIKURA!!! Once home, we stayed up all night discussing conspiracy theories over South African Shiraz.

Sunday January 7
After getting Michelle to the station so that she could head home, we went on base to the NEX so that I could stock up on toothpaste, deodorant, hair color (in case I get bored…er got bored, and dyed my hair already!), soap, etc. Ms. Bridget sent me a really great Christmas box to Justin’s ship…THANK YOU! I wanted to buy a Nintendo DS but didn’t…then regretted it because coming back to a computerless home was killer! Not to mention having to sit in an office for 8 hours doing NADA!

Monday January 8
I woke up to the smells of breakfast…Wait what? BREAKFAST?! Justin cooked! I hadn’t been truly sad in a long time, but boarding the bus in Yokohama gave me a stomachache. I was not at all enthused to turn the key in my apartment door. For 11 days I had forgotten what it was like to be able to see your breath inside the house…not chilly…COLD! So I turned on my nearly empty kerosene heater and sat in front of it with a cup of tea…sigh.