From Pennies To Yennies

A Weekend With Friends

May 24, 2012 by Laurel

Dan and I had a busy weekend with our friends Mariko and Evan!

I don’t work Fridays, but since Dan does, he and I met our friends Mariko and Evan at Tokyo Disney Sea at 6. We enjoyed a night of rides and shows. The spring evening weather was fabulous! Warm with clear skies, no need for a jacket 🙂
Mariko and I ready for fun!

Dan and I

Saturday I worked in the afternoon, and then Dan and I ran 6 miles. Nothing too exciting. Sunday we went hiking at Mount Takao! Again Evan and Mariko joined us and we all had a good time huffing and puffing up the mountain.

Dan and I ready to go!

We walked hundreds of stairs to the top

We made it to the top!

At the top of Mt. Takao was literally hundreds of people picnicking, enjoying beers, taking photos and napping! We all enjoyed popsicles before heading back down.

We saw neat sights on our way down, like shrines and temples!

One last photo op before heading down

As we were making our way down the mountain, we saw signs for a chair lift. We decided to ride down the last half of the mountain, and it was so fun! We had great views and it was a nice rest for our feet.

Mariko and Evan riding down the mountain

Once at the base of the mountain, we browsed some shops before heading home. Dan and I had to change quickly- it was his aunt and uncle’s last night in Japan!
One hour later…

We had an amazing Korean BBQ feast thanks to his aunt and uncle, and heard their stories from their trip down to Kyoto and Nara. After our fantastic meal, drinks and stories, we wished them a safe trip home.
Dan with his Aunt Linda and Uncle Clyde

All in all a good weekend! It’s just been another ordinary work week so far, and now it’s Wednesday night. Last night Dan and I went for a run. We’ve been having calibration issues lately, but I’ll get into that in another blog post when I’m not so sleepy!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dan, family, fitness, friends, hiking, Japan, Mt Takao, Tokyo Disney Sea, travel | Leave a Comment »

Seeing the Sights!

May 22, 2012 by Laurel

I got to play with my new camera while Dan and I did some sight seeing around Tokyo with his aunt and uncle. Enjoy some shots of the city I call home now!

Takeshita Street in Harajuku

Candy shop in Harajuku

Street performer in Shibuya

Shbuya Crossing, world’s busiest crosswalk

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku

Dan looking for our apartment from the TMG building observation deck

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dan, Japan, photography, travel | 1 Comment »

Hotaru Festival 2012

May 15, 2012 by Laurel

On the last night of Golden Week, Dan and I took a train out to Asakusa to attend the Hotaru Festival. Hotaru, meaning firefly, used to be a spring festival to welcome the arrival of fireflies. Sadly Tokyo doesn’t see any fireflies, so in lieu of bugs, Panasonic sent 100,000 blue LED solar powered bulbs down the Sumida River. It was beautiful! We stood among the crowds and watched these glowing little orbs float down the river. In the background, the Tokyo Sky Tree was also glowing blue.

Enjoy!

The solar lanterns up close

Carved Sculptures

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dan, festivals, hotaru festival, Japan | Leave a Comment »

Highlights!

May 13, 2012 by Laurel

Dan and I have been crazy busy! I’ve been teaching extra classes and we have Dan’s aunt and uncle visiting from Oregon! I’ll write up a proper entry in the next day or two, but for now here are some snippets of fun in the past week 🙂

I took my friend Madeleine to the Ghibli Museum for her first visit! She loved it!

Dan and I having drinks at the Tokyo Park Hyatt with his aunt and uncle. I’d just got off work!

Dan’s aunt Linda and Uncle Clyde having their first yakiniku grilling experience 🙂

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dan, friends, Ghibli, Japan, visitors, yakiniku | Leave a Comment »

Oktoberfest!

May 8, 2012 by Laurel

Dan and I had an amazing Golden Week holiday! We did everything on our to-do list: visit with friends, go to events, run, and relax.

Friday was a busy friend day! I had lunch with two girl friends from my work training, and it was wonderful to catch up with them. After that, I met Dan on the train and we ventured out to Yokohama for Oktoberfest! So strange it’s in the spring here!

It was incredibly crowded!

Dan celebrating with his bier and brats!

It rained much of the day, but by night time it stopped and the festival continued outside! My new camera did a great job capturing the light!

Dan with my two friends from work, Peter and Jenna

As the night got later, we headed toward the train station to get some dinner and head home. Got some great shots of the city of Yokohama!
Yokohama Grand Intercontinental Hotel

Ferris wheel at night

Pretty clock!

Some rides on the Tokyo Bay

On our way to catch the train, we cut through the mall. I had to get a shot of the giant Snoopy outside Snoopytown!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dan, friends, golden week, Japan, Oktoberfest, travel, Yokohama | 1 Comment »

Running in the Rain

May 3, 2012 by Laurel

Let the Golden Week Holidays begin! I’m officially off work for the next 4 days and Dan and I are going to make the best of it! We decided to leave our first day off open with no plans so we can catch up on things at home. To today’s agenda: a 10 mile run, getting further in my current book Divergent, and making some greeting cards 🙂

As you can see, we didn’t make it 10 miles. It was nice and overcast as we started running which was fine with me. A couple miles in it started to drizzle, which is nice to me, being misted as a run and get hot. But then it happened: torrential downpour. It started absolutely pouring! I couldn’t see Dan on the loop we run, so I decided to keep running until we caught up with each other and agreed to quit. I only ran just shy of half my run, but I have another 10 mile run on the schedule for Sunday.

We snapped a quick pic after our 5 miles in the rain. I wish you could better see how absolutely soaking we are! I had raindrops falling off my eyelashes!

Hope everyone is keeping dry and warm wherever they are!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dan, fitness, golden week, Japan, running | Leave a Comment »

Well, we did something crazy.

May 2, 2012 by Laurel

Oh yes, Dan and I took the plunge and signed up to do the Walt Disney World Goofy’s Race and a Half next January! We never thought we’d sign up so early, but the event was already over half full, so we just decided to go for it!

The Goofy Challenge is waking up on a Saturday morning and running a half marathon, then waking up the next day, and running a full marathon. We must be nuts! But it will be great to keep us on track with running! we plan to train by running Saturdays, and then doubling it Sundays. This up coming weekend we’ll be running 5 miles Saturday, and 10 Sunday. We’ll keep adding a mile or half mile until we get the job done, and we’re running 13.1 miles Saturday and 26.2 Sunday!

I’m only working 2 days this week for Golden week, but with so many teachers out of the office for the holiday I’m swamped with extra classes! I should add that these Disney races don’t come cheap (I guess because there are loonies like Dan and I who pay these awful race fees!) so I should complain about extra work on my paycheck!

And in baby nephew news, someone is tuckered out after their first bath! Really hoping he can go home soon!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, Dan, Disney World, Florida, Japan, nephew, rundisney, running, teaching | 2 Comments »

9 Miles!

April 29, 2012 by Laurel

Despite not getting much sleep (5 tossy-turny hours), today was fabulous! I taught 10-1pm and came home and had a protein filled lunch of eggs and a banana. Then Dan and I went to the bedroom to get ready to run. I pulled open the curtains so Penny could lay on the bed in the sun. Then I opened the window so she could enjoy the breeze. Then… we laid down and took a nap! I’m ashamed we wasted a chunk of the beautifully sunny day on a nap, but it was so nice!

After that we headed out to run. I had Dan snap a quick pre-run pic:

This outfit is special because I bought the top at the Underarmour outlet in Oregon in November. I was sure a medium would fit, but I got home and it was too small, snug everywhere. The outlets were about 40 minutes from my house, so I had no desire to exchange/ return the $8 top. So I hung on to it. And now it fits! Also, the cropped pants from Lululemon are exciting because when I was trying them on I did my usual habit of grabbing the largest size and heading to the fitting room. Since they’re cropped and I’m short I wanted them hemmed (free alterations at Lululemon!), and as the guy was measuring and pinning he said he was going to grab the next size down. I turned red and wanted to run out of the store. I was ready to be horribly embarrassed that the smaller pants would rip or be grotesquely small. But he assured me that since they’re activewear, they’re stretchy, and if I’m planning to lose weight I’d be happy I got the smaller size. And to my surprise they fit great and I love them! So, this is my exciting outfit of a top that was once too small, and the pants I was too scared to even try on one day.

Off we ran. I set my iPod to 9 miles, feeling ambitious. I knew this would be 27.25 laps around our little loop. Around lap 9 I saw Dan on a bench. His leg hurt, so he was out. It was so tempting to just call it quits with him, but I decided to keep on keeping on.

Remember when I said I had to add 5.1 more miles to hit half marathon distance? Make that 4.1!

I felt pretty good after! Sore in the lower legs but everything else felt great. I even had a quicker pace than I’ve been having the past week! I came home and found Dan getting some house stuff done, like cleaning Penny’s water fountain, dishes, etc. We decided since it was such a nice night out and the start of the holiday week (Golden Week), we went out to dinner. We had delicious yakiniku, the restaurant that let’s you grill your own meat! Fun and tasty!
From left to right, short rib from cow, chorizo sausage, and cow tongue!

Doing some cooking!

Now Dan and I are home for the next two days enjoying the holiday weekend! I only have to work 2 days next week- woohoo! A weekend full of running, making cards and either a bike ride or hike.

Also, my nephew Big Nate is a week old already! Hoping he can leave the hospital sometime in the next week! Dan and I can’t get over how much attitude/ expression he has!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged clothes, Dan, Japan, nephew, running, teaching, weekend, yakiniku | 1 Comment »

Busy Work Week!

April 27, 2012 by Laurel

At work, I offered to be available to teach extra classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I like my job and the extra money couldn’t hurt! The only downside is I don’t know if I’m working extra until the night before, but besides that I really enjoy it! I got a few extra classes in this week and it kept me busy out of the house.

Unfortunately I was too busy to exercise most of the week! After my awesome run Sunday I didn’t run again until today, nor did I pay the gym a visit. My last class ends at 9:10, and then I get home just after 10, which is cutting it really close with the gym. And of course I’m in no mood to run that late at night- I just want to have dinner and go to bed!

I didn’t have class until 6:15 tonight, so I had plenty of time to run. I just didn’t feel like it though. I was chatting with my friend Kelsey online, and complaining how I should go running but don’t feel like it. She jokingly reminded me she has some of my bigger pants, and that was all I needed to get my rear out the door! Seriously! As I was packing to come home from my trip to the States, I was quickly running out of luggage space. So I decided to part with some looser pieces of clothing. I gave her my faithful, worn-in jeans, and told her I never wanted to be able to fit into them again, and to give them away. I have only dropped 1 size from those pants, but I still call them my fat pants, and never want to have to wear them again!!

I closed my laptop, changed and got outside. I did 8 miles again, almost at the exact same pace as the day before! I’m not sure my pace is accurate and I might need to calibrate my foot chip, but it’s in the ballpark.

And now, besides some afternoon classes Saturday, it’s my weekend! I am meeting a volunteer friend for dinner tomorrow night, and then Sunday I am going to my first ever running club! A coworker told me about a running group called The Harriers, and we all run and then have a food and drinks after. I’m nervous but excited, it sounds fun!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dan, Japan, running, teaching | Leave a Comment »

Runny Sunday

April 23, 2012 by Laurel

Dan and I had a great Sunday to round out our weekend!

Oh yes that’s right, I ran 8 miles yesterday! The furthest I’ve run in my life without stopping! Dan did even better, almost 9 miles! I made it a goal to take it easy and just try to do it in about an hour and a half. So I was pleased to see that I did it in less time with minimal effort!

Dan and I were in a great mood after our run, so we decided to explore a local park we haven’t been to yet. We hopped on our bikes and rode about 5 minutes in town.

As you can see, we biked and walked around the park, and I brought my camera along for some pretty shots! We did get drizzled on a few times, so we came home and got cleaned up for dinner. We put on our new matching shirts we got at Disneyland Friday!