you, you, you and you.

Konnichiwa こんにちは! *Good afternoon*
Genki desu ka 元気ですか?? *How are you??

It’s already finals week for the students over here, so it will be pretty quiet for Lisa-the teaching-assistant this couple days. Their first day of exam is on December 1st. Excuse me, DECEMBER FIRST? Whaaat??? That means I have passed my 2-month mark in Okinawa!! SAFE!! *clap clap clap*

This semester of school will be done on 12/28. Before school ends there will be some more prepping for class days, hanging out with the kids days or off to different adventures on weekend days. (Sad FYI: I am working on Christmas. But I am hoping to wear my 100yen Rudolph hairband to work. Ho ho ho)

After the 28th, Lisa is off to Tokyo, Yokohama, Kamakura, and Hakone!!!!!! I was happy to fight for the tickets on Skymark (Japanese priceline?) last month with Hannah. The tickets are about the price of flying to NYC from MN. And for accommodations, Hannah and I are staying about half the time in hotel, half the time at my friend Nozomi’s grandparents place! Dividing the average costs of hotels, it was a pretty good deal. :]

I am very excited to see Tokyo again in a MONTH and meeting up with some of my old friends. I met Nozomi when I studied in Tokyo 2 years ago, and we have kept a good relationship since. On the other hand, most of my friends are traveling out of Tokyo with their families to other prefectures up north or FRANCE for their Christmas/New Year trips. So I will have to go back. (haha) My family will also be off to China with Grandma for a couple days. So I won’t be seeing them for New Years. But! I am going home for Chinese New Year, which I have missed for five years now. I can’t wait for it, and I am grateful Okinawa is so close to home and the job I have is so kind about letting me taking days off without too much hassle.

I cannot believe Christmas is coming so soon! Graduation, traveling with mom, summer at home, started working in Okinawa and BAM, it is Christmas already! BAM! Becky’s BABIES will be here!!! Ahem, I have distracted myself here. Oh yes, I am excited to see Shibuya crossing, the romantic red brick warehouses again. Seeing the Japanese big Buddha first time, visiting the Little Prince museum, going to hot springs, and visiting national parks overlooking the Mt Fuji!!! It will be a blast.

Back to reality real quick, what I am trying to say in this blog was that I have been enjoying the simple and quiet schedule I have here. It might be boring to some, but I like my simple life – eat, pray, work, travel and love.

My days usually go like this: Get up, go to work, two or three hours of classes in the morning, co-workers will share treats they got from trips to everyone (and sometimes that’ll be my breakfast) then yes! Lunch time! Go to the “Bento street” across the street for my lunch box or eat out somewhere, sometimes walk to the “Kon-bi-ni”, the convenient store, “Lawson” for a snack, or browse around magazines. Then coming back with usually just one class in the afternoon, so I correct student’s homework or prep for class materials. I should consider bringing my laptop in to edit the pictures when I have down time. But I probably shouldn’t.

Life is good, work wise…I am not freaking out as much anymore, and I am getting better at being punctual. Also I have been eating (haha), occasionally I bring lunchboxes I made the night before. And maybe 80% the kids I teach like me and smile when I talk to them. (5 of them are my new BFFs…haha).

I consider that a big SUCCESS.

Living wise, I am also visiting different places each weekend, discovering new places to walk around and I have not seen other spider yesterday. (haha) Also, I am glad to use the down time as my study time this week. I am taking a Japanese Language Proficiency Test on Sunday. I am failing it, but I just might have the luck to pass it. If I really pass it, I would truly believe I can do whatever I want.

Remember that blog about me losing it during that monthly work meeting? I am still scared of it... because last month’s meeting I was able to skip it. 2 hours of listening to Japanese is not the worst, 2 hours of listening and sitting and doing nothing else make me nervous. I am too used multitasking since college and have million things going on. It’s hard to just sit and do one thing for me now. Hehehe.

love, Lisa

p.s. I will put up pictures soon. I was able to get some good ones because it stopped raining and it is not cloudy so much anymore. Yay. Lunch time!

Langkawi

hello there ;)  sorry I haven't been writing, but my summer has been pretty quiet and I haven't been going out to take pictures much compare to last summer. But the pictures above are some pictures I took when I visited Malaysia last week.

as for the job in Japan, I will fly to Okinawa in exactly a month. The plan now is I will be travelling in Tokyo for a week before I start to work on the 27th. Seriously though, I have been staying at home reading and studying. And visiting my grandmas more than my friends. :P

I miss you all. love, Lisa

around chicago

the second day of chicago trip, we went to the millennium
park and visited the art institute of Chicago.

the institute was having a "free february" deal, so we got to see some
awesome photographs and art for free,
but it was so packed that we left earlier than we hoped.

that same day we also went to the navy pier and went home for mcdonalds.
that night, diana and i watched adam and thought it was very interesting...

fun fact: diana's friend who we were able to stay with bought us a
pretty big bucket of ice-cream. we ate it all as we finished the movie. 

stuffed!

i am finally not procrastinating anymore today on my homework,
got so much done! (but still got a lot, eesh...)
anyways, here are my chicago posts for the family!^^

this was the first day of our trip..
we (window) shopped around downtown,
and ate our lunch at this famous pizza place...

like most of the famous places, we had to wait. for a while.
so i took some pictures to kill some time.
fun fact:  i think my photo style changed a little  after my internship training. :)

here is my friend alberta from hk that i was able to meet up in chicago
(actually she used to live couple floors below me, and we went to the same high
school and went to same class for two years)

45 minute later. Ta-da!

 Here is our a spinach stuffed pizza.
And we only ordered the spinach stuffed pizza.
It was so great, and it costs us only $7 each. Pretty amazing.

Chicago 2010

you are the first ones who see this sets of chicago photos!


it was another windy day in chicago when we took this picture...

i wore two jackets, but it was still pretty windy to walk around...
we spent saturday morning until monday evening in chicago...
we thought we did most of everything in chicago (during winter)

every new friend we met told us we should have visited chicago
in the summer, because there are much more things to do...

such as, going to parks (lay on the grass and look at clouds or stars)
going to the lake shore beaches (and play with the sunshine)
walk around downtown...(and have a pizza or hot dog)

they said it's not too hot in summer...it's almost perfect there..

but, diana and i were there for our spring break in march...
everything was still snowy!
(while in st. joseph, a place where winter is usually longer than
everywhere else, was surprisingly warmer than chicago!)

anyhow, we did as much as we can sight-seeing wise...
and had a gooooood time in the wind city.

Chicago 05'

(it was in construction or something)

(outside the space museum)

all the exchange student children (with two host sisters) hopped on a bus and went to chicago for a weekend. it was fun and i only remember these things below :

exchange student children from germany looooooved becky ;)

the pink boots i was wearing in the pictures were new from chicago gap kids.


we rode the ferris wheel and we all signed our names somewhere.

we rode a limousine.


we ate dinner at the rainforest restaurant.

the bean was in construction and no one was really ice skating.

the view from the hancock building was great, but my digital camera was not.


becky's eye got an infection, but luckily her contacts helped a little.


i was young, silly and chubby.

survived!

my weekend in Chicago with my friend Diana was a lot of fun.

a lot of things happened, and finally i get to take pictures of something i want! haha.

also, i might try to dig out pictures i took in Chicago 4/5 years ago
(that Becky and I went together!)

perhaps saying i survived is a little exaggerated, but it's close...

Downtown

New Year day... Mary, Becky, Travis and I went to downtown for pictures. :)

We were able to find some sweet locations as you will see below... I didn't take much but I do have some behind the scene pictures for you of Becky getting pictures of her husband and Mary for her new photography business.

Here are some holga pictures I took on the same day :)





See Becky's picture at her photoblog, Tandem Bike Photography.

are you ready?

we will be traveling from minneapolis to provo!

family dinners, photo booth in kmart, the lovebird's nest,
bachelorette party, getting ready, the gorgeous bouquet,
arrived at the temple, waiting around with adorable friends,
lunch/dinner before reception, the actual reception...

(i might just separate each section with its own blog post!)

let me finish this reading tonight, i will give you some pictures from the dinner :D