Long Enough?

I’ve heard people say that sometimes blogging gets to be like a chore. Well, ain’t that the truth! Haha. Right now I’m standing outside of my English Composition classroom waiting for the professor. So far, I have all A’s in all of my classes. I like school.

I work at a hotel full time now, too. Between school and work I barely have any time off. Only a few hours here and there.

With my time off I have been board gaming on Wednesday nights. I also picked up a new hobby. I pole dance for fitness. I have built so much upper body strength that it’s insane. I really love it.

My husband was surprised when I put a pole up in the living room, but I really like how I can do it from home too. Its better to have somewhere to practice outside of class.

Well, the professor is here and I am going to go take my seat.

Again, like usual, sorry for going MIA.

Alex’s Take on Japan: Shinjuku, Shibuya & Harajuku

Here is Alex’s re-telling of our Japan Adventure, from his point of view. This is his second post.

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I think of all the days, no day made a bigger statement about life in the city. Our first day wandering the streets we were around small restaurants and shops. People roamed the streets but at no point did I ever really grasp the scale of the big city. Day three I think is what made the biggest impression on me. This is what life in the city is like. But before we get into that stuff let’s start with the morning.

We awoke at the crack of dawn. Which is not that big of a deal. Where I come from, when the sun is a good way up, you can tell it’s maybe 7:00 am. You can imagine our surprise to find the sun was nice a bright at 5:30 am. Our morning was filled with watching awful cartoon and shows teaching kids English. Great. With our limited knowledge of the language this was about all we could make sense out of. However, the hotel was nice enough to drop off a newspaper in English for us.

I am Going to be Very Busy

I have decided, finally, that I am going to start a business.

So I will be a business owner, full time student, and volunteer. Phew. This should be fun, right?

I already got my LLC filed. I am going to clean homes! I hope this takes off. I’ve done a lot of research and it seems that other cleaners in my area are not doing too bad, and I think I have a leg-up on them. For instance, I can afford to be a hare cheaper than them. I am already a legal business (some are not) and I have business insurance!

Wish me luck!

Later on today, I’m going to post a couple of other entries Alex has made about Japan.

Dominic Giovanni

It feels like it’s been ages, hasn’t it.

We welcomed a new baby in our family on Friday.

Alex’s Take on Japan: Part One

Hello! My husband has finally began writing about his experience in Japan! The counterpart to this entry, is mine from days 1 & 2 in Japan!

I’m going to preface this by saying this I hate just about everything that seems to be marketable over here in America that follows “Japanese trends.” I am not a fan of Anime, Manga, or Hello Kitty. One of these is unavoidable. I do like video games. I also like SNSD… Yes I know they are Korean and let’s keep this knowledge between you and me, Internet. I did visit Nintendo’s world HQ. I know spoilers, right? (Note from Alyse: there are no spoilers, they’ve probably all read about the vacation already.) But this was something I was more expected to do, rather than a stepping stone in my life.

Changing Things up a Bit

/EDIT! The giveaway is posted. I have a page for it set up!

Good afternoon everyone. I know I tweeted about Alex writing a small story his take on Japan.

But…

He has decided to write an entire series of each day! This is good because he is more of a humorous writer than I am, and he is remembering some things that I didn’t. So I will be posting his own series, under his own name. I hope you will like it!

Also, I will be doing personal posts still, but not quite like I have been. If you want to see more of my day-to-day life, like the cute onigiri I made for my friends and I yesterday, the follow me on Twitter or my Facebook page. I will be using those much, much more. Side note: It was irrationally difficult to get it to update Twitter and Facebook at the same time when posting from my phone! Phew.

**** I WILL BE HAVING A 2-PRIZE GIVEAWAY TO PROMOTE MY FACEBOOK PAGE AND MY TWITTER ****

I just felt that my personal posts have been too image-heavy and lacking in a good subject, and consistency.

So, from now on I want the personal posts to be relevant to the subject of this blog, hehe. Getting to school, and getting to Japan!

My hubby and I ordered the Genki books, but they are going to take forever to get here because I’m such a cheapskate! He is excited to learn with me and I’ve been making him say things in Japanese. Like when he said he was going to go eat something, I made him say, 「何か食べます。」

So please please please! Follow me on Twitter and Facebook! I will be updating very, very regularly! And I’m also posting a sneak peak at the giveaway prizes!

Our Japan Trip Directory

I kept this list for myself, as a resource. I figured I could share it though, so if anyone wanted to learn more about any aspect of our trip, then you can! It’s all the different places, companies, etc that we visited. Unfortunately, it’s incomplete, as we didn’t make a note of each and every restaurant, or shop we wandered into.

Serious question, please, readers, all of you answer!!

I’m making a brand new layout, and my plan is to have it 1300 pixels wide.

What resolution do you guys use? If there are a lot of people on smaller than 1300px wide, I will have to change things up.

Thank you!

PS: Here’s a preview of the layout! Any feedback?

Fish, a Park & a Manmade Island. Followed by Our Last Japanese Breakfast.

Well, this is it, friends. This is the last day I will be posting about from my vacation to Japan. I feel like it’s the vacation ending all over again. I have to apologize in advance, the lighting was not very good at Tokyo Sea Life, and I don’t have very good photography skills, so those photos are not of very good quality. x_x But I hope you like them any way!

There will be two (or three) more posts in this series. I want to share some invaluable online resources I used to plan the trip, and I also want to show you the insane amount of souvenirs we bought! I also think I may make a tiny post about the craziness that ensued from March 11, 2011 (the earthquake and tsunami) and April 1, when we left.

A tip to anyone traveling anywhere: Pack your second-to-largest luggage full of your clothes and whatnot, and then shove that into your largest luggage. That way you’re really bringing one empty luggage and one full, but only being charged by your airline for one! So if you buy anything you know you have plenty of room for it, haha! I am so glad someone told me this before we went!

Oh! I also have my photos configured all pretty-like! I love how it looks with the border, so I think I might take the time to change it up on all of my older posts, too. I just love consistency.

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Day 10: Tokyo Sea Life, Kasairinkai Koen & Odaiba

Makeover Time!

I’m giving my blog a much-needed makeover. It’s coming very, very soon. I threw this look together in a matter of minutes back in December, and it was supposed to be temporary. It’s time for something newer, and better.

Other than that, the only other news is I ordered my Genki books. I got Genki I, and the workbook and answer key! Time to get to business!

Keeping with regularity, my husband is still deeply researching how life would be in Japan. I’m so impressed with him. We decided that if we go together, Tokyo is out of the picture. We both would love to live in Hakone, or another town that’s very close to Tokyo, but we want the benefits of being close to the city, and the lower living costs of being outside of the city.

What towns should we look into? Is Mitaka any cheaper than Tokyo?

 

EDIT! I’ve done the makeover, and I’ve cleaned up my sidebar. It’s not exactly how I want it to look, but once I get my own domain and server space, I will be using WordPress.org, and I will have so much more control over this site.