Gagnon Family

Tokyo Dance Trooper

2008-02-20T05:34:00.000-08:00

Do you wanna know what Aaron does in Tokyo for a entertainment?? Check this out...this is just down the street from our house. The Japanese are so funny...they just don't know what to do when something is a bit unexpected...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bygdRMCwC6s&feature=related

Taiko Drumming

2008-02-20T05:11:00.000-08:00

This is a traditional Japanese drumming. In October, you saw i a picture of me giving the pig skin a pounding. This is a different group that came to Tara Grace's school. She got a chance to pound away for a minute or two. Can you see her looking at the camera from the corner of her eye? She is a bit conservative when it comes to getting up in front of a group. Initially you may think listening to a bunch of drums would get old, it is really a great show!

JACOB

2008-02-20T02:52:00.000-08:00

Jacob had a few fun things over the last couple of weeks. The third grade did a body percussion musical. They used snaping, rubbing their hands together, clicking their tounges, to produce the various stages of a rainstorm. In the school theater it was really cool. The did a good job flowing from one sound to the next. It started out as a little drizzle and slowly progressed to a full thunderstorm. It sounded great. Hopefully you can get the idea and don't get too motion sickness from my expert filming skills.

Jacob also participated in the Cub scout's Pinewood Derby. If you don't really know what it is or even if you do... check out My uncle Rob's editorial in the Gwinett Daily Post. He is a great writer and has an extreamly entertaining sence of humor! Here is the link. Read the one about "Fathering Skills Barely on track" Feb 03
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/main.asp?sectionID=12&SubSectionID=55&TM=10799.65

Jacob participated this year and his car got 6th place out of 33! He did pretty well. Like Nathan (Rob's son)...Jacob had more fun in the game than in glory of victory or agonony of defeat....maybe we will have to send him to Rob's house for some character molding...

Jacob's car is the red one....

Valentines!!!

2008-02-13T22:44:00.000-08:00

Don't you just love Valentines Day? It is a not very stressful, very few expectations. It really is one of my favorite holidays. We make heart shaped chocolate ice cream sandwiches (which after the annual sugar free month--I am really on a sugar high eatting those!!), leave things on our friends's door steps, make valentines for 80 plus kids in four plus classrooms....but it is all fun!!! For me Valenines feels like I am tossing a welcome mat for spring!! I hope spring is near in Tokyo too! One of the traditions that we do for Valentines is Heart Attacking. We do a few variations but this is one I like. The kids wake up on Valentines to complimentary hearts all over their door.

It is nice to really think of multiple positive characteristic of each of my childern individually. Some years some childern require more time thinking of ways to fill up that door than others....but it always makes me really think about the things I really enjoy about them!!

Another Valentine traditions that is .....well...mostly annually.... is this valentine party. We invite a few couples to our house and I make what I hope will be a nice dinner. The wonderful words for the invitation are my sister Tara's. I always say that she is an artist with words. I can just tell her my ideas and the "feeling" I would like to portray and she nails it everytime with her poetry.
It says :
Cupid has struck at our house, You are invited and so is your spouse
We're having a movie party and dinner for you, We'll celebrate Valentines Day two by two
Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, always brought love to the picture show,
Bring the movie that has your favorite scene, Have it "cued" (yea, we have used this for a few years....) and we will play it on our screen
We'll all go home with cupid's love dust in the air
Hope you and your Valentine will be there...

See isn't she good!!??
Everyone is invited to bring a favorite romantic movie with a favorite scene picked out. After everyone has arrived and has had a few appetizers and we sit down at the table.

I usually have little hearts next to the gift box at each place on the table. The hearts each have silly characteristics on them. Everyone has to "act" them out without telling others what their "thing" is. Some of the things we have done are :
*you have a different laugh everytime you laugh
* you think you are Elvis
*you are obsessed with Pink and want to talk about PINK,
* each time you hear anyone mention PINK you break out in song
You could do ANYTHING!!! It really does end up being funny.

After dinner, we eat dessert on the couch and watch a few love scences. This year we watched clips from Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Pride and Predjudice, Walk the Line and The Jerk. It is really a fun party.

This year our menu was:
Ginger Glazed Chicken Bites
Baked Camembre in Phyllo dough

Velvety Asparagas Soup
Goat Cheese Salad
Scallops in a creamy chive sauce
Mini heart shaped chocolate cheese cakes for dessert.

I will try to be better and take more pictures next time!!!

As for our family valentines....we do the cuting and pasting and folding just like you. I am still working on the documenting part of being an official"blogger" In my furry to make it a cute, fun and memorable activity I forget to take the pictures!!! Then I think AWW MANNNN that would have been good on the blog...BUT Tammie, Cindy, Amie, Brandi and Kelli are inspiring me with their take on life and how to share it!!! I aspire to be more like YOU!!!

Here is One thing you may not do is decorate your toilet paper!!! In Japan I found decorative toilet paper. So we even have happy v-day hineys at our house!! tee hee!!

She thinks my tractor's sexy!!

2008-01-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

The kids had the day off on Friday. It was fun to hang out and have fun. Git yer foot tap'n and turn the volume up high, so you can hear!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNsoBNiP17c

Omochi Pounding

2008-01-22T22:10:00.001-08:00

Tara Grace's class did Omochi pounding today. It is sticky rice that is soaked in water over night. The they put it in these big wooden "bowls" and literally pound it. It is a tradition early in the new year. When it is done it is like a dough--kind of....It is really thick and sticky.
The kids traditionally dressed for some omochi pounding.
In between poudning they soak the mallets in water.
Then when it is done, they eat it. It may be wrapped in seaweed like sushi or rolled in something that looks like corn meal, but tastes more like peanutbutter. One had some kind of tiny rasin-looking beans and was a bit sweet tasting (Tara, I am sure it had NO sugar in it!!! so don' worry about me!!!)
It does not really look tastey, but it is pretty good. The kids really like it!!

The tradition is to welcome good luck and happiness into the new year. Everyone is yelling something like "Yusho" over and over again. I asked one of the Japanese moms what it means. She said something like "cheer up". So have a look at Tara Grace giving it a try....

Below is the professional demonstration...I keep waiting for that man on the side to get wacked with that big o' mallet...

Snow in Tokyo!!!

2008-01-22T21:31:00.000-08:00

The Georgia Snow arrived in Tokyo today!! Yeah!! It has snowed for the entire day, but there is hardly any on the ground. These pictures are all on my way to Tara Grace's school....

A corner in an area called Harajuku (yeah, like the Gwen Stefani song). The billboard is a GAP ad on the GAP store.

This is the edge of Yoyogi Park, close to our house.
There is a Cemetary in the background

The Grocery Store

2008-01-22T04:16:00.000-08:00

So Aaron and I decided we did not want to make the hour trip to Costco this morning so we would just get what we needed at the local grocery store. Here were are just a couple of blocks from our house SITTING in traffic. UGH!! This is unfortunatly so very common. It was cold and I did not wear my hat and gloves since we were driving or I would have jumped out of the car and walked to the store and met him there. CRAZY!! Isn't the view lovely?!! HA! We ended up spending most of our day runnig from one store to the next to get the list..Oh well you got some pictures to see now....

These pictures below were taken at "the cheep grocery store". I have to go to three or four different places to get all of the things on the list. But I will describe the process at OK discount grocery. I can actually park there. This is a novelty, but we like to go there for several reasons. One is that I can park there ~which when I am "stocking up" for our family of 6 is a nice thing. We also like to go ther because the prices are better than a lot of other places. As I pull up to the grocery store. There is usually a man standing there on the street. He very often is holding a sign. You see, there are only about 10 parking places at OK. If you don't have one, there are not many other places to park. I assume the sign says "full" or something like that?? But rememeber I am just guessing. It all looks like chicken scratch to me... If I really lucky, he me pull into the "lot" and wait, but even then there is only room for one car to wait. If it is full I have to do a few laps around the area in hopes that someone is finishing up at the ol' OK. If it is full and I am luck, my friend in uniform will direct me into the waiting spot. When someone leaves, another man in uniform working in the lot and not on the street will wave his arms and white gloved hands to usher me into my coveted parking spot. He will then push a button on the parking machine, walk over to me and with his white gloved hands very politey greet me with a slight bow (it sounds polite anyway) and wave his arms as if I were a queen of sheba and direct me to the entrance of the store. Once inside, I immediately go to the escalator downstairs. The only thing on the floor I have just walked onto is the four or five cash registers. So down I go to get myself a shopping cart. And you must not really think of the shopping carts at the super Walmart or at Publix, no no no!!! These carts have baskets that I first pick up and then put on the my cart. There are all kinds of things you will observe about this grocery experience. Above is our shopping cart. The baskets are picked up separately from the cart. So you could just carry the basket around like you do at Target when you do have alot of stuff to buy. The bottom "basket" is ours we brought from home. It collapses down and so is nice to use in the car or anywhere. We ar just making use of every spot on the tiny cart. NO ONE buys this much stuff...even at Costco they walk out with three or four items in their cart. We are quite a sight and turn many heads with our load. Especially as I take pictures as I am walking through the store...
Octopus and Squid---pretty average stuff, egh??
Can somebody tell me what aisle the Cheerios are on PLEASE?!!

I have not idea what this is or what most of the stuff is in the store ...

This I see stuff everywhere...it is some kind of dried fish...there are hundereds of the ENTIRE fish is in this bag.

Below is one of the many interesting vegetables we see at the Japanese grocery stores. I dont really know what this is, but I have tasted it. It is pretty good...

Below are pickled plums...wanna bite?

Above is a cooler of fish staring at the shoppers as they just lay there on the ice. I did not take any of them home...I guess we could have gotten a new pet??'

You know how the Japanese are big on handbags. Well I think they are so in to any kind of bag...they are just BAG people...NO they are package people. They are so garabage concious but you get packages inside of packages. Every thing is packaged....Apples each individually wrapped (see the price at the "cheep" grocery store about 186 yen per apple that is about $1.86 for one apple AT THE CHEEPEST store around!!??)

Below is another example...this is mayonaise. Two different kinds on the shelves. The bottle of mayonaise is then put in a package.

I just took a picture of my groceries on my kitchen counter so you could see EVERYTHING is in a package...asparagus, bellpeppers, green onions, bananas, cilantro, lettuce---everything

New Years at Meji Shrine

2008-01-02T03:52:00.000-08:00

Praying at the foot of the alter of the shrine on January 2nd for the New Year. It does not usually have the white barrier you see or the orange cones. That is just because of the emmense number of people that come to visit. They even have a GIGANTIC tv screen to watch as you stand in line to get to the foot of the shrine...how nice of them. Again this is a time when I was closer to people I don't know than I could ever imagine being before I moved to Tokyo.....but when in Rome.....
Here you are suppose to wash your hands and rinse your mouth. I think it has too do with making your self clean for the Gods??

Crowds of people go to the shrine for New Years. It is the Japanese tradition to go to the Shrine and pray to the Gods for a properous new year. This is one of the most visited shrines in Tokyo and we can just walk there. We had to go....Aaron said it would be like living in New York City and never going to see the big apple drop...something you just have to do see at least once...We were just standing in the middle of the crowds of people and Aaron held up the camera and took a picture of the people behind us.
SOOO many people

Here they buy these boards and write their wishes for the New Year and leave them for the Gods to make happen
If the get a 'bad' fortune, they will fold it properly and tie it on one of these lines...here are many fortunes that people do not want to come true...

Skiing the day after Christmas

2007-12-26T03:42:00.000-08:00

Guma for skiiing the day after Christmas was Perfect! The weather was beautiful and the slopes and the snow were not overly crowed. It was beautiful!!!
Jacob warming up the slopes!!
Wendy the snow bunny.... ha ha ha!!! I spent most of the time on my hiney!!
Aaron was the pro of the bunch!! Cloe was so brave and amazing as she went down the "beginner" slope. It was really steep and quite a challenge for a first time skiier!!
Preston, Tara Grace and Jacob having fun in the snow

Christmas Day in Tokyo

2007-12-25T03:33:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas !!!!
The kids anxiously waiting for the OK to come downstairs ...
Look what Santa brought!!!
We even had our Traditional Christmas day SOUTHERN breakfast...even in Tokyo

Traditional Christmas Story Party

2007-12-23T03:24:00.000-08:00

The Frazier family brought a great Japanese Christmas story to share with us. It was about a boy growing up in Japan. His mother had grown up in the US and so she was introducing her son to Christmas with a bonsai tree and paper cranes. it is called A TREE OF CRANES.
Aaron reading from Luke 2
Not so traditionally at this event, but we ended with a game of SEQUENCE. After a few brief intstructions, here is another family of Sequence lovers!!

Christmas Break!! Odawara

2007-12-15T03:06:00.000-08:00

Odawara Castle~our second castle find. We were on our way to Hakone and saw a sign for a "jo" which we have quickly learned is castle. We got off our trek and made a stop here. It was a really cool stop.
There is the hut outside the castle for us all to pick a samari and samari-et?? outfit and take pictures. It was fun. Aaron makes a great samari warrior, don't you think?? The funniest thing was each of the boys, including Aaron had REAL swords with their get'ups?? That would never happen in the US!!!

Once we made it to Hakone, we went to an Open Air Museum. It was amazing. It was so fun for all of us to play on the "art work" and sculptures. This is called a net castle. You can actually climb up in the net and climb around. The hanging bits are balls inside the netting that you can climb on too. See dont you want to come and visit!! There are some cool things to see.
In the Open Air Museum there is a hot foot bath. This is all from natural springs. It was sooo cold outside, but we stripped our shoes and socks off and enjoyed the 95 degree hot springs. It was great fun in Hakone.

SUMO

2007-12-12T03:19:00.000-08:00

Minami is in our ward here in Tokyo. He is from Tonga. We went to see him practice Sumo at the sumo "stable". We went with the Pappenfuss family. They have 5 childern. All 9 of the kids were absolutely SILENT throughout the entire hour of the practice. We wondered why they aren't that quiet at chruch on Sundays?? You can completely tell the hierarchy with the sumo wrestlers and they all are strickly obedient/subservient to the master trainer. We were just few feet away from the wresters. They yell and slap their legs as they are training. Initially it is really quite intimidating. I will post more pictures from sumo soon...

Aaron's Crazy Office Party

2007-12-10T21:56:00.000-08:00

This is at Aaron's office Christmas party. The entire family was invited to come. It was exciting for us bring the whole gang along. Every single minute of the party was planned and organized. It started at exactly 6:30 and ended promptly at 9:30 when the lights were turned up and everyone filed out to collect their coats...just like that.... There were many performances all done by E&Y employees. Some other performances were more "normal" for an office party, but this you see in the pictures was nuts and so of coarse more interesting to share with you!! As you can see a couple from photo there are a couple of the men that stripped down to their undies and one was wearing a crazy afro wig. They had this chorographed dance and all of the "performers" were in step....it was very interesting. Right before 9:30, a group went up on the stage and tossed the boss in the air a few times and everyone called it a night.....It looks like this is a typical Japanese Christmas Office Party??? In general on the streets and in public the Japanese are very reserved, polite and quiet. The tend to dress in very neutral colors, similar to eachother...and typically seem to try to blend in and not to make noise or wear anything that would make them stand out. Perhaps these situations give them the opportunity to be in the spotlight and then they break loose.........or bust a move or loose their pants or heads or who know????

Happy Bday Preston/Carolling in Shibuya

2007-12-08T02:46:00.000-08:00

It was Preston's 11th birthday and a year for a family party. Typically this means...family at the party, fun, maybe a bit better gifts since not as much fun and effort is going into the party. Preston's new friend Timothy is moving away at the end of the school year. So Preston very logically presented his case for Timothy to come over and Leim too of coarse. We had a low key celebration. But I think it was exactly what Preston wanted...
As a church Stake...four wards/congregations of youth were invited to get together and go carolling in one of the busiest train stations in Tokyo. It was really neat event. Remember that Japan is not a Christian society. There are trees and decorations for Christmas, but typically not in celebration of Christ, but simply to be festive and the retailers hope for increased sales as the Asians begin to "celebrate" by buying more and maybe giving a girlfriend or boyfriend a gift. It was explained to me as being a bit like Valentines for the US...a nice holiday for couples to go out and buy gifts...So here are 60 or so mostly non-Asian looking people in a very busy area of Tokyo on a Friday evening singing Christmas carols. It was amazing to watch the reactions of passerbys. Some would take their earphones out of their ears as they passed by just to hear what it was we were doing, some would stop and listen at length, flowers were bought and given to us, some people would just look at us from the corner of their eyes, some would openly smile, but most were really curious to say the least. We were able to share some of the true spirit of Christmas. The missionaries and other Japanese speakers were there. Many of the kids were handing out pamphlets about the church and Christ. It was really fun to see Cloe and some of her friends slowly get over their hesitation about approaching people to hand them a pamphlet to the point that when we decided to wrap it up, they did not want to stop. It was great!!

DISNEY Tokyo Take 2

2007-12-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

Aaron just HAD to check Disney off of his list of things to do so here we go to try Disney for a second time. We were told about this web site that we could check the attendance from the prior year. It worked for us!! This was a great time!!! Right from the entrance..........Jacob gets the proper attention from Smee. It was all in all a great Disney experience....a stark contrast from our first visit ....thank goodness!! The boys and I got to ride Space Mountain (several times), Thunder Mountain, and all of us enjoyed the Halloween Haunted House, Pirates of the Carribean (twice!), It's a Small world, etc...it was a great time!
Aaron and his most compatible character....
Spinning Tea cups Cloe, Preston and Jacob

Back to Tokyo

2007-12-01T02:29:00.000-08:00

We had a driver and a extra big van pick us up from the airport in Tokyo. As you can see we did a little bit of shopping while in Georgia. We hardly had room to sit in the van with all of the luggage. He was so patient as we loaded our CHRISTMAS tree into the van.....YES...we bought an aritifical, pre lit tree. The real ones are more that $400 in Tokyo and the artificial ones are expensive and not as nice as what we were seeing in the US. We checked into sending it by mail...it was $600 to ship. SOOOO we just brought it with us on the plane. It only cost us $100. The airport people did not even blink. It was unbelievably easy....our trip home really could not have gone better. We were prepared for all kinds of problems, but it was perfectly smooth. Even with a Christmas tree in tow.....

Being with Family for Thankgiving was such a treat. We were all feeling a bit homesick. Missing a week and four days of school was a bit of a challenge for the kids upon returning, but it all turned out well. We love Georgia and our friends and family there. It was nice to come back to Tokyo......being away and then comeing back made it feel more like home....it was a good thing for us all...
One of the first events after getting back was Winterfest....a huge school sponsored event. One thing we did was the kimono dressing. This is Tara Grace all made up and ready in her kimono.
The kids are all dressed in age appropriate attire. The kids wear different kimonos and things are tied differently based on their age....how cool.....

Visiting with Family and Friends in Georgia

2007-11-10T02:15:00.000-08:00

AnnaLea choreographed a wonderful show with many of the cousins. It was so fun!
ANT NEESIE was gracious enough to allow Cloe to have two of her sisterhood friends over to spend the night during our visit. This is Abbie, Sarah and Cloe.
Kelli cutting into her fabulous cheese cake!! One of her many delicious concoctions.
Tara and Tawni....who do you think is more excited about the princesses???
The traditional sequence tourney....if only I had gotten a pic of when they had two games going on this table. If you got a picture of it, I would love to have one!! Here is Rob and Aaron....the absolute LEAST competitive of the bunch...

Thanksgiving in Georgia

2007-11-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

It may look like Christmas, but Santa came to see us in GA on Thanksgiving!! In fact Grandpa Gagnon is one of Santa's helpers this year!! He is also knowns as Santa Bob!! Here he is with the grandkids!
The sister in laws could not resist a photo op with Santa too!!
THE BROTHERS with Santa
Tara and River...hanging out at Denise's--our annual day after Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. It was so fun!
One of our family gatherings was at the Higginbothams....Janessa (my cousin) got her mission call to Madrid, Spain. It was so cool that we were all able to be there when she opened her letter to see where in the world she would go...she will report to the Misson Training Center in early 2008.

Grandad

2007-11-08T01:33:00.000-08:00

In November Grandad died. We found out on Thursday and hopped on a plane headed for Atlanta on Friday. I miss him. Eric did such a fantastic job with the eulogy. I laughed, cried and just generally loved the whole thing. It was so great!! Grandad has left us each with such a legacy of missionary work, family first, the undeniable value of relationships, service to others...and so much more. If you have a favorite memory to share or want to post one of Grandad's personal cliche's, just leave a comment here. DON'T FORGET!!

Disney BUST

2007-11-05T01:10:00.000-08:00

In October the kids had a few days off. We had been told that these days were not a Japanese holidays so they would be good days to go to Disney World. OH MY!! Was that ever the wrong info...It was a total BUST!! We waited a bit to buy tickets...not too uncommon right??!!When we got inside....ugh! There were lines to get into the lines....The Characters were there with lines to say hello to them. Jacob really likes Smee from Peter Pan. We followed him around (not too popular of a character so he should not be too difficult, right??). He was totally ignoring us. Everytime we got close he would pose with someone else and turn his back to us. We gave up and told Jacob just to pose in the area of Smee and this is the best we could come up with.... The people you see in the photo above beside Smee are not actually park employees. It was Halloween and so I think everyone felt obligated to dress up too....
Look at the numbers of people. There was a wait for about 2 hours and 20 minutes for Pirates of the Carribean. We did not ride one ride...BUST!!!!!!!!!!At least we left early enough that we were able to go out to lunch and enjoy the rest of the day at home relaxing.

Feeding the Tokyo Homeless

2007-11-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

I am the room mom for Preston's 5th grade class. Every year they do what they call the ASIJ Rice Project. Each grade takes a turn making rice balls with pickled plums in the center of them, sounds tastey, huh?!! They are called onigiri. On this Friday, Preston's class mates took turns coming into the faculty lounge and making the onigiri. They made hundreds of them. On the following Saturday we had the opportunity to go and help distribute the onigiri beside another organization that feeds the homeless each Saturday. I am told that the government claims there is no homeless problem in Tokyo so the churches and other charity minded organizations offer help and relief as they can.

On Saturday, we were not prepare for what we saw. There were hundreds and hundreds of homeless men. I don't know why there were no women, but there weren't... Aaron took Cloe and Tara Grace to Cloe's soccer game. So Preston, Jacob and I took about 125 onigiri on the train to get to Ueno Park. I had two big brown bags each of the boys had one. After a while the bags got really heavy, as you can imagine. We had to change trains a couple of times and then walk quite a ways to get to the park. I had to "ask" this older Japanese woman "Ueno Park?" The Japanese people are really so nice and willing to help...we could not really communicate in words, but we both got the idea and she walked us almost the entire way...When we got there all of our arms were tired and aching. The boys were able to pass out the rice balls with some of the other ASIJ students. It was very organized..the men were all in very straight lines and very polite. Many of the men were clean and well groomed, many were not so. The picture above is outside the park (we were asked in respect for the homeless not to take photos of them). The rolling carts with tarps are their belongings. They just push them around. After distributing all the onigiri and being relieved of the heavy bags, Jacob, Preston and I had our own parable come to life...serving others literally lightened our burdens!! On our way home we felt lighter in more than one way.......

Tokyo - out and about a little bit

2007-11-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

This is what we call a SQUATER...for reason that you can...well see...this is the typical public toilet..fun stuff!!I guess we see these 30-40 percent of the time. I think the Japanese like the "western" toilets better too. There are also the very high tech toilets too. Japanese are really facinated with toilets. It is crazy to walk in a large public bathroom. You quite likely will find stalls with toilets like these here, as well as "western toilet stalls, they will have urinals tucked away in a corner for the mothers that may bring their young sons in the bathroom with them...I guess this is to make them feel more comfortable in the ladies' bathroom...I haven't figured it all out yet...but bathrooms too are a whole new culture in Japan....
Many...I may even venture to say MOST of the young hip Japanese men carry what we refer to as a MAN BAG...I keep trying to get Aaron to get one whenever he hands me his "stuff" to put into my woman bag.....he has not jumped on board yet....I will keep you posted on that...
DRIVING....OH MY!! What an adventure...As I drive on the left/wrong side of the road...something happens to my brain...It is just weird...I don't know the difference between the blinker and the windshield wipers ( I am constantly turning one on for the other...they are on opposite sides). There is tons of traffic, but not only other cars...we deal with hundreds of pedestrians on the route to the pre- school or church. There are moped, motorcyclists, bicyclists, and of coarse taxis ---they are a breed of drivers all by themselves....The signs are in "English"-- sort of and Japanese. Thank goodness Aaron sprung for a navigation...I don't think I would go ANYWHERE here without it!!! The highway is about 10 stories high through the city. So as you travel along the highway you are looking at buildings several stories high and it has a very limited access. It is like a bit like being on a very long bridge with few opportunities to get off the bridge. There are then the surface streets. Of coarse there are also the underground roads. These road go over or under the surface streets to avoid the traffic lights and intersections. SOOO as you go down the road there are exits on your left and right, going up and down. ...The navigation will sometimes say "take the 2ND right". It does not mean take the second road on your right...it means as you are in the intersection and there are more than one way to turn RIGHT....it is just nuts!!

There poles in the tarmac...not on the sidewalk or off the road but right there in what seems to be the driving path..go figure!! On any given street the left lane seems to be for "parking". When the blue collar workers, taxi drives, delivery people, etc need a nap sometime during their work day, they pull their car, van, taxi, delivery truck over in the left driving lane and PARK there ....It really feels a bit like the game FROGGER.?? ANYWAY.......THEN.....You get lights like the one you see here above...OH MY...what in the world am I supposed to do here!!??? Driving is crazy...The first couple of times out by myself, I came home and had to lie down on the couch and rest my eyes for a few minutes.....Driving is a new culture of its own....

Halloween

2007-10-31T01:51:00.000-07:00

This is our house at Halloween. I have never seen such a celebration!! We passed out more that 1500 peices of candy. Our entire street was packed with Halloweeners. We had the Ison's (moved to Tokyo from Atlanta, but "from" Seattle") and the Cohen's (from Baltimore, Maryland) come over to our house and enjoy the fun. We all had chili and sat on our balcony watching the crowds, with our Monster Mash Mix blarring, and the kids handing out the candy...what could be better??

This is not downtown Tokyo's night life. This is from our front balcony looking onto the street! Quite an neighborhood event....

I have never seen a Halloween Celebration like this one before!!

Tara-Grace's Birthday

2007-10-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

Happy 5th Birthday Tara Grace!! For her birthday Tara Grace wanted to eat sushi. We went to one of these conveyor belt places. In the center the "chefs" made the sushi. Whenever we saw something that looked interesting, we just pulled it off the moving belt and began to enjoy. It was fun!!

A better view of the sushi conveyor belt.

Taiko Drumming Show....I am up there on stage in the back...it was really fun.. This was a class I took done through the Tokyo American Club (TAC). It is a three day class about living in Tokyo.

In Japan....EVERYONE is soo clean. This is a lady I saw (very common sight everywhere) on my way from dropping Tara Grace off at school. They sweep and wash the sidewalks in front of the houses and shops each morning.
Regular traffic--yes it is crowded!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cabin in Nagano - Continued

2007-10-04T21:39:00.000-07:00

Cloe, Jacob and Nathan Frazier out on the lake...

Some of our new Tokyo friends...Erika Treharn, her son Sam, on the left of Aaron and Jacob and on the right is Amie Frazier holding another friends' baby.
Snuggle-y in our cabin. This was the upstairs loft...

Cabin in Nagano

2007-10-04T21:30:00.000-07:00

Finally at our destination.... Clorisa and Tara Grace in front of our Cabin...it has no heat! We decided next year we would bring a space heater...
It was too dry to have a real fire so we made due with a little bucket fire. Here is Preston, Cloe and Tara Grace enjoying a little warmth.
Our cabin was right by the lake...it was so nice!
We went on a hike
And found this shrine...

More Castle pics

2007-10-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

This picture, because Aaron kept hitting his head..
Posing inside the castle:Clorisa, Tara Grace, Wendy, Preston and Jacob

Matsumoto Castle pictures

2007-10-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

Before going into the castle, in traditional Japanese style, we all had to take off our shoes...!!
From the bridge outside the castle. I love the red bridges.

Cabin out of Town (Mt Fuji and Matsumoto Castle)

2007-10-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

After a couple of months of crowds and city life, we had to see some nature and beauty. We went camping with several of our neighbors. They go every year. This is a photo of Mt. Fugi from the car. AWWW I felt like I could breath again!!!

This is a stop at a gas station/rest area. We got some Japanese snacks and stretched our legs
Matsumoto Jo~ our first Japanese Castle...It looks like we will continue our castle viewing in Asia

Tokyo Trains

2007-10-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

This is our local train station...It is called Yoyogi Uehara. We SUPPOSEDLY live "out" a bit?? We have a Tokyo address, but it is in a more "residential area."
The people getting on the train....or I should say squeezing on the train.
Here the guy is actually maneuvering the people and the doors because of how crowded it is. I have only personally been on a train this crowded once. I thought I was just going to laugh out loud. It is so crowded you are literal full body pressed against the next person. When people get on and off they just "politely" push others out of the way. It is unbelievible SILENT on the trains normally. So me holding my breath to not laugh at the akwardness of it all makes more sence maybe?? I don't think if I live here 100 years that I would ever stop being in awe of how crowded and squished the trains can be....and it is just normal and fine.........
I wish you could tell in this picture how smashed the people are on this train....crazy!!! That man on the left, his face is pressed up against the window door....not for the claustrophobic!!!

Jacob's feildtrip

2007-09-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

I went with Jacob on a field trip. This is the group that I was in charge of: Jacob, Esike, Evan and Colton. We went to the botanical gardens. It was really pretty.
I think one of the funniest things were all of the Japanese painstakenly taking pictures of the flowers...tripods, lights, close up....they are perfectionists!! and they love nature!!

Cloe's and Preston's Activities

2007-09-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

Summerland Field trip with Preston and the whole 5th grade. This was really neat. The whole purpose was on fun and building friendships. In such a mobile environment and people from all over the world, bonding and inclusiveness becomes an active ingredient in the school enviroment. It is GREAT!!!
Preston at Summerland
Happy 12th Birthday Cloe...
Cloe's first YW activity. It was a "make over" of sorts....fun stuff...

Shrine Sale

2007-09-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

I went on an outting with some ladies to a Shrine Sale (kind of like a flea market) in this town. The buildings in this town were not burned in the war. I have not seen very many really old buildings in Tokyo at all.

Japanese Temple Complex

2007-08-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

Our first Japanese outting was to a place called Akasaka. It it huge temple complex. Kind of intersting....

First Day of School

2007-08-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

First Day of school 2007
The kids have probably more that 60 people at their bus stop.
First day of school, I stayed at school for a little while with Tara Grace in reading corner. She warmed up pretty quickly.

Moving in

2007-08-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Preston
Preston and Jacob helping Dad put together some shelves for our storage room

Our Home in Tokyo

2007-08-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

This is the first view the kids had of our new house. They call it "the swimming pool house" not because we have a pool, no, no, but because of the tiny white tiles that cover the house. They say it looks like the tile from a swimming pool (I guess that is better than if they called it the bathroom house....same tiles!!)

Moving to Tokyo

2007-08-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

My sweet friend Cindy made these great travel books for each of the kids. It was fun for them to open their backpacks and find things to snack on and entertain them for the next 14 hours.

The kids pushing the luggage carts through the Atlanta Airport.

After a great summer we packed up ourselves and moved to Tokyo, Japan. The kids enjoyed the ride in the limo to the airport. There was hardly enough room for us once we put the luggage in the car.