Homeless cats...

This was quite a spectacle, a homeless guy(not in pic) had a cart of
cats, he was pulling the cats out of these boxes, one of the boxes was
a litter box, and he had 1 dog too...

Happy Jeff

Is it bad to air your CLEAN laundry?

Haha, just a joke... We have 3 more piles to do though, so this could
take a while... Better stay on top of it!

Laundry day...

We only get cold water wash and have to hang dry... The Japanese don't
like wasting energy I guess :) there is a laundry matt down the street
though, if we need a big dryer, and also a dry cleaner near by too...

Best snack find so far!

Yum!

Night Glow

Headed into shin-saibashi shopping area to find a music store for
jeff...

Not sure

On our way to ECC... Someday we'll find out...

ECC Headquarters in Namba, Osaka.

We can get here in 10 minutes from our place... Sweet! Considering it
takes others up to an hour!

So...

This is the view from our back porch and our bedroom. Notice all the
delivery trucks... Well it's great being located in a mall, but not so
great when they are delivering produce and such at 5am! Sounds like a
recycling center out there! This morning I actually slept through it
but jeff wasnt so lucky:(

Done with day two of training

We had a good day today! After training we stopped and got raman, yum!
Time to go relax at home.

First day of training

We had a good first day. We learned a lot about ECC and filled out
various forms. We are in a class with 8 other people, from the US,
Australia, Britain, and Canada. Pretty cool group.

Tonight we have some reading to do, and then we meet at a school
tomorrow.

We're snagging Internet in a mall like place attached to the subways
now. We probably look funny.

More later...

Sent from my iPhone

Our walk to the subway

We walk through here everyday when we exit or get on the subway. It's
pretty nice that you can walk underground and look at pretty things in
the shops...

America, take notice.

When we get back and order iced tea, please offer liquid sweetener
like they do here in Japan. No one wants to wait for the crystal
sugar to melt in ice cold water. Really.

Namba Parks view

Normally I'm not so into malls (unlike jeff) but this mall is pretty
rad. The majority of stores are way too expensive, but they also have
tons of places to eat and the atmosphere is really nice! Not to
mention the fancy bathrooms with top of the line toto toilets and the
free wifi we found too :)
Check it out here:
http://www.nambaparks.com

Mos Burger + free wifi = we'll be back!

Candy Blog Update

This candy looked interesting. It contained 12 little packets of candies that look brown. The packets has astrological signs on them. They were chocolate flavored candy, but not chocolate itself. Weird!!

Karaoke... Round 1!!!

Last night we tried out some karaoke! After a bit of trouble we
figured it out and rocked out for 2 hours! It was so fun! Unlimited
drinks and fun!!!

Oh Sexxxy Boyfriend!!!

Kanpai!

Kanpai!

Why Japanese kids are so good...

A possible theroy, nintendo DS. I snuck this pic in a mall home store.
Parents are happy shopping and kids couldn't care less.. Haha
Also later that day when we walked out we saw a dad depants his liitle
3 year old son with the other son laughing... So funny! Good humor is
key.

New bed padding

Our bed sucks! 2 nights on that thing and something had to change...
We went to a reccomended home store and got this padding which we hope
does the trick! Our housing agent picked us up the bedding you see
now, pretty cute but like 50 thread count... We're so spoiled in the US.

Fanta World Grapefruit

Check out our new video:

First sushi experience!

So after the tako-yaki didn't go so well we headed down a popular side mall and found an inviting sushi place. On Japanese people were in there but the staff told us to come in so we did. We sat down and tried to order sake- salmon sushi.. We said yes to something the chef asked us and were brought warm sake to drink.. Haha. It was good anyway. Then we ordered salmon sushi by pointing to a picture and jeff got ebi- shrimp sushi. It was delisious! I got a cucumber roll which was loaded with sinus blowing wasabi!
The guy sitting next to us wanted to talk to us, but it was tough, he thought we were Australian.. We said American and Seattle. Since most people know Ichiro plays there.. He understood . Then asked us if we were related or married... Jeff figured this out some how and pointed to his ring and they understood... Funny stuff! That question hast come up in a long time!
We are dying to learn some Japanese as smiling and nodding only go so far...
We still don't have Internet, so were in the same mall we wrote from yesterday..
More soon!
M

Our new camera

Today we went to Den Den Town in Osaka. It is the electronics area of
the city. We ended up using some tax refund money today... This
camera has a sensor that takes the photo once the person smiles. :D
We hope to show you what it can do once we use it.

Cutest thing ever!

In this glass bubble is a cooking school, or a place you can take
cooking clases. Here little kids are making pudding... To die for!

Awe the choices!

Bolto Power! In Den-Den town!

Bad ass trucks!!

Before jeff tried them... Still smiling..

Tako-yaki octopus balls:)

Looks good right?!

Shin-Sekai.. I think

We headed out this morning and stumbled on this area.. Lots of fubo-
puffer fish places to eat. We tried tako-yaki- the octopus ball
things... That didn't go over too well for either of us. I definitely
can't do octopus.. After that we we found Den-Den town, the
electronics town...

Mens toe socks

In Japan, toe socks are common for guys and girls. Here are some mens
selection.

Good fun!

More Dotombori...

Dotombori night life

Last night we explored this area... We stumbled on to it after leaving
Namba Parks mall.this area is full of life and action, very fun!!! Not
sure what this crazy building is about? But will find out!

For Mom

Can't get over all the cuteness here!! These are mini boquets about 4$
each

The view from our...

Living room/guest room... Love the rocking chair toliet!! Hahaha

An American attempt...

Broccoli pizza!

How cute...

Is this? For no other reason than to make your kid smile:)

Tamade shopping adventure...

Getting the basics.. We have 2 of These 24 hour grocery stores really
close to us. They have tons of selection and we will definielty make
due here:)

Yum!

We are having a great time! We walked around and decided on some
yakisoba. We lost the Internet in our place, we think the wireless
spot blocked us probably. :( So our updates will be hard till we get
the webs at home. Here is a nice pic of Morgan for now. More later!

Leaving Portland for Osaka....

No personal entertainment

We were hoping for our own screens in the seats. No dice! Book time, I
guess. Talk to you next from the future.

POD is loaded!

We completed the packing of the house into the POD! Hurray! We leave for Osaka in about a day!

Check out this video montage of loading the POD, enjoy!

PODS Delivery

Friday: Last day of work
Saturday: 30th Birthday Party
Sunday: Turned 30
Monday: PODS Delivery
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, ?, ?, ? : Pack!





We leave for Japan on Feb 19th.