What a beautiful day. The weather I hope is finally starting to warm up and stay that way. It felt so nice to feel the warmth of the sun and to be able to roll the window down and feel the wind through my hair...well feel the wind on my face. Today I woke up to the doorbell ringing. Travis and I got a package from our friends Eric and his girlfriend Emika. We had asked them to send us some bracelets, so they had sent some plus some Japanese caramel corn (which looks like brown Cheeto puffs and are sweet) and they sent us two small packages of ginger caramel cookies from one of our favorite coffee shops (Ichiban Coffee). It was such a nice treat. They also made a cute little card and put it in there. We miss them so much.
After Travis came home from work he got changed and then we went to meet my cousin Koreynne and her boyfriend Harley for dinner at Applebee's. Travis and I took them out in celebration of her 17th birthday (which is on April 9th). We all sat around and laughed about stupid stuff, talked about how they are doing in school and what they do together. They asked how my treatments are going and we talked about Harley's close family member who has Cancer. They asked us about things that happened to us in Japan and we of course had stories.
One of the things they had asked was what was the strangest things we experienced in Japan. There were so many things that happened that we couldn't just pick one story. Like in Japan there are problems with monkeys in some areas, so you can go to the town hall and ask for a firework gun that you can use to shoot the monkeys. It doesn't hurt them it just scares them away. Also, in some areas monkeys will go through your garbage and sit on your roof and throw whatever they have at you. Some people have to keep their doors locked to keep the monkeys from opening them.
When Travis and I first moved there we had no car for like a year, so we had to have friends take us grocery shopping or we had to take the 30 minute bus ride to the store and haul the bags back. Mind you the bus was often shoulder to shoulder packed and they would take more people. Some times it was hot and hard to breathe with all of the people and then you had to push through just to get off of the bus. It was horrible.
Another story we shared was when Travis was at work one day in the summer they had a "Stranger Danger" day at work. His co-workers told him that when the police came that he wasn't allowed to laugh and that he would have to take everything seriously. He said okay but once he saw what was happening he couldn't help but laugh. The police came and a co-worker began screaming. The police officer had a bat and was hitting bushes and was acting like a criminal. All of his co-workers got in "battle mode" and grabbed "weapons" which looked like a pitch fork, a long rod with a scissors on the end, bats and a bunch of other random things. Some of the workers hid and others went to fight the police. All while Travis stood there drinking coffee. Nobody told him where to go or what to do. They battled for about five minutes. After they had finished one of his co-workers had asked him what we would do if this sort of thing were to happen in the States. Travis jokingly said that we would shoot them.
We all laughed.
While we were eating I was quite distracted by the people next to us. It was a family of four. A small boy maybe around three years old and a girl who was maybe around five years old and the mother and father. The kids were behaved but the whole time they were there nobody was talking to each other and the girl was watching a cartoon rather loudly on the phone. I don't understand how a family can go out together to try to do some thing as a family but have to be so distracted by technology. Why did the little girl have to watch some thing on the phone? The boy wasn't watching anything. I just find it so irritating on how dependent we have become on technology. I know, I am writing on a computer, but I don't go to a restaurant and sit on my phone. I don't even have a cell phone. You go to Chili's Restaurant and you don't even get a waiter or waitress you order on a tablet which also has internet and games on it. Why do we need this? I guess you could call me uptight or old fashioned or whatever but I just don't think we need it all of the time. What do you think?
After Travis came home from work he got changed and then we went to meet my cousin Koreynne and her boyfriend Harley for dinner at Applebee's. Travis and I took them out in celebration of her 17th birthday (which is on April 9th). We all sat around and laughed about stupid stuff, talked about how they are doing in school and what they do together. They asked how my treatments are going and we talked about Harley's close family member who has Cancer. They asked us about things that happened to us in Japan and we of course had stories.
One of the things they had asked was what was the strangest things we experienced in Japan. There were so many things that happened that we couldn't just pick one story. Like in Japan there are problems with monkeys in some areas, so you can go to the town hall and ask for a firework gun that you can use to shoot the monkeys. It doesn't hurt them it just scares them away. Also, in some areas monkeys will go through your garbage and sit on your roof and throw whatever they have at you. Some people have to keep their doors locked to keep the monkeys from opening them.
When Travis and I first moved there we had no car for like a year, so we had to have friends take us grocery shopping or we had to take the 30 minute bus ride to the store and haul the bags back. Mind you the bus was often shoulder to shoulder packed and they would take more people. Some times it was hot and hard to breathe with all of the people and then you had to push through just to get off of the bus. It was horrible.
Another story we shared was when Travis was at work one day in the summer they had a "Stranger Danger" day at work. His co-workers told him that when the police came that he wasn't allowed to laugh and that he would have to take everything seriously. He said okay but once he saw what was happening he couldn't help but laugh. The police came and a co-worker began screaming. The police officer had a bat and was hitting bushes and was acting like a criminal. All of his co-workers got in "battle mode" and grabbed "weapons" which looked like a pitch fork, a long rod with a scissors on the end, bats and a bunch of other random things. Some of the workers hid and others went to fight the police. All while Travis stood there drinking coffee. Nobody told him where to go or what to do. They battled for about five minutes. After they had finished one of his co-workers had asked him what we would do if this sort of thing were to happen in the States. Travis jokingly said that we would shoot them.
We all laughed.
While we were eating I was quite distracted by the people next to us. It was a family of four. A small boy maybe around three years old and a girl who was maybe around five years old and the mother and father. The kids were behaved but the whole time they were there nobody was talking to each other and the girl was watching a cartoon rather loudly on the phone. I don't understand how a family can go out together to try to do some thing as a family but have to be so distracted by technology. Why did the little girl have to watch some thing on the phone? The boy wasn't watching anything. I just find it so irritating on how dependent we have become on technology. I know, I am writing on a computer, but I don't go to a restaurant and sit on my phone. I don't even have a cell phone. You go to Chili's Restaurant and you don't even get a waiter or waitress you order on a tablet which also has internet and games on it. Why do we need this? I guess you could call me uptight or old fashioned or whatever but I just don't think we need it all of the time. What do you think?