メリークリスマス

Merry Christmas everyone! The holiday season was indeed a joyous one over here. We had lots of fun, plenty of friends over, and way, way too many cookies.
Katherine, our buddy here in Kobe, is a master baker. She decided to make about 1,000 cookies for Christmas. In total she made almond crescents, snickeroodles (the majority of which was consumed in batter form), apricot jam chocolate chip, gingerbread men, and pumpkin chocolate chips...which made Anna cry. Lots of things made Anna cry this season, but mostly it was anything with pumpkin and chocolate chips in them,
We exchanged gag gifts and we also did a more serious gift exchange; lots of fun and everyone got something cool. People stated for a few days and we went shopping and ate out at lots of places. All in all it was a great time. Here are some pictures!

This was Christmas eve day. We are enjoying a nice stroll through a really crowded mall.
From left to right this is Hannah, Andrea, me, Anna, and Mana. They are all Fulbright Fellows as well. Hannah and Anna live on Kyuushuu, Mana lives in the Osaka area, and Andrea lives in Kyoto.
Here I am with my ugly Christmas sweater and my Christmas moustache.
This is the bounty of Christmas cookies that Katherine Made. We ate most of them Christmas Eve night around 11 pm...we all had a major sugar rush. We then ate the rest of them for breakfast Christmas morning.
Here is Mana with her Christmas ensemble, complete with Panda fanny pack (gag gift).
This is Hannah intently watching Charles at his turn of "Black Jenga," which is a Japanese version of Jenga where the pieces tell you to do or say funny and embarrassing things. He knocked it over that turn and had to eat this sugar Santa from the top of the Christmas cake.
Here we are the day after Christmas on our way to shop and eat giant Sasebo burgers at the cafe.From the left, Anna, Charles, Aaron, Ben S., Andrea, and Hannah. Charles doesn't always look like that I swear.

Aaron got me a beautiful kimono set and I got him an acoustic guitar.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas day. We missed you all. New years over here is pretty serious so we have even more events to celebrate before this year is done. I'll be sure to post some more pictures soon.
Happy Holidays!

神戸ルミナリエ Kobe Luminarie

Kendra here again. So, we are back from our trip to see the Luminaire festival and WOW it was worth it. But here are some older photos to show first.


I found this pretty little spot at my University while wandering around and killing time after a class was canceled.
Here is Aaron by a very, very large Asahi Beer can at Koshien Stadium, home of the Hanshin Tigers! Go Tigers!!!
Isn't this so cute! Aaron got it for me for Christmas, but, since it is a plant and all (see the tiny cactus in there) he didn't want to wrap it up for fear that it might die or something.
Okay, onto the Luminaire Festival. This festival started in 1995 to commemorate the many weeks people had to go without lights during the aftermath of the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. The towering light sculptures were a donation from the Italian government and each bulb is individually hand painted. The lights go on for a few hours every night for about 2 weeks.
Needless to say, we weren't the only ones who turned out to see the lights. They didn't come on until about 5:30...we got there at 4:15 to get a good spot.
Here is Katherine and Aaron crammed in with hundreds of other people waiting to "ooh" and "ahh" at the lights. Anyone else notice the creepy, blurry baby in the background?
After a good long wait, Shazam! The lights go on, all while loud speakers blare out epic music with lots of church bells and chanting and such. Pretty sweet.
Looks like a painting or something, doesn't it?!
So basically, you could walk down this road with a million other people jostling for elbow room and see the pretty lights. But, they were really pretty and I recommend going to see it, even with all the crowds.
On the way back, we saw this kimono...what a mess! Hearts and leopard print. It's so modern it hurts. And it was a wedding kimono too! Ugh!

After this we went to eat at Pizza Patio! "Nothing Beatsa Patio Pizza," is their slogan and true to word it was the best pizza we have had in Japan. Not only was the menu extensive (and bonus! it had real pizza toppings instead of the regular corn, tuna, and mayonnaise) but it was reasonably priced. The decor was odd but snazzy; playing 50's American tunes but having a log-cabin type feel with random French paintings and-for some reason-pirate guns on the tables. Oh well, they had good food. Aaron was really excited because they claimed to have real pepperoni...alas, it was not to be. It was just ham in a circle shape. Still have yet to find pepperoni on a pizza here. They also had a really awesome looking cheese fondue course that Katherine (a vegetarian cheese-fanatic) was drooling over.

Now we have no more money to spend this weekend so we will spend it playing spider solitaire and doing sudokus. How exciting!

It's beginning to look alot like...it did last month

Hello there, Kendra here. No new amazing pictures yet but tonight we are going to the Kobe Luminaire festival so we should get some nice pictures there. I bet it is snowy back in Michigan. Not here my friends. Not a single flake. It does get cold at night though. I hear rumor that it might snow here sometime, but I doubt this year. Just doesn't seem cold enough.

Nothing really too exciting been going on. Aaron and I are just about out of money for this month so we have been taking it easy and not really doing anything because doing anything in this country cost money.

Oh, I did finally get to go to a doctor about my ear. Yes, it is still ringing. It has been ringing non-stop since August. I really don't think it will ever stop. Sigh. So, the doctor here put me through the same tests a back home. My hearing in the left hear is permanently damaged but it is not that bad. Still within relatively normal limits. What drives me bonkers is the ringing!! I just want it to stop!! So, I am going to get an MRI done just to take a look-see in my brain to check it out. But, as the Japanese doctor said in his broken English, "To tell truth, there isn't much we can do for the ringing of ears. So sorry."

Hope everyone back home is happy and healthy! Enjoy the Holidays!

Mt. Rokko again!

Kendra here. So, since Aaron had to miss the last climbing of Mount Rokko, we decided to go before all the leaves fall off the trees. Before we left we had some tasty Ringo Pan. Ringo being Japanese for apple, and Pan being French for bread. Yah, French...they kind of use random loan words all over the place. Anyway...

Moving on. So, we packed a nice lunch and headed on over to the base of the mountain...the most boring part of the whole trip. Nothing but walking up a paved road. Boring! Give me nature!
So, we climb without any problems. Though we did run across three teenage Japanese boys with their shirts off taking a group picture of themselves. Odd, I know. And they all had kanji characters written in tape on their chests. Very odd. Well, aside from that, everything was awesome. We ate our lunch on the top of the mountain and we had a few mountain kitties to keep us company. We took a side trail to see this cool little lake at the top of the mountain. Neato!
Who is this mountaineer?! Here I am in my advanced adventure gear. WMU hoodies are essential climbing gear. So are big, obnoxious hats.
The mountains in Japan form in the shape of stairs for convenience.
Up close shot of some awesome Japanese Maple leaves.
And here is the tree they fell from.
Take a look at him! Upon walking back, as we passed another giant drainage ditch, I happened to look down into it and lo and behold! A big ol' wild boar! You can't really tell from this picture but he was so big! We were about 20ft up from the ditch so we weren't afraid of him attacking or anything. Then,we looked further up the ditch and there was Mama boar with two little boar babies...so cute. Daddy boar was just walking by not even caring about us or all the cars whizzing by up ahead. What a sight.

So that was our trip up Mt. Rokko, again. It is really getting rather cold so I am not sure if we will climb again till spring. In other news, the country has all gone insane for Christmas and people here are wearing ugly Christmas sweaters and playing some of the most annoying Christmas music I have ever heard. Techno Jingle Bells...

Aaron and I have decorated the house very simply with a few (very cheap) Christmas decorations. We even bought a cheap little Christmas tree. It is a real tree...just only about 1 ft tall. We'll post some pictures later.
Take care.

Oh and there is no snow over here. Repeat, no snow. Kendra is so happy.