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After all our traveling we got back home on the evening of the 30th. The next day was New Year's Eve but we didn't do anything special. New Year's Eve is a family holiday in Japan so there's really nothing to do unless you're visiting family. Neither one of us really cared about the holiday so we just relaxed at our apartments instead. I spent the evening in my apartment watching Kohaku Uta Gassen and either working on making videos for my blog or making a puzzle. I really can't remember for sure.

Kohaku Uta Gassen is a popular New Year's Eve music program. It's an interesting mix of pop and traditional music. Two teams, the red team (female) and the white team (male), perform songs and at the end a winner is declared. This year, the white team won. I think I enjoyed the female performances more though. But a lot of them were very similar... too many big girl groups. AKB48, NMB48, and SKE48 all performed. I really don't see a difference at all in those groups. 

I didn't go back to school until the 8th so I had quite a bit of free time. I spent time working on my blog, making my new Disney puzzle, and cooking a bit.

I made Bibimbap (a Korean dish) one night. It was rice topped with tofu, mushrooms, bean sprouts, carrot, boiled egg, and cucumbers. I mixed gochujang in, too. Yum! I got the recipe here.


One night I was wanting Colonel Crispy, the chicken strips from KFC here. But I was at Jonathan's for dinner and there's no KFC around there so we got konbini food. So I was excited to see Colonel Crispy flavored potato chips! Hahaha! They ended up being really good (and really did taste like Colonel Crispy) and I bought another bag later.

We had a three day weekend the 11th through the 13th. On Saturday we went to another Aeon mall in Hamamatsu that we hadn't visited before. We took a train and then walked to the mall, which was quite a long walk. I took a picture of these pretty flowers along the way. I'm still surprised by flowers in winter here.


The mall had a lot of the same stores as Ichino, the closer Aeon mall, and seemed a bit older, but it was still a really good mall. We ate dinner at an Indian restaurant which was really good. Also, the Kaldi store there had a bit more stuff than the other two I've been to I think.

Then the next night we went bowling at Round One. They had a deal where we could have unlimited games until 6 AM! We didn't stay that long, but we did bowl 11 games. It was so much fun! Oh, and I was one of the few girls there in pants. That's a weird thing about bowling in Japan. I would never go bowling in a skirt in America, but I have done it in Japan (just not that night).


That's a pudding cup I bought at the Max Valu grocery store near me. It was delicious! Chocolate pudding with a bunch of stuff on top and then more pudding on top of that!

The next weekend we ended up at Round One again. First we ate dinner at the mall though. We ate at Kobe Motomachi Doria. Jonathan had omurice (with mushrooms, I think) and I had eggplant doria. I wasn't sure what doria was exactly, but the picture looked delicious and I wanted to try it because doria is a food you can make in Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon. Yes, I partially chose my food based on a video game.


I was really excited when our food came because both of our dishes came in bowls with fire underneath of them. The food is really hot so they give you another bowl to dish it out into. It was soooo delicious. It was rice with cheese and eggplant and tomato sauce. Amazing! The only problem was that it didn't quite fill me up enough. They had sets with salad and maybe soup or something so next time I would get a set. But we just went to Mister Donut afterwards for dessert.

At Round One we did Spo-cha. I'm not sure what Spo-cha means. I'm guessing the "spo" part is for "sports" but I'm not sure about "cha." Sports challenge? Anyways, it's a couple floors of a bunch of activities. We paid for three hours, but we should have done the unlimited deal which was only a few hundred yen more. I just wasn't really sure at the time how long we would want to stay or if it really was unlimited.


There's so much to do! We played table tennis, basketball, and darts and did archery and batting cages. The batting cage was kind of scary at first, but then it was really fun! The also have an arcade and it's unlimited too! For about 1800 yen for three hours (2100 for unlimited) it's a really good deal!


 The automatic table tennis game is fun. It shoots balls at you and you try to hit the lit-up squares.


Just like Katniss! Ok... not really. I only hit the target a couple times, haha.

The next week over 900 elementary kids in Hamamatsu got food poisoning from the school lunch. Jonathan doesn't teach at any elementary schools, but all school lunches were canceled in Hamamatsu for a while. He had to take lunch to school and he hates cooking so I offered to make his lunches.

If I used a recipe, I'll highlight it and you can click on it to see the recipe.


The first day he had rice with some furikake mixed in, some green vegetables that he picked out at the grocery store, pineapple, tamagoyaki, some mixed vegetables (cabbage, carrots, and mushrooms) that I cooked with olive oil, a little bit of sesame oil, and red pepper.


This bento had the same mixed vegetables, cucumbers, spicy Korean tofu, and rice. I used the extra sauce from the tofu on the rice. 


Cucumbers, pineapple, cherry tomatoes, salad, pineapple, rice with spicy korean sauce, and tamagoyaki. 

 

Jonathan wanted curry so I did that. This wouldn't be a good cold bento, but he was able to microwave it at school. I used a premade curry packet but added in some extra eggplant.

Looking at all of these bentos is making me hungry! It's lunch time here so I will eat when I'm done with this post.


McDonald's here is having a "Vintage American" theme right now. It's kind of weird, lol. The honey mustard chicken sandwich was really tasty. I just ate the fries plain but it came with cheese sauce (Jonathan ate it but I didn't think it was good) and bacon bits. 

One day we went to LaLaport. I didn't buy one, but these fighting cat Gachapon toys are so cute!



We played basketball at the arcade and I beat Jonathan and finally made it to the third round! You advance to each round by reaching a certain score. It's only 30 points to make it the the second, which is easy, but then you need 150 points to make it to the 3rd round which is much more of a challenge. I finally did it! You need 250 to make it to the 4th round. I wasn't too far off! 

Krispy Kreme opened at LaLaport fairly recently. I got a chocolate raspberry jelly donut. I'm not a huge raspberry fan, and I don't usually like jelly donuts, but this was just so pretty and fancy looking! It did still sound good to me, but I would have gone with something else probably. But this ended up being super delicious. The jelly was really good and everything was yummy. I would buy this one again, but it was a limited time one so I probably won't even get the chance.


January was such a fun month! It made me really glad that I'm spending another year in Japan. I can't imagine leaving in March!

Here are a bunch of random pictures from September and October. I've been meaning to do a random post for each month, but I'm kind of behind. I've been busy studying for the JLPT which I took today. Anyways... I will also soon have a post for November.

Mmmm! That's some omurice that I made. Well, it's not much of an omelet I guess because I scrambled up the egg and mixed it into the rice, but it was still delicious. Here's the recipe: Omurice



I made delicious cookies in my toaster oven. It worked really well! These cookies look burnt, but they were just very chocolatey. :) Here's the recipe: Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies



We didn't have school lunch one day so I had to take a bento. I made spicy korean tofu. It works really well in a bento because it is good both warm and cold. Here's the recipe: Spicy Korean Tofu


Sometimes I buy Ray, a Japanese fashion magazine. One month there was a small cookbook insert and it has some really good recipes. Well, I've only made one, but several of the others look good as well. This was gratin and it's very easy and I can change it a lot by adding various vegetables. Yum! It's great because I can make a lot of it and just heat it up in the toaster oven when I want. It tastes just as good leftover.


Yes, that is really chocolate flavored gum. I actually kind of liked this. Sometimes at first it had a weird taste, but sometimes I didn't notice it, so maybe it was just something else I ate before it. It reminded me a bit of the chocolate soda I had last time I was in Japan. I hope they bring that back sometime! I loved it!


Mmmm... Mister Donut. :)


I got this apple ring at some place in Ichino mall. Sooooo good! The outside of it kind of reminded me of baklava. The inside had pieces of apple. 


These maron (chestunt) chocolates were tasty. I think I ate these after the BSB concert.


Chocolate strawberry cake chocolates... :)


I didn't buy these. I wanted to try them, but I just didn't want to spend money on something I figured I would just eat a few of. They're Pepsi flavored Cheetos. Ewwwww.


The green apple Fanta was delicious.  And I love the old style packaging!



I saw this and thought it sounded weird. But at the same time it seemed like it had the potential to be good. It wasn't. I didn't completely hate it, but I got more and more tired of it as I drank it and ended up not finishing it. The vinegar taste wasn't that strong, but it was definitely there.


Jonathan bought this tea (he doesn't like tea, but he didn't realize it was tea when he bought it).  Pineapple is often shorted to just "pine" in Japan, which sounds a bit unappetizing. I tried some and it wasn't great. I really liked the pear tea that I got though. Plus, it had Rilakkuma packaging!


And yeah... my drink choice was influenced by the super kawaii packaing. It was delicious though!


I found some really cute stuff at Pickup!


I bought some pansy seeds and planted them in a pot on my balcony. They're growing now, but the flowers haven't bloomed yet. 


As Jonathan and I biked back from the festival we attended, we saw this creepy place. I have no idea what it used to be.


I received some omiyage from a teacher at school. They were peanuts from Disney Sea with cute packaging. 



This is the brand of fabric softener that I use (the Juliette scent smells sooo good!) but I didn't need any when I saw these. I am almost out now though so I hope that they still have the Disney packaging. I wish Marie was on the Juliette bottle though!


It is Maru!!!!!!!!!!!!!


SAILOR MOON MERCHANDISE!!!!!!!! I bought one and got Sailor Jupiter, my least favorite so I had to try again. I then got Luna and Artemis. I hadn't even noticed that the cats were one of the toys! I still wanted a Sailor that I liked so I got a third one and got Sailor Venus! Yay! I'm glad I got them then because the next time I went to Ito Yokado they were gone. Also, there was a sign for them at Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, but there was a sign over it saying they were sold out. I guess they were popular!


I saw this bus in a parking lot and just had to take a picture! Shippei is cute! :) Town mascots are a big deal in Japan. Shippei even has a song. I learned the dance to the song when I went to one of my kindergartens. Haha. Then another day I heard the kindergarten near my apartment practicing the dance. They played this song over and over and over...

This past Sunday I ran my first 10k! It was also my first race in Japan.

I ran in the Jubilo Iwata Marathon. The word "marathon" here is used loosely. It basically means any long distance race. The Jubilo Iwata Marathon had a 3k, 5k, 10k, and half marathon. So despite the name, there wasn't even a full marathon.

Jubilo is the name of Iwata's soccer team. Jubilo means "joy" in both Portuguese and Spanish. Thank you, Wikipedia. 

I had to get up at 6:30 so that I could meet up with Jonathan at the station around 7:40 and take a bus to Yamaha Stadium. The line for the bus was super long and wrapped around the block, but luckily the line moved pretty quickly because buses came often. I think we got on a bus around 8:00.

When we arrived at the stadium we walked a bit to find the place to turn in our bags. We attached our numbers to our shirts, our time chips to our shoes, and checked in our bags. A few weeks ago we had received packages in the mail with our numbers, safety pins, time chips, luggage tags, and t-shirt tickets. It was a really nice, organized system.

The 10k started at 9:40. It was very crowded at first and a little hard to get around people, but it thinned out pretty soon for me because I'm slow. Jonathan had a hard time during most of the race though.

 I felt good for the first 5k. I started getting some side cramps around 5k (and was also a bit hot and was wishing I had worn short sleeves) which is kind of opposite of how it usually is when I've been running. Usually I have problems with the first few kilometers but once I get past about four I'm fine. Every time I went downhill (they were hardly even hills) they got a lot worse. So on one downhill section around 8k I walked for about 15 seconds. Just that tiny bit of walking helped and after that I felt a lot better.

I really enjoyed the course because there was quite a bit of variety. When we first started out we were on main roads with stores and restaurants and stuff. Near the beginning there were also several different groups playing music including a taiko (Japanese drum) group and a junior high school band. There was a group of little cheerleaders (like kingergarten and early elementary girls) that were soooooo adorable! There were also plenty of random people on the sidelines cheering all around. It was a very festive atmosphere!

After a few kilometers we were in a more residential area and then eventually we ran past a lot of rice fields. The weather was really nice and clear and I could see Mt. Fuji! So pretty! Even in the more rural area there were still plenty of people, mostly old people, cheering "Fighto!" and "Ganbare!" (Do your best!)

I think a lot of people watch the race because it's almost like a parade with many interesting costumes. During most of the first 5k I was behind a girl dressed as a skunk. Then during the 2nd half I was behind 3 guys dressed as beer, a hot dog, and squid. They were crazy and loved giving high fives to people and just being crazy, haha. Also for a while I was near a couple and the girl was dressed as Mario (it was actually really cute!) and some kids yelled, "It's Mario!" and the guy yelled at the kids saying, "Not just Mario! SUPER Mario!" Haha.

As I neared the finish line (only a couple hundred meters left) a group of my students saw me and started cheering, well screaming really, for me. They were so into it! It was really cute and made me happy. :)

After crossing the finish line I was handed some sort of lemon drink that was super delicious. I forget what it was called, but if I see it stores I will definitely buy it again! Then someone cut the time chip off of my shoe. Next, someone typed my number into a computer and a certificate was printed out right there. It's really cool that they did that! No waiting for my results to be posted on the internet! They're still also posted online.



I crossed the finish line at 1:12:26, but since I was toward the back when the race started so I didn't cross the start line for a while so my actual time was 1:07:43 (the time chips are awesome!). My goal had been 1:10:00, so I beat my goal! My original goal had been to just finish within 1:30 and walk a couple kilometers, so I definitely beat my original goal! Oh, and when training, the furthest I had ever run was 9k so it was also the furthest I had ever run.



Looking at the results online (which only have the time crossing the finish line, and not the time from crossing the start line) Jonathan ran the race in 55:49, but it was really several minutes quicker than that.



Haha, that guy has beautiful pants. And a nice hat. He's definitely not the craziest costume I saw though. I saw one guy dressed as a female ballerina. He had sunglasses and a crazy curly wig too. I also saw a lot of men in super super short shorts. One man's butt cheeks were hanging out, ew.

I found a picture online of some of the costume winners! Lol...

After picking up our bags we got our t-shirts. Yay!



Hahaha... I love it!

We took the bus back to the station and then went out to eat for lunch. We went to Kagetsu Arashi, a ramen place near my apartment. We both had the golden miso ramen (which looks very red in this picture for some reason). So delicious! :)

Then we went shopping at Cainz Home and Super Drug Store, mostly just for Jonathan. I saw some super hideous shoes at Cainz Home. 


No... just no...

I felt really tired the rest of the day and went to bed earlier than usual. It wore me out a lot more than running usually does! I don't really know why except maybe because it was in the morning. I usually run in the evenings. Anyways, it was a really fun experience and I hope to do it again next year! :)