And yes, that IS a shinkansen pillow!

David and I went on an exploring date a few days ago~ It was nice. David had a half day last Friday, so we met each other in Sendai and went out for the afternoon. Usually when we go to Sendai, we have a plan or we just stick to the arcade. However, on Friday we didn't really have a plan, so we walked around the downtown area instead. It was nice~ We didn't really go anywhere, but it was nice just to be out and about.

Having done some exploring, we found a small cafe so I could grab a late lunch. David had eaten on the train into Sendai, but I hadn't, and I was starving. We passed Caffe Veloce while we were out and popped in for a bite/ I got the mixed sandwiches and an iced milk tea.

So, we wandered into the arcade on our way back to the station and made a pit stop into the Game Station. They had some really cute things this time! I took a few pictures of the prizes I liked best~ (And yes, that IS a shinkansen pillow!) I usually have really bad luck with UFO catchers, but I actually won something! A Powerpuff Girls x Vocaloid collab keychain! Woo!

We stopped by McDonalds in our local mall on our way home and when we took a seat I noticed that someone got creative with their garbage!

So, I really wanted to get a Disney Mobile phone. Sadly, that didn't happen thanks to our visas only being 1 year currently. But, not to worry~ They store was having a sale on their accessories, so I picked out a new phone strap. The letter A decorated to be like Minnie. The girl who was helping us was actually the same person who helped me get my phone setup. She's really sweet and her English is quite good. She was asking if we liked Disney and she and I got talking about Tokyo Disney~ After buying my charm, she also gave me a cute hair tie as a gift!

On Friday night I stayed up late chatting with a friend and had to take the garbage out at about 3am. (Our apartment doesn't like people putting garbage out until the early morning.) I opened the door and looked out and a sea of white met me eyes. It was snowing. BIG TIME. Like, blizzard like, white out conditions. It was crazy! It had come totally out of left field, too! I tried to take a few photos, but as ever, this was the best I could get. I could have taken a video, but David was sleeping.

So, on the 18th, we went grocery shopping and I found them: ENGLISH MUFFINS! How did I never notice these before!? I was so freaking excited to find them, let me tell you~ And the tasted just like... well, just like English muffins! I was sooo happy! I ate them for breakfast for a couple days. I also picked up this seasonal milk tea~ It's special for sakura season. It was really nice! Sweet and light!

And for dinner last night I made stir fry. But, we did some proper investigating in the produce area and came across a mixed bag of cabbage, bean sprouts, mushrooms and carrots. Perfect! I grabbed some chicken and a red pepper and we were set! Dinner cost about 400yen and we had leftovers~ Awesome!

And sadly, for those who were paying attention, I've had to put my running on hold. The weather has been waaay too sporadic for running. Icy one day, snowy the next. The ground isn't safe to run on, so I have to literally cool my heels and wait. Sigh. But, as soon as it all melts, I'll be out there pounding the pavement again!

THIS JUST IN!

And that was my evening in a nutshell. ♥

I reeeeeally wish they had the chai eggnog lattes here!

We had our first snow of the season on December 1st! It was awesome! I was up early, because I was meeting a friend for brunch in Sendai. David worked that morning, so I walked him to work. And as we walked outside, there it was. Snow! Just a light snowfall. And it didn't stay. David's coworkers told him that the snow is blown over from the mountains and it usually won't stay because there's not very much. Oh well~ It still looked nice! I tried to take a picture of it, but I don't think they turned out well.

So, I made a new friend! her name is Tamsyn and she's a doll. I was meeting her for brunch on the 1st. She's from the UK and I swear, she has the cutest accent. And she's just all around awesome. We met very briefly through a mutual friend a few months ago and we've only just gotten together. Anywho~ We had raisin pancakes for brunch at her place. They were awesome! And we just chatted about ourselves and whatnot. She was so easy to talk to and there were never any weird lulls in conversation. I forgot to take pictures, but hopefully I'll remember next time we get together.

While I was walking through the station on my way home, I noticed that Sendai Station has been decorating! They had a massive Christmas tree in the main waiting area. And it was surrounded by Docomo phone booths. Ahaha. Tis the season to make phone calls?I grabbed a coffee from the conbini by the train tracks and it was all Christmas-y, too.

David and I had a date that night which was fun~ We met at Starbucks after he was done work. I tried the praline latte. Not so good. I wasn't a big fan. Back to the staple gingerbread latte, methinks. I reeeeeally wish they had the chai eggnog lattes here! That's my favourite Christmas drink!

On the subject of eggnog, I attempted to make some a few nights ago. It wasn't bad. I added cream into it, to give it a little more body. It looked really watery when I first made it. Bad idea~ The cream kinda overpowers it. Oh well. Live and learn. Gonna give it another bash sometime soon using Keira's recipe.

I've been keeping myself busy honing m new found cross stitch skills. After Luna, I did a tiny Sailor Moon and now I'm working on Angel's Christmas gift. She asked for a sample, so I'm making her one. I'm also half working on an 8-Bit Theatre themed sampler for me. Wooo! Geekery! Isn't it awesome! :D

No pictures of Angel's gift, for obvious reasons~ Don't need her to snoop! :P

Oh, it was beautiful. And delicious!

The weather has been so wonky as of late! It was really snowy maybe a week ago and now its about 10°C. It was so snowy a few days ago, that we'd go for lunch, spend maybe 25 minutes at staff kitchen, and then we'd come back and have to shovel! Keira seems to love shoveling, since she's always shoveling the front of staff house.

So, David, Keira and I went out for a nice Refectory dinner on the 29th. We got all nice and dressed up and it was lovely. I bought a new dress from Liz Lisa recently and I wore it with my brown belt. I thought I looked pretty good~ And I loaned my blue gown to Keira. :D

Keira also told us to take a 'snobby British people' picture. Ahahaha.

Dinner was nice, though! I took a photo of the menu, so you can see how fancy it was.

The first course was air dried Ezo venison. I forgot to take photos of about half the courses. Sorry. But, the venison was weeeeird! It was air dried, right? So, it was technically raw. Yick. The texture of it was just too weird. And the taste was kinda icky, too. Bleck. And then after that, it was foie gras with like a mushroom thing going on. Didn't care much for it, either. Ewwwww. The third course was a consumme soup. It was pretty nice. 

After that it was a tomato chicken thing. It was ok. It was a million degrees, though! And very tomato-y! I kinda think it needed cheese. Lol. I didn't eat all of it, since it was such a huge portion. And it was too hot, anyways. Lol.

The sorbet was tasty! It was our palette cleanser between the other courses and the roast. We had mint sorbet. David doesn't really like mint, so he gave me his. Yay!


And then it was time for ROAST BEEF! YUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMM! Oh, it was beautiful. And delicious! Yummmmmmmm. I can't wait for Angel's dinner, because that means I get it for dinner again! Yay! And Kaz came out and carved it for us. It was cooked perfectly. And all I had to do was speak firmly to it and it fell apart. I kinda wish I was eating it again right now.

Dessert was pretty good, too. It certainly looked fancy! It was a strawberry and pistachio mousse and then sour cream sorbet. It sounds weird, but it totally worked. By this point, I was sooo full! I only ate a bit of dessert and had a tea and I was stuffed!

After dinner we went upstairs to take a few photos, since we were all fancied up. We giggled for most of the photos, though, hence the funny faces.

So, all in all it was a really good night. Hopefully next time we do refectory dinner we'll get that potato soup again. Oh man, was it ever good.

OH HELLO THERE 3DS~!

Alrighty~ Time to get the Christmas post out. I was THOROUGHLY spoiled! Like crazy!

So, first of all, we held a small Christmas Eve gathering at the pub. I'd call it a party, but it was more of us all just sitting around, chatting and passively playing a game. The teachers and WH staff got in on a Secret Santa exchange, so we were all chilling and waiting for everyone to show up. The game we played was noise charades. Basically, you make noise for the clue, instead of acting. So, you might pretend to make heart monitor beeps for a hospital. It was really funny listening to Jack and Sam. Lol. Those two are hilarious. But, eventually we decided to get exchanging. I had Gayner, and I bought her a few practical things. (Alarm clock, tupperware and pocky.) And guess who had me? Yep. David. And you wanna know what he bought me?

OH HELLO THERE 3DS~!
Yes. David gave me a Nintendo 3DS! The 3DS he won during Bingo at the party in Aizu! I was floored to say the least. It's amazing, I might add. It's all in Nihongo-speak, but that gives me even more incentive to learn Japanese quickly. We all had a good time exchanging, but too soon it was gtime to boogaloo back home and go to bed. Almost all of us had placed our Christmas gifts under the tree at this point, so I snapped a photo. It looked awesome.

Next morning Angel and I woke up early so we could Skype with Dad and the family. We also made plans to have a big Christmas breakfast with the girls. Sara came over, too. It was great to see everyone! And we had awesome seats for the carol singing. And for Dad's American Pie. Angel and I both cried when he started. We miss you, dad! But, we ate breakfast while the singing was going and Sara has decided she loves our family. Lol. She wants to come and do the carol song sometime. It was nice having a girly breakfast. We ended up making French toast, pancakes and BACON. Yummmmm~ And Sara brought hot chocolate and some juice and Gayner brought some amazing rolls. Yum.

After breakfast, Angel had to go to work and the girls all left to do there own thing. Sara and I made plans to go to tea room for lunch and we started walking over. We ended up meeting up with Sam about halfway and it was then that he informed us that tea room was PACKED. Like, no room at the inn. Poor David. He was working. So, we ate at the pub instead. It was nice to hang with Sam and Sara. Sam's got an awesome sense of humour and we just chatted and joked for like an hour. Lauren joined us about halfway and I think I'm in love. Lauren is Yuta's girlfriend. She's from Windsor, ON and I adore her. I only just me her, but it's like we've known each other forever. We have the same sense of humour, like the same music and shows and she's just hilarious. I wish she was here forever. Ahahaha.

Well, we could only stay in pub for so long. Sam had to go do some skyping and Sara, Lauren and I really wanted tea, dammit. So, we walked over to the tea house and found it almost empty. The rush had died. Thank god. Did I mention there was like 15 feet of snow outside?

We grabbed the table at the back and ordered tea. Dharmesh joined us after a bit, too. We spent an awesome 3-4hours just sitting and bantering. Dharmesh is the funniest man alive, I swear. He can keep a straight face during everything he says which makes him even more awesome. I love talking with him. And when Sara and Lauren left, he and I stayed until the tea room closed and just talked politics. Like, we both talked about American politics (or lack thereof) and then compared Canadian and British. I told him about Rick Mercer and he actually looked him up after our discussion. Lol.

So, when tea room closed, I went to reception to visit Angel. She was all alone at the desk. I took a few photos on the way. It snowed all day! Sooo much snow! We definitely had a white Christmas! It was nuts!

Sorry. My camera takes crappy night photos. The snow looked really pretty falling all thickly like. Anyways~ I hopped over to see Angel and Michie-san was just leaving. She actually had prepared a Christmas gift for me! I was so touched!

We decided to open gifts at the pub, since George was working. He'd be the last one home, if we hadn't gone there. He usually doesn't ask for much, so of course we agreed instantly when he asked. Before I went to the pub, Angel came home for her dinner break. And she gave me part of my gift. I collect Jiji merchandise. (Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service.) George went to the Ghibli museum in October and she had him pick up a few things for me.

 A cute Jiji pin and a pouch to hang off my purse. It has a breadroll zipper pull and a clear card holder spot on the back. Lovelovelove. So, we all got to the pub eventually and hijaked the area in front of the fireplace. We all sat in a circle and opened gifts together.

We'd pick a gift giver and then all open the gift from them. We opened George's first, since his was the most interesting. Now, George is a nutjob. We love him, but he's crazy. His gift idea was to make us all draw numbers from a hat and then we'd get the corresponding gift. Sounds fair. But, of course, George bought gag gifts. And he wrapped them all in tin foil. True story. I got number 3. And look what I got.

Yes. I got an air soft hand rifle. Be still my beating heart. Oh well. It could be worse. We all wondered who'd get the porn, since George mentioned he bought some. And guess who got it. DAVID. AHAHAHAHA. We all nearly died laughing. It came in a big tin and he couldn't figure out how to open it. Lol.

And why yes, I did a have a gift wrapped in a McDonald's bag. Lol. Brad ran out of wrapping paper and had to get creative. I actually made out really well! Brad gave us each a bowl and some candy, Gayner gave me gloves and candy, Keira knitted me a scarf, Tonya got me a pretty headband, Mike gave me a Coke glass and some pencils and Talia (who was in Tokyo until the next day) gave me a really pretty white dress. And Suzi gave me the best gift ever.

Yes. An ARASHI music box! My life is now complete! And the song is Monster! I love that song! <3

It was an awesome day. I missed mum, though! And dad! But, I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas, too! Angel and I will be going to Utsunomiya tomorrow for lucky bag shopping,. Wooo~ I already ordered my bags online, but Angel wants to buy them from the actual shop. So, off we go!