My Dog Is My Hero!

Surprise! After what seemed like forever, I finally convinced my husband to get us a dog! We got ourselves a handsome and dashing golden retriever puppy, Odin, just a couple of months ago, and have been loving every bit of our time together since then. In the short amount of time that we've had Odin, he has already saved me from my anxiety just by keeping me company and having me focus on things other than my fears when I'm alone and my husband is away on missions. He has already become so dear to me and Odin and I have forged an amazing bond already, so much so that even my husband believes that Odin truly is my dog, since he and I are pretty much inseparable and the fact that he listens to me over him. xD Aside from my husband, Odin's the only real friend I have, but he's starting to change that, too, it seems.

 Lately when I take him out for walks, we have been getting approached by many people, some of which we now encounter regularly. At first, it all started out as small talk about Odin and their own dogs, and then escalated into talking about ourselves and getting to know each other better. For a shy girl like me, this is almost like a miracle. I've always had trouble talking to other people and tended to keep to myself, and now I find myself opening up more and more, all thanks to Odin. To think that he could bring so many positive changes into my life in such a short window of time is just incredible to me and it blows me away. What is it about dogs and their magical powers that can change someone for the better?

He blinked!

Catch up~!

It's been over a few months now that we've been here in Japan, and a lot has occurred in that short amount of time. So much had happened within that time period, that I didn't have much time to post about it all! So here in this post, I will be updating you all on everything (well, at least on all of the biggest highlights, anyways) that had went on so far up to now! ^_^ Brace yourselves, this is probably most likely going to be long! Here we go~!

Oct. 6, 2012 -

This is the day when we first took a trip to Harajuku, Japan's fashion district! I scheduled a much needed hair appointment at Watanabe Hairdressing and had booked with Kenichi. We got lost trying to find the place, and we had to resort to asking people in Japanese if they could speak any English and for directions on how to get there, and thankfully someone had pointed us in the right direction. ^.^ We managed to make it there just in time.

We had to walk through this sea of people to get there. O.O

The entrance to Watanabe! We made it!!!

My experience over at Watanabe was hands down the best experience I have ever had at any hair salon by far! The staff was very kind and attentive. My husband and I were offered tea once we had walked in. The shampoo process was very relaxing, as they massaged my scalp and were very gentle throughout the process. Then, once that was done with, I was escorted to a chair where I received yet another scalp massage, this time with essential oils added to my hair. Following that was a neck, shoulder, and arm massage, and then came time for the haircut! Kenichi was great at listening to what I wanted, and seemed to be very knowledgeable with what would look good with my face shape! Needless to say, once he was finished cutting and styling my hair, it looked fabulous! My hair was so soft and shiny, and even when the wind blew it all over the place once we left, it fell perfectly back into place. I felt like a pampered princess~! I'm definitely going to be a regular customer there as long as I'm here in Japan!

Other than Watanabe, Harajuku has some of the coolest and cutest clothes and accessories I have ever seen! I never thought I would see stores like H.Naoto, Angelic Pretty, Liz Lisa, and so much more with my own eyes! It was so exciting! (Too bad I didn't take pictures of them though... Too many people hustling past us. Hopefully on my next trip, we can get more pictures!) They also had a lot of neat stuff being sold outside of the brand name stores, as well. A lot of the stalls out in the streets had so many things for sale that I wish I could have bought~!

Loooove these shoes! I don't think they'd fit me, though. I don't think they carry 9's... TT_TT

To my surprise, there was also a building dedicated to Tamagotchi!!!! I was so curious as to what was in there, so I begged my husband to go check it out. x3

There wasn't too much inside, but it did have a lot of gashapon machines with Tamagotchi related items in them, a little game center, lots of posters, and a Tamagotchi ID L with items that can be downloaded onto your own tamagotchi that you can't get anywhere else. I thought that was pretty cool, and I regretted not bringing my tamagotchis with me.... TT_TT

Oct. 24, 2012 -

The day of my dear hubby's birthday! We decided to celebrate at home, so while he was away at work, I worked my tail off in the kitchen preparing a surprise! I thought it would be fun to maybe add in a celebratory Japanese dish for the occasion, so I had prepared some osekihan (basically, it's a glutinous rice prepared with adzuki beans and topped with gomashio, which is black sesame seeds mixed with salt). As a bonus, I had also baked a Pikachu cake with pokeball cupcakes. <3 That was probably the most difficult part for me, because cakes aren't my strong point when it comes to baking. In fact, Pikachu's face tore right off when I tried to remove the cake from the pan, but somehow, I managed to salvage it. Once I frosted it, it wasn't even noticeable! See?

The cake, sekihan, and a Sena Kashiwazaki figure (a gift I bought for my husband)

It turned out pretty well, but the frosting was a little hard to work with, since it kept crusting over and it came from a tube.... I couldn't find any food coloring at our commissary, so that was my only option. ^^;  Still, I need to work on improving my cake baking and decorating skills! I don't work on it nearly enough. :P The important part of it all though was that my husband was ecstatic when he came home from work and saw everything! All that hard work paid off in the end. ^.^


Nov. 28, 2012 -

We FINALLY got our beloved kitties back to us! We drove 2 hours one way to get to Narita Airport, but of course it was well worth it. We were just so happy to have them back with us after months of not being with them. It honestly felt like forever! To think that we could have possibly had to go even longer without them is just crazy! We really wouldn't have been able to get them back when we did without the help of our friends and family members. They contributed so much, so I'm really grateful! ^_^ We really missed Blair and Sundae so much, and now everything feels so complete again now that they're here. I'm also so happy that they remembered us still despite having been away from us for quite some time. :)



Dec. 14th, 2012 -

It was back to the airport yet again, only this time, it was to pick up my mother-in-law! xD She was (and currently still is) visiting us for the holidays. She was sick with bronchitis for the first couple of days she was here, but thankfully she's a lot better now. We've been showing her around base and off base, taking her to our favorite restaurants and hang out places. She seems to be enjoying herself, but she's also still in shock by how different everything is out here compared to the US. She's so used to just striking up conversations with random people, but she finds that to be rather difficult over here for the most part. ^^; We've also been teaching her some simple but useful Japanese phrases to kind of help her along and to get by, and she's been doing pretty well considering she didn't know anything about Japan before she came out here. :) She's gotten used to thanking people, greeting them, and responding  with "hai!". Lols! She also fell in love with Purikura booths out here (which I totally understand, since I've fallen in love with them, too! They pretty much guarantee that you'll look flawless). She even managed to drag my hubby in the booth with us to take a picture today!

My mother-in-law's first purikura pic! (Taken a couple of days ago)

Me, my husband, and my mother-in-law (Taken today!)

Dec. 22, 2012 -

Today, we picked up an assortment of Christmas cakes from Cozy Corner at Seiyu! They just looked so sweet and delectable, we couldn't help but get them and dig into them right away, even though Christmas is still a few days away. xD They were too irresistible! 

So that's what I've been up to as of late. Looking at it now, it doesn't really seem like I did much, but it felt like of done a lot this entire time. O.O Funny how that turned out.... ^^; Anyways, I should be posting more tomorrow, since we'll be taking a trip to Caretta Shiodome for the Shiodome Illumination! So I'm looking forward to that and sharing pictures of it here for everyone to see!

Oooh Boy....

I can't believe I haven't been posting lately.... 0_0 It's not that I've forgotten to, it's just that in the past month, things have been extremely busy, and not in a fun way. Our furniture came in a few weeks ago, so we had to do lots of unpacking, reorganizing, and have been trying to piece back our life and home together little by little. It's looking so much better now though, but the work was so exhausting! x_x Still, we aren't quite finished yet. There's still some little things that need to be taken care of (mainly just buying a few things that we need to replace our old furniture that we weren't able to take with us, restocking our cabinets, figuring out where to place our gaming systems, etc.), and one big thing.... we still have to find a way to bring our cats here.... It's taking much longer than anticipated. We know that they're okay where they are staying at the moment, but we miss them like crazy! I miss Blair following me around everywhere and sitting in my lap for hours on  end, and I miss Sundae's constant meowing (I never thought I would say that). In the little time we have had them, they've become such a big part of our lives and we have come to  love them very dearly. We can't wait until they're back in our arms again!

Thinking about our cats can't help but make me think of our guinea pigs and rabbits, too... It makes me feel awful that we had to surrender them... We would have had to give them up anyways when they got here, though, since we're only allowed to have two pets living on base. :( It hurts thinking about them, but I can only hope that they have found loving homes with people who can take care of them properly, especially the rabbits. They can't be kept in a cage all day and need their running space, can't be put under stress, need their areas cleaned at least once every two days, need to be petted and loved often so they don't shed and so they warm up to you, and need lots and lots of timothy hay to help their digestive system. Taking care of them is a lot of work, and I wonder just how many people have the time and dedication to do that on a regular basis. Some people eventually start to neglect their pet rabbits after the initial excitement of having them wears away too, or so I've heard. I don't want that to land up happening to them.... I can't help but be worried about them so much. My husband says to remain positive, but sometimes that's a bit difficult, especially when we don't know where they may be now. I wonder if I will ever stop worrying about them...

A CATastrophe!

Well, things have become a bit troublesome all of a sudden regarding our trip to Japan.We're having a hard time trying to figure out what to do with our cats, since apparently, our original plan that we had to transport them there would cost us way more than we can afford (we didn't receive any info on prices when we originally set up this plan, so we thought everything would be reasonable and easy to take care of). Now, we're only left with these options:

A) Try to change our leave date to the 21st of this month so they can actually board the same flight as us, which we're not exactly sure how well that would go... We might only have a slim chance of that happening. Plus, the movers are here right now and packing away all of our furniture at this very moment, so we'd have absolutely nothing aside from our laptops and clothes that we packed into our luggage bags on hand, and I'm so not thrilled about that idea.

B) Find someone to take care of them until we can fly them over to us.....

or

C) Give them up, which we definitely don't want to do.


So yeah... Things are pretty stressful for us at the moment, especially when we're supposed to be leaving in two days. This popped up so last minute, and we've been rushing around trying to seek help from our friends and family members to see what they suggest. So far, option B is our best bet, it's just a matter of finding someone fast... :/ Let's hope all goes well.

Meet Our New Guinea Pig!

Today my husband and I went to Pet Co to buy a new collar for Blair, since she destroyed her old one. We landed up getting distracted by the guinea pigs there, and we spotted this cutie! <3 As soon as I saw him, I thought he'd look really cute with our guinea pig Cocoa, whose sweetheart, Chip, had passed away a month ago, and we just had to have him. His name is Marshmellow (Mello for short)! I'm so glad that he and Cocoa seem to be getting along well. ^.^ I felt so sorry for her because she just seemed so lonely to me. I thought she would be happy to have some company again. ^_^ 

We hope that Marshmellow will be happy living here with us and will get along with all the other piggies, too! We already love him very much! <3 

Kitties :3

So, while my husband was cleaning out the guinea pig cage, Blair (named after the cat in Soul Eater xD) decided to crawl inside the top part of the cage. The upper half of the cage is detachable, and my  husband has to remove it in order to clean out the old guinea pig bedding and replace it with a fresh layer, and he usually sets it aside on the floor with the latch undone, making it easy for Blair to access. 

She would probably stay in there all day happily, if we'd only let her. She has a thing for hiding in boxes and such. :P

And then, there's our other kitty, Sundae, who really loves to climb on my hubby's shoulders......

We've got cute little weirdos. x3 Lols!