Fall in Japan

We went from hot to cold this Autumn in Numazu.  We hiked on Sunday to Mt. Kannuki and saw some leaves changing but not much.  Januck was happy to find two Geocaches.  It is nice to have a car to drive to Seiyu (which is the Japanese Walmart) to grocery shop.  We bought a rice container because Januck makes rice every day in our rice pot for our lunches.
This week we have school all week.  Thanksgiving is not celebrated here and most of my students have never tasted turkey.  I am relieved I don't feel pressured to shop on Black Friday.  Things are a lot simpler here but there are things about the States I do miss.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Only In Japan Episode VIII

Okinawa

I recently went to Okinawa which is an island off of Japan. It was amazing and the island itself was beautiful. Our first hotel was right by the ocean so we had amazing view of the beach and we were able take a dip in the water the first day. We had so many activities all crammed into one day so it was very busy but overall fun! We went kayaking and some went snorkeling and we got to go into caves which were pitch black. Also, the food was nice and the ice-cream flavors were interesting like coconut and shikwasa, which is a type of Okinawan fruit. All in all, 3 days felt like a year and I wish we could've stayed there forever.

-Alex Polikaitis

Bad Cold

This cold sucks. I started to feel it on Monday. Took vitamins and got medicine from the doctor. It progressively got worse as the week went on and now it's Saturday and it feels like my head is about to explode. Hopefully two day of rest will help me shake this thing.

Epic Fail!!!!!

This was my feeble attempt at getting video of one of the sumo wrestlers as he came to the tournament. It is so cool because the higher ranked wrestlers come to the arena by car or taxi and the fans are roped off but can see them as they come in. Unfortunately, I installed the new iPhone operating system that morning and hadn't gotten the hang of it yet!

Sumo Today!

We are heading to Tokyo today to watch the September Sumo Tournament! It should be a lot of fun!

This is Hakuho who is the Grand Champion. He is 6-0 and is leading in the tournament. Can't wait to watch him win!

Stocks

Who knew? We wanted to transfer some money into Alex's custodial stock account with Sharebuilder. Little did we know that you have to be a resident in the U.S. to use the service we've been using for 10 years. They told us that they have to shut down all of our accounts and we need to find a brokerage firm here in Japan to transfer our stocks into. Yeah right, like we'll be able to do that since everything here is in English...NOT! Spending my Sunday trying to find an international brokerage firm and it has not been easy. All of the U.S. firms require that you live in the U.S.