Great Distances: January 2011

27 January, 2011

Showered Again

I love that my families at school threw me a baby shower even though it is totally out of custom to do so. In fact, most people don't even know what a baby shower is here! Nonetheless, the parents put together a really sweet party filled with games, food, and gifts. I think I was bright red the whole time.

13 January, 2011

Skype Love From Afar

My friends are amazing.

I may be thousands of miles away from my dear friends, but last weekend, it was like I was in the room.

I sat on my couch in Tokyo, while they gathered around the dining table in Portland.
I ate french toast, they noshed on Asian cuisine.
It was 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning for me, 6:00 p.m. Friday night for them.
I had decaf, wine for the girls.
They opened my gifts, but I still got to ooooh and awwww.
We even played shower games.
It was a like a giant, virtual hug for me and baby.

Pictures of how it went down on Heather's blog.

Thanks for saving me a spot at the dinner table, ladies!
I love you!

12 January, 2011

New Year's 2011

2011 is the year of the rabbit!

Jetlag got the better of us on New Year's Eve and we were both asleep by 10:00 back in Japan. New Years Day we went for a stroll and ended up on the train to Meiji-Jingu Mae shrine in Harajuku. Thinking we'd saunter up to the shrine, we started in on the long walk through the park. When we turned the corner, we were greeted with this scene:

And that's not even the shrine up ahead! That's just a TV screen telling you how much further you have to go to get to the shrine...From where we stood, it would have still been well over an hour of waiting in line. Needless to say, we looked for the escape route and turned around and beelined for a much, much shorter line....

mmmm....who needs new year's resolutions when your pregnant?

11 January, 2011

Hawaii at Christmas

Our trip to Hawaii was 10 days in a tropical paradise and we didn't want to come home.

We landed to torrential downpours in Honolulu, and if it wasn't for our friends, Emi and Andre, who happened to be staying in Waikiki at the same time, we would have been miserable in the tourist infested town. But, we made the best of the deserted beaches at night and enjoyed the warm sand and sweet smells in the air.

Maui was more our style. Our condo was bigger than our apartment (that's not really saying much) and more good friends, the Kelly Family, joined us in Lahaina. We spent 8 days on the beach in the sun. We saw some amazing fish underwater, James surfed, and we rented a tandem cruiser for a couple of days to get us around town. One day we visited a cute little hippie town called Pa'ia and spotted whales off the coast. I imagine everyone who visits Hawaii dreams, as we did, of selling it all and moving to paradise. One day...