Went to Costco because I miss home...

I miss home. Especially after all these crazy dramas going on at school, I never missed home more. But there's a remedy for this homesickness ... COSTCO!

I felt MUCH better after my hang-out with my friends at Costco. People in Japan also seem to like going to Costco as much as we Americans do (Honestly, I never enjoyed going to Costco until I got to Japan). We were bombarded with hundreds of people trying to seize a cart as soon as one became available. But yay, we all made it out of Costco alive despite the crowd.
Side note:
I remember when I asked my mom about getting a Costco card for myself, she said, "why would you need one when we already have two?" It made me feel like a kid trying to ask mommy to buy candies. But when I finally got my own Costco card in Japan, it felt like I finally entered adulthood. Hehe I was so proud of myself! ^_____^ And I guess you can say the same for Yuya.

We got beef lasagna, pre-made pasta, and all other homesick-remedies from Costco. But the highlight of our trip was the Costco food! We never felt fuller. Satisfied..mmMmmm.

The crowd lining up for the cashier 

Le PIZZA!!

Somebody is happy :D

The giant hot-dog!

A visit to a pet shop near my school! :D

After postponing for many many weeks, the petshop trip finally happened!! One thing to note: pet stores are very very different from the ones in the states! They sell animals that are illegal in America! =O

Turtle

A baby ram

A FLAMINGO??!!!

I forgot to take pictures of the monkeys! ><

Oh! and they have U-pa-lu-pa (the tadpole-like amphibians that were in Totoro)!

Osaka castle and Noah's birthday (Star Wars Day)!

Noah's birthday was on the 4th of May (May the fourth be with you!) so we decided to celebrate it with two of our friends Kimura and Chie! We went to Osaka castle. The view from the castle top floor was breath-taking. However, in all honesty, I didn't enjoy the actual tour of the castle that much. Maybe it was because I was expecting the inside to be the actual castle instead of the modernized slide shows of Japanese history. It was a pleasant tour but not very memorable. Although I have to admit the highlight of the tour was the yukata and the samurai helmets!! I really enjoyed that particular moment! :D

Haru ga kita (春が来た)

I know spring is longgg gone and it's summer in Japan right now but I wanted to share the beautiful flower blossoms that I get to experience (near school actually). Please enjoy!

Moving moving moving

Sorry guys I've been away for a while without any updates. I have some good news and bad news. The good news is I have a LOT of new adventures to update (yay!). The bad news is I have no internet connection at home so i'll be using my iPhone to write my blog. Well, that sounds more like a pain in the neck for me than for you.
Anyways, I've been super busy because we moved to our new apartment!! It's much bigger and nicer than our old one!
Unfortunately I can't upload the pictures through my iPhone. :/

I went to Universal Studios Japan with Noah's awesome co-workers. I had a house warming party with my co-workers at our apartment. And we went to Osaka Castle on Noah's birthday which is also Star Wars Day. Pictures will be up soon so stay tuned!

Hang out with AWESOME co-workers at Nishinomiya!

I haven't seen my co-workers from my previous "work" since I've started working at Tree House Tsukaguchi branch. Me and Andrew sensei (another new teacher) were trained at Shukugawa branch so we got to know these AWESOME ppl at Shukugawa :D
We also have awesome co-workers at Tsukaguchi as well but that's for my new post coming up later. :P
So Cody sensei (the other guy in the picture) planned an event so that we all could meet up at All-you-can-eat/drink for 2 hours place. Right after our work, we took the train to Nishinomiya Kitaguchi station and met up with everyone. It was super fun! :D
We're gonna meet up for hanami on the 6th so more pictures coming up!! :D
But for now...
Readers, meet my co-workers at Tree House Shukugawa branch:

Tree House Graduation

Last Friday I was very busy with preparing for our school graduation and running around to get my work visa (I finally have it now! Yay!!). Nonetheless, I still managed to take pictures! :P

I am very proud of all my students who graduated this year! It was a very emotional moment for all of us. Especially Mairi (one of the kindest students I've ever met!) who cried throughout the whole ceremony! I will miss all the K3 kids very very much!

(From left to right, Sil-Young, Mairi, Misaki, Kureha)

(with K3 boys)

So proud of them! :)

Little Mairi crying :(

 K3 students performed "Seasons of Love" by Rent after they gave their speeches.

After K3 certificate were handed out, All K1,K2, and K3 kids sang "You'll be in my heart" to everyone.

Tanaka sensei (our president) also shed emotional tears while giving his speech to K3 kids. Almost all the teachers cried because they were sad to say good-bye to the kids they taught for either a year or two years. And for Mairi, she's been at Tree House ever since she was a baby. Tree House will miss her very much!
I will also miss all the teachers and the students who are leaving Tree House next year! They are AWESOME ppl!

And btw, I'll be teaching the kids who are in yellow sweaters, standing up in the font line.

Finally off to Dotonbori!

I've been living in Osaka for about a month now, but I've never tried being a tourist. The first two weeks I was in Osaka, I was applying and searching for jobs. In my third week, I was already working. So I never had a chance to actually "visit" Osaka until now!
Thanks to Nobu, Tsukushi and Hiro, Noah and I went around Osaka as tourists.
I've been wanting to visit Doutonbori ever since I saw it on TV in America. (Wei Phyo, thanks to you I got to see the TV program o.<). When I finally got an apartment in Osaka I felt like I HAD to visit Doutonbori!
When we decided to meet up with Nobu, Tsukushi and Hiro in front of Hep Five Mall near Osaka station, I had no idea that Nobu was gonna take us to Doutonbori!
After having a delicious Omuraisu (Omelet Rice) with everyone at Hep Five food court, we decided to bura-bura suru (walk around) in Osaka. Tsukushi told me we were gonna take a picture with a famous ad but I didn't know it would be in Doutonbori!

I've been talking about Doutonbori this, Doutonbori that but I haven't told you what Doutonbori is famous for yet.
Here it is: Doutonbori is now famous for the regional food (Osaka) but back in the days, it was famous for Kabuki and Bunraku theaters (masks and puppet theaters). Unfortunately the historic theaters didn't survive the war so now only restaurants that were catered towards the tourists and pleasure-seekers are left in Doutonbori. Nonetheless, it is a great place to visit if you ever get to Osaka! Doutonbori has flamboyant neon signs that's been there since the old days.

Ok, now back to my life. We got to the famous Glico sign and we took our group picture. Then I saw an octopus sign that looked familiar. So I said, "Oh! I've seen that on TV before! It's near Doutonbori!" and that's when Nobu replied, "This IS Doutonbori!!!!" LOL xD

Our first group picture (turns out one of Noah's students is the grandchild of the person who started the Glico company! xD)

The Octopus that reminded me of Doutonbori

Noah trying to eat the Octopus

After realizing that we were in Doutonbori, I started taking pictures non-stop. I took a picture of the crab sign (Kani Doraku) I saw on TV with Wei Phyo.

While looking at the historic flamboyant signs, we found a new sign from Meiji where we could stand in front of the shop camera to take a picture of us on the sign. After a few trials and a few "sumimasen(sorry)" to the line behind us, we finally got  the group picture on the Meiji sign!

Meiji (famous snack brand)

 In addition to the big crab sign, I found many other gigantic signs that were interesting (and famous).

Takoyaki sign (Osaka is famous for takoyaki) 

Doutonbori's #1 takoyaki stand

The famous sushi and fugu fish (Zuboraya) place in Doutonbori

After walking on Doutonbori, we decided to go shopping at G.U. (near Doutonbori) for work clothes since it was on sale! G.U. is THE place to buy cheap clothes in Japan.
Look how much we bought! xD

Happy Yanna! :D

After G.U., it's Karaoke time! Hiro had to go back home after G.U. so it was just me, Noah, Tsukushi and Nobu. It was fun nonetheless! :D
If there's Yanna and Tsukushi, there has to be karaoke time! xD

The free drinks we got with the deal

It was awesome to hear Tsukushi sing. I missed this girl! She has a beautiful voice. :)

After a long AWESOME day with AWESOME friends, we all headed home to rest up for the next day for work.

The night view of Doutonbori as we came out of the Karaoke place

Tokyo Trip! SUPER FUN! (but sick) xP

Hello readers! I haven't updated my blog for a long time now. And I know some of you are aware of the fact that I was in Tokyo last weekend but I didn't have a chance to update the blog because I was sick.
I went to Tokyo, solo (yay rhymes! xD) by bus. Noah couldn't come with me because he had work on Saturday. Also, he couldn't come with me because I was planning to stay at one of my best friend's place.
Her name is Jullian. She's Chinese-Burmese just like me and we speak the same exact four different languages: Burmese, English, Mandarin and Japanese. (yay!)
My Tokyo trip was superb! Despite the fact that I was sick (with fever) most of the time, thanks to my friend (s), I had loads of fun! :D
I took the overnight bus to Tokyo so that I would arrive at around 7am for Julie (I call her Julie) to come pick me up at the station. I was about to walk to one of the pay phones (since I don't own a cell phone in Japan yet) when I ran into her. The first thing she did was took me to her place to leave my bags and stuff. At around 10am, I had an appointment with a hairdresser to trim/cut my hair. One of my friends I met in Davis (Yuki) called Julie's ph to talk about the rendezvous while I was at the hair salon. After the haircut, we went to meet up with Yuki at the train station we agreed to meet up. We decided to have lunch at a Singaporean restaurant because I terribly miss eating those giant delicious crab dishes I used to eat in Singapore. After lunch, Yuki had to say goodbye to us because she had an appointment later in the day :(

Yummy crab dish

(From left to right) Julie, Yanna, Yuki

But Julie took me to Shibuya 109 to go shopping after our delicious lunch! :D
Shibuya crossings is one of the most famous tourist spots in Tokyo. You can youtube 'Shibuya crossing' to see how many people crosses the intersection per day! I've never seen soo many people in one place just to do shopping in my life until I got to Shibuya!
We visited some clothing stores, and of course can't miss out on the Disney store and many other stores that are popular in Japan.
Julie got me a BIGGG STITCH as a present! It was one of the best days of my life! :D
Even though I kept telling her not to get me the big one because I'd have to carry it all the way back to Osaka, she insisted on getting me the big one. She's such a sweetheart! <3

Some set-up they had at the Disney 

Yay! Pink stairs! :D

We got ice-cream for dessert at Baskin-Robbins (even when I was sick) xP.

Cupid Heart and Macha Flavors

We stayed at Shibuya for the whole day to shop around and headed to Julie's Burmese restaurant for dinner! I miss Burmese food and mom's cooking so much! Julie's mom made Kyay Owe (noodle soup dish) for me because I was sick. She was super awesome!

After dinner, we went back home to relax and recharge for the next day!
We woke up in time for brunch and went to to Tokyo's #1 Ramen place (sorry no pictures because I was too hungry and the food was too delicious that I forgot to take photos xP). We went to Harajuku after lunch for more shopping! yay! :D
Harajuku had loads and loads of people in one street. That's the ONLY street that's crowded around that place. Nonetheless, I got some cheap hair accessories, a sweater, and some socks for Noah :) We also had crepe for dessert at Harajuku. It was nommy! :D

OMG! Lots of ppl again! =O

Waiting in line for our crepe at Harajuku

Mmm, nommy crepe!

Harajuku was pretty crowded so we changed our location to a not-as-crowded-as-Harajuku famous tourist place called Shinjuku. We took puri-kura pictures at Shinjuku and ate yummy fruits to calm our ramen-filled-super-full tummies. Tokyo has an interesting way to sell fruits. They put chopsticks in the freshly cut fruit so that it will be less messy to eat while we walk.

At Shinjuku (I look super sick there lol)

Yay! fruit!

After a long day of touring around and shopping, our legs finally decided to give up on us so we went to Starbucks for snacks and drinks. It was time for me to leave Tokyo after Starbucks and Omiyage (souvenir) shopping. I dragged myself to the designated bus station with Julie while we waited for my bus to come. (And don't forget that I also had to carry my BIG bag of Stitch! ><;;)

food!! x)

I don't wanna go home yet ><;;

I had a great weekend although I was sick most of the time.
Went straight to work from the station but went back home early because I completely lost my voice during the day. Missed work on tuesday but it was worth it! I had so much fun in Tokyo! Thank you chit tone gyeee~ I love you soo much Julie! <3

(photo credits to Jullian <3)