Saturday, January 5, 2008


Cute Japanese kids with their decorated cart


Check out the Pooh cart. Why don't they make these for grown-ups?


Inside the cart


That's a dog in a stroller!


You say "tamago," I say "egg."

Happy New Year---a little late! I can't believe I've already been here in Japan almost four months. Craziness. The new year is off and running. Things are getting back to normal around here. All of our decorations have been taken down and put in boxes, ready and waiting for next December. I always hate the way my home looks after the Christmas decorations go away. It's amazing how a few lights and red and green can really brighten up a place. But, we can't have a Christmas tree hanging around in our living room in July, even if it is fake.

Garbage collection resumed today, thank goodness! It was quite the gathering down at the collection point this morning. They haven't been collecting garbage since December 30 because of the new-year holiday, and the whole neighborhood has been storing their garbage up for today. There was hardly any room to put my bag, and this elderly man was pretty annoyed because people hadn't been pushing their garbage back far enough to allow for other people to put theirs in. Or at least that's what I could figure out from his hand gestures and conversation he was having with two other women this morning!

Zach is working a 24-hour shift today, but I've been pretty spoiled these last few weeks because he's been home several days and it's been really nice. He'll go back to his regular schedule this week. We got out of the house yesterday and did some shopping at two local malls. One of them is called Oak City Mall and we've never been there before. I was tortured because there were at least three LARGE Sanrio stores (they make Hello Kitty stuff for those of you who don't know) and even though Zach was very sweet and patient, I didn't get to spend nearly enough time in them. I plan to go back on my own or with another Hello Kitty fanatic in the future. :-)

While we were at the malls, I took some photos of fun stuff we saw. At Oak City, they offer these carts with decorations on them for kids to sit in. They were everywhere! I know they have similar ones in the states, but these carts were decked out with all kinds of entertaining stuff. At Grandberry Mall, I was hoping to take a bunch of pictures of Dachsunds since the place was just loaded with them the last time I was there, but there were only a few dogs this time. I snapped a photo of a woman with her dog in a stroller. You see that a lot here. People really love their dogs.

We also walked by a McDonald's at Grandberry Mall, and their newest creations are these hamburgers with loads of meat, and one of them has egg ("tamago" means "egg" in Japanese) on it. I of course had to take a photo of this as well, and Zach couldn't resist being goofy. :-)

Well, that's it for today. Take care.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ellen,

Looks like you are having soo much fun in Japan! Love your posts--just wanted to stop by and say hi. Those Pooh carts are too cute. I need one of those at my house.

Happy New Year, hope all is well! Keep the pictures coming. They are fascinating to us rednecks.

Jenny

Anonymous said...

The carts look like too much fun, Ellen. I bet they are total germ factories though. All those kids touching those same toys all day long. Yeah, I'm paranoid, but you would be too if your kid got two colds in three weeks. Ugghh! Too bad you didn't see any dachshunds at the mall this time around. Maybe there was some kind of festival last time. Jemma and Hazel want to know when it's going to be the year of the squirrel. Rats are not nearly as much fun or as tantalizingly bushy-tailed!

-Happster :)

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year Ellen! I want a Pooh cart! And not to worry Happie, it is probably made out of antimicrobial plastic. See didn't that make you feel better about the germ thing.

So I'm assuming that the week off from garbage pick up made for a lot of trash and recycle at your house. How much room does that take up and are your ready to throw something by the end of week?

Anonymous said...

Oh by the way the above message is from me...Keala