Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving with their family and friends. There is no Thanksgiving per say here but it was a National Holiday. Mazda worked that day and when I asked me Japanese colleagues what was the National Holiday for they said it was worker appreciation day. Apparently Mazda did not get the Memo on this because it was just another normal day at the office on Thursday. I have to accept that I was pretty down that day because I knew that on a normal Thanksgiving I would be at a friends house eating good turkey and lots of food and off course making fun of everyone :-( but that's OK. It's the little things that you really miss about home.

On Friday we played volleyball in the school in front of our apartment with the parents of the kids who attend the school. It was basically a bunch of Japanese parent, one tall German guy and us. Fortunately 2 of the parents spoke English and let us know what was going on. It was really interesting to see how they play. First of all everyone stretched and warmed up together. I felt like I was 15 years old again practicing in my High School volleyball team because they did the same exact drills we used to do!!! Once we started playing the teams had 9 people in them and no one rotated...weird. Nevertheless it was fun and we just kept setting the ball to the German guy who would spike it real hard. In the second set we sent the German guy to the back because he was killing the Japanese parents, who by the way played very well and had hard serves. At the end everyone helped in cleaning up the gym. By the way you had to take 2 pairs of shoes, one to walk to the gym and leave outside and your sneakers to wear inside of the gym., which I found really funny. The parents where very nice to us and even invited us for drinks afterwards, which was very interesting since only one person could translate. I was very happy to be able to go back to something I really enjoy doing. Now if we could only find a softball team we would be all set.

On Saturday we meet a bunch of friends over at Erin's house for our invented Thanksgiving dinner. The theme of the meal was a pot luck dinner with dishes made by the boys. I have to give the boys points because everything was really good. Here is Orlando with Erin in his favorite place, in front of the grill making some kabobs ("pinchos" in Spanish).

Here is the happy bunch of foreigners lots in Hiroshima, Japan.

On Sunday I met up with Erin and Aly to go hang out in the shops downtown. We found this really cool "Dave and Buster's" type of place and decided to take some funny pictures in the booth. At first we could not figure out the picture booth because it was all in Japanese so we just picked random backgrounds. Then we discovered you could write stuff on the pictures. Last but not least we invited the guy working there to join us ... I bet we made his day.

New Events

Hello Hello everyone!!! First of all a few people heard that there was an earthquake in Japan and called to see if we where ok and as you can see from the pictures below we are fine. The earthquake was in the north of Japan and did not affect us at all. On a happier note, I found this old picture the other day and wanted to place it on the blog because Orlan has a big smile in it and I think it's cute.

Here we are with Orlando's section who organized a welcome dinner for me. We had a lot of fun everyone is super nice and shared a little bit about their culture. We told them that in Puerto Rico we roast pigs on Christmas, celebrate Three Kings day (like a second X-mas) and have "parandas" (basically everyone goes over to your house at 3am with musicians, wakes you up and eats all your food). They all found it very interested and came to the conclusion that the best Christmas celebration is in Puerto Rico, which off course we happily agreed with.

On Saturday we celebrated Keiko (white shirt), our neighbor's B-day with a girls' night. The picture only cover half of one table, there where actually 18 people there!!! Ok let me rephrase 18 very loud foreigners who asked the Japanese people in the restaurant to sing Happy Birthday with us, which they did. Here I am with the ganag and my friend Aly (the one with the peace sign) who is here from Michigan for a few weeks. She is the one that introduced me to Erin (there is a link to her blog on the right hand corner) via E-mail and the rest is history.

Working in Japan

Hello everyone!!! Nothing super interesting to report this week. Since I have been working, life has changed from adventure Thursdays (I would meet up with some friends and explore a little town or site around Hiroshima) to adventures on the train to and from work. I do want to share with everyone the good things about working in Japan. Here is my top ten list:

1. I always know which paper is mine in the group printer, the one with roman letters.
2. The girls bathroom is always unoccupied.
3. I realized that I really don't need to know what's happening in a meeting, so my day dreaming skills have increased dramatically.
4. Thanks to my European friends, I have come to appreciate a good cup of coffee at 3 o'clock.
5. I realized that there is no worse feeling in the world that watching the train leave as you run toward the station trying not to hit the other 1,000 people doing the same thing.
6. You can wear anything you want because your the only girl in the office and everyone else is wearing their Mazda jackets, so no one is going to care.
7. I have successfully mastered the art of bowing and smiling without saying a word.
8. My invented sign language vocabulary has increased.
9. My most important document is my English to Japanese dictionary.
10. I have less layers to wear because Japan is not cold!!!!! The average temperature for November is 61-45 degrees Fahrenheit, but people around here are already wearing scarves and gloves while I just wear a light jacket.

2006 World Volleyball Championship

This weekend we went to see the Puerto Rico National Volleyball team play in Kobe ,about and hour away from Hiroshima. It was really good to meet and talk to the other Puerto Ricans there. We meet some of the team representatives, reporters and the team's #1 fan who actually came all the way from Puerto Rico to see the team play. That deserves a medal!!! Here we are with PR's #1 fan and a very nice Japanese girl who had met the team during the practice rounds and came to support them.

Guess what? We made it to the newspaper!!! Check it out at:

http://www.endi.com/noticia/voleibol/deportes/salen_mas_fanaticos/103901

My name is misspelled but so what!!!! The pictures speaks a thousand words!!! I called home and they did publish the article in the sunday newspaper. The precise moment that I called my neighbors had already come over with the newspaper to tell my family. I could not believe it!!

Here is the tournament's mascot rooting for the right team:

Above you can see the whole team just before the PR's national anthem was played. I have to accept that I was very sentimental during this part because I was so happy to hear "La Borinqueña" on the other side of the world. We all had a really good time!!! I'm sure the players where glad to here a few "VAMOS, VAMOS" (Let's Go) in the midst of all the Japanese takataka...something...takataka. I only wish the best for the PR TEAM!!!!! I'm sure they will keep representing our little piece of land globally with the same class and style they demostrated in Japan.

Work

This Wednesday I began working for Ford at the Mazda offices in Hiroshima, so every day Orlando and I go to work together. Some times we go by car and other times we take the train. The train is an experience all of it's own. It basically consists of a sea of people all dressed in 1,000 combinations of black and white walking or bicycling (nothing is funnier than a guy in a suit riding a bicycle to work) toward the train station. I realized how safe it was around here one morning when I saw little kids just walking to school by themselves with no parental supervision what so ever, that would never happen in Puerto Rico. Once your at the station everyone buys their respective tickets, puts their ipods on and boards the train, where you try your best not to bump into anyone.

The SUV that I'm working on is the The Ford Everest which is developed and sold in Asia. The Everest is based on the local Ford Ranger platform and made in Thailand. The SUV is also sold as the Ford Endeavour in India (see picture beklow). In general it looks very similar to a Explorer with three-row seating. For more information check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Everest.


I'm slowly working toward tackling the language barrier but it's not that easy folks!!! I'm the only foreigner in my group!! Just my luck!!! It's all part of the motivation factor to work on my Japanese ASAP.

Halloween

I know Halloween is not until Oct. 31 but everyone celebrated it on Saturday night. I signed up to be on the kids Trick or Treat trail and lots of them came out from the International School. They where sooooo cute. It was funny how everyone had to cram into the elevator to go to the eight floor, but hey it was worth it. Here are some of the cuties that visited:

After the Trick or Treat session we where invited to a costume party. Orlando and I dressed up as Japanese Public employees. He was a construction worker and I was a police women as you can see from the picture below.

Here we are with the hosts of the party Tom and Jan. I would have to take them into police custody for possession after this picture off course.

People kept staring at us when we here walking to the party about 8 blocks away. The costume where a big hit and every one kept taking pictures of us, the problem was that Orlando's vest kept reflecting the light from the flash back into the camera!!!

People kept asking me to arrest them but I could not find any handcuffs and it's Japan so female cops don't really do anything except write tickets (I looked it up on the web).

As Orlando was walking around the party he noticed a couple dressed up as Ohio State Fans and send them my way. We talked football and where both looking forward to the Michigan vs Ohio State game coming up. There where no hard feelings except for the dead wolverine she made up using arts and crafts...the horror. As you can see from the picture to your left there is no escaping Ohio State fans... Even in Japan.

The party was a lot of fun and everyone had on funky costumes. Here are some pictures:

B-day

I'm officially older!!!!! It was my B-day yesterday and my first one in Japan!!!
I found out that Happy Birthday in Japan is OTANJOBI OMEDETO and that the birthday song is the same one as in English. The only difference is that when you sing it you have to say Happy Birthday Iddya-san, which I find hilarious.

We went to a really nice dinner (you know with lots of silverware) with our friends to celebrate the occasion.



I got this SWEET Hello Kitty cake:

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who called, send gifts, e-mailed, instant messaged me or used any other form of communication to wish me well on my B-day. I guess now that I'm 27 I can't be conquering more mountains any more. Maybe I would be able to if I got a cane to help me out!!! HAHA just kidding!!!

Nature Hike

On Saturday we decided to "be one with nature" and go on a nature hike up Mt. Misen in Miyajima Island just off the coast of Hiroshima. We walked all the way from the pier to the top of the mountain, back down the mountain to the aquarium and back to pier. I added blue arrows to the map below to show our path.

At the beginning we where very excited and pupped up to be going up the mountain especially since the sign indicated about a 2 mile hike up. No problem right? WRONG!?!? It was 2 miles of super steep steps next to these huge landslides all over the mountain!!! Every time you would take a step your knees would hit your chin!!! It was like being in the stepmaster machine from hell with the highest and steepest level non-stop. Check out the steps on the backgruond of the picture to your right. Needless to say it took us about 2 hours to get to the top of the mountain. The most embarrasing part was that these two separate old Japanese gentlemen all dressed up in hiking gear, passed us by and beat us to the top!!! I realized that it's really all down hill after your 25 years old folks!

Here is the view from the top (there where deer all over the island):

The interesting part is that we decided to take a different trail to go back down. After 3 hours we realized that the second trail was even longer and steeper than the first one!!! Once I stopped staring and cursing (I exhausted every bad word I knew in Spanish and English, if I would have know some in Japanese I would have thrown them in there too) at the endless steps in front of me, I took a break to admire the great view. Check out the picture on the right.
It was a great accomplishment for me to actually go up the mountain at all, since those of you who know me very well are aware that I'm afraid of heights, but I made it all the way up and down the mountain in one piece. I do know one thing for certain I did it because I realized it was a once in a life time experience.

Miyajima

On October 12, 2006 Therese and I went on a day trip to Miyajima, a small island of the coast of Hiroshima. Miyajima is considered one of the "Three Most Beautiful Spots" of Japan and is the second tourist spot in Hiroshima after the Peace Museum. There where lots of tourists there from all over the world walking around the island. It was comforting and weird to finally hear some English being spoken around me.

Here are some cool pictures:
























Let's play where is Iddya? Can you find me in this picture?

I'm really trying to fit in as you can see:

I found the real tourist attraction in the island a giant golden Hello Kitty:

For more information about the island visit:

http://www.hiroshima-cdas.or.jp/miyajima/english/top2.htm

Sports

This morning I woke up to the weirdest news in the world - THE DETROIT TIGERS ARE GOING TO THE BASEBALL WORLD SERIES!!!! What?!?!?! I could barely believe it, after so many losing seasons, which Orlan and I presenced the past 4 years in Michigan now that we move they finally decide to win. In the words of Alanis Morrissette - "Isn't it ironic, don't you think?". For all the none Michigan readers of this blog ( I know your out there thanks to the dots on my cluster map on the right corner) here are a few pictures of Comerica Park:

In the picture above we are in front of the park with Orlando's parents. Watching the Tigers win (thanks to MLB.com) really brought back many good memories of the time we spent at the baseball park even though the team never ever won a game when we where there (or at least that's what it felt like). GO TIGERS!!!!

Now back to the usual blog subjects. Saturday we went to the Mazda purchasing annual softball tournament. It was very cool to meet the people who work with Orlando everyday. I spoke to a few English speakers who where mostly girls (younger than me if you can believe it, mostly 22-25 years old) who work in purchasing. They where all very stylish and nice. In the beginning of the activity there was speech made and then everyone stood up in rows and stretched out to the Mazda exercise song. Since I have no idea what the song or anyone speaking was saying I did my best to follow the exercises by imitating the people in front of me, clapped whenever they clapped and laughed whenever they laughed. When the game was about to start both teams made a row facing each other and bowed. Here is Orlando at bat proudly wearing his YA HEARD Dearborn Softball league shirt (notice the scenery in the background, the field was on the top of a mountain, the same as all the golf courses here, no space?..no problem just level the top of a mountain and there you go):

Check out the video of Orlan hitting a home run (I took the video with my cel phone so the quality is not great but you get the idea):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIHp5rcztyU

At the end of the first game time was up and the scored was tied. So how do you decide a winner? Well the answer is simple play 5 sets of rock, paper, scissors and who ever gets the most wins goes on to the next game. I was lucky enough to take a picture of this event since I figured no one would believe me, as you can sse on your right. Our team actually won the rock, paper, scissors Japanese shoot out, assembled in a row, bowed to the other team and continued to the next game. The whole day was allot of fun everyone went with their families and played for fun. There was no batting order or anything like that, if you where on the bench and grabbed the bat then you where next, as simple as that. The good thing was all the baseball terms where the same. First base was first base and an out is an out so even though I can't speak Japanese I defended myself with the universal language of baseball.

Sake Festival

Today a group of friends and us went to a Sake Festival in Saijo about 30 minutes from Hiroshima by train. Sake is alcoholic beverage brewed mainly from rice. I'm not a big fan of sake. I tried it when I was in Michigan and did not particularly like but I went to the festival anyways to give it another shot. We walked around town and went into the different sake breweries. Here are some of them:

Here we are in front of the Sake barrels:

Here I am with my sidekick Erin (she finally updated her blog check it out at: http://erinsjourneys.blogspot.com/).

There where more than 200 different brands of Sake form all the different regions in Japan. You paid $ 15 at the entrance and could order all types of sake by region and number, as many times as you wanted!!! The first one to run out was sake # 69 from the Kinki region, I assume because there where lots of foreigners that where there and found that funny. You got these tiny sake cups or a wooden box with salt on the corner (all you needed was lime and you had a Japanese margarita ready to go) as you can see below:

Even though the containers where small the people where still really drunk all over the place. Since you could not come back out people would just hang around, like this guy to your right. He was just sleeping happily in one of the park benches and absolutely nothing was going to wake him up!!!! The sad part is that he was not the only one like this, you could barely find where to sit. On our way back to Hiroshima this poor man was so drunk that every time the train stopped he would fall on top of Orlando, which he did not enjoy but it was really funny!!! Finally the drunk guy got a chair and went to sleep. In general the sake festival was like being in "El festival del Cafe" back in Maricao, (I think I went there every year when I was in PR with my family) you just had to substitute the coffee for sake.

Girls Night

Friday night a group of ladies and I went out to celebrate 2 of their birthdays. So everyone left their kids at home with their husbands and I left Orlando with his playstation and some pizza!!! We all went to dinner at a Spanish restaurant near my apartment. Here we are:

After dinner we went to hang out for a while, here we are having a great time:

There I spoke to the owner of the establishment who is from Peru and requested La Gasolina in order to show the ladies how to dance some Reggeaton. Everyone proceeded to buggy down with some Daddy Yankee and to my surprise some of the Japanese people that where there started to dance and singing along to every word!!! To bad my video camera does not fit into my pursue because it was priceless. Music is truly a universal language because everyone was dancing to the rhythm of the song even though they had no idea what the music was saying.

Normal Life

We have been here almost 3 months now and are getting used to our new surroundings well. In general we lead very normal lives except for a few things:

- Football - We watch college football games on Sundays instead of Saturdays via internet by connecting the computer to the TV. I really do miss going to the Big house (U of M football stadium) and hanging out with Lauren and all her friends. This year would have been good since Valerie (my friend Ydalmi's 3-month old Baby [blog: http://gonzalez-rodriguez.blogspot.com/]) would be quietly sitting with a little sweater on her mother's lap instead of growing inside her mother's belly while hanging out.
- Ordering pizza is an adventure - This Friday Orlando order a pizza successfully, he deserves an applause. Usually we just go get the neighbor's kid and he order for us, but we are on our way toward pizza independence.
- Going out - We still go out to eat and hang out on Fridays or Saturdays with friends. The only difference is that we don't know what we are eating and each bar we go to does not fit more than 10-15 people. Also there are so many Kareoke bars here that one does not even know where to start. This Saturday we finally went to one!!! I tried to sing Shakira's La Tortura (unfortunately Alejandro Sanz could not get his jet ready in time to fly in from Miami to sing his part) and completely butchered it. I feel really bad that everyone had to hear my horrible version to what is really a good song. Like any good Puerto Rican Orlando sang Ricky Martin's Living La Vida Loca, I think maybe because he was happy from ordering the pizza the day before. Here is the proof:



- Car - We really don't use the car at all here. My neighbors use it as a landmark to tell people where they live - "just look for the red car in front of the building". Also people worry and think something happened to us if the car is not there. So far we have only filled up the tank twice and still have half the second fill up left. Here is Orlan in our parking spot.




- Golf - I really do miss paying a reasonable amount of money to play golf. I would really consider not going to play if it was over $50 but now I can only dream of those good old days. I am not giving up though because practice amkes perfect except now there will a lot of practice in the driving range and not so much on a real course.

As you can see our livez have changed but not that much :-).