Happy Halloween!

Tonight was our first Halloween here in Japan. We are not huge "Halloweiners" as my dad would say, but we still bought some candy and passed it out to the zillions of kids that came through our neighborhood. So John and I sat on our porch with our bowl full of candy and our "spiked" sodas. Many of the other neighbors had the same idea, so we had a good time! Some of the Japanese nationals were allowed to come on base with their children and trick-or-treat. Oh my that was great! I loved the Japanese kids saying "Twic-o-tweat". I have no idea if they even know what that means, but they were so fun.

Mischa decided to get in on the action and get dressed up in her cowgirl outfit. Of course, she had to make her appearance outside and was a big hit!

This afternoon we decided to just get in the car with the dogs, hop on the expressway and just go. We went pretty far north and found a little secluded beach and just hung out for a while. Of course the dogs loved it, they live for the beach! It was such a beautiful day. The weather is finally starting to cool off and of course the beach was absolutely gorgeous!

My dog can walk on water. Pretty amazing, huh?

Me and Zeke

My babies

Last but not least I had to show you a picture of the sweetest pumpkin of all. My adorable nephew Cade in his costume. Now, you cannot tell me you have ever seen a cuter cow than this one!

Lets get pampered!

Today my friend Rebecca and I went to get a pedicure at the local favorite salon "Cocok" (the K is silent--I have no idea why it is even there) Anyway, I wish I were the brainchild behind this clever place.
Whomever thought to put a nice salon with amazing chairs and great customer service near a military bases where the wives have nothing better to do, was quite brilliant. It seems as if this place was designed for pedicures.
There are 4 rows of Lay-Z Boy chairs where you can sit and relax while your feet are soaking. Just what the doctor ordered! The leg massage (included in the price) was quite fabulous and I almost fell asleep.


Now, in this salon, you don't just go to get your nails painted pink. They specialize in nail art. Now when I say nail art, you probably are thinking of the occasional flower or rhinestone. Not here. They go all out! I flipped through a 100 page book of thousands of nail design possibilities.

Lately I have seen people walking around with Halloween toes, with pumpkins and "boo" written on them. It is insane. I found a few pictures on a local website of a few options.
You can get anything you want!




















We decided to go the subtle route. The Marine Corps Birthday Ball is in a few weeks so we didn't want it to be too crazy for our fancy dresses.
An hour and 1/2 later, here is the end result! Some cute pink toes with flowers. I am a fan of this place. Hey, the leg massage alone was worth the money!

Week one

Well, as most of you know, my wonderful husband left this week for that annoying thing they call work. He will be in Arizona for a month. This is a public blog, so I have to be selective about what I say about him being gone. Anyway, I am even more bored now that he's gone, so today i decided to get out of the house and do what I love to do...shop! Now, I don't shop here like I do in the states. I either can't fit into the itty bitty clothing they have here, or if I do fit into them, I don't want to wear it. As I'm sure you've all seen, their style is a little...uh...different than ours! So I really went to get a mall fix.
There is an area down the road called "American Village". Here, they have a mall, a bunch of restaurants, and a few small stores. I guess it is yet another tourist trap to lure those crazy Americans!



So here it is, the mall. It is a little different than malls in the US. It is kind of like one HUGE department store with a few small ones in the middle of it all. So it is like one enormous room with tons of stuff in it. I think of it as a department store on steroids with a grocery section. This is no Walmart Supercenter, folks. I REALLY wanted to take a bunch of picture inside, but I would have felt like an idiot doing so, and I am not sure it is allowed.

I guess they think we all love pirates


Most of the clothing is what I consider "teeny-bopper" clothes: tons of tshirts, ripped jeans, crazy styles. My favorite part of shopping is looking at the tshirts. They are all in english, but don't quite translate properly. So I grabbed a few of my favorites and took them into the dressing room with me to take a few photos! If you click the photo, you will see them larger.


Some of the sayings are so random it seems as if they just heard english words and put them on a shirt in no particular order!
This one was my favorite, so I had to try it on. I did the whole "pose in the mirror thing." It says, "I love burgers. The food is pretty good". I LOVE the hamburbers sewn on both sides! I totally would have bought it, but it was $50. That is a little much for a novelty shirt.
When you get sick, I will give you a snack, and you even get to pick it out!


As I was walking down the mall, there was this creepy character waving and touching people. Ick. If you know me well, you know that I absolutely hate creepy dressed up characters. Halloween is one thing, but there is something about someone dressed in a big furry costume, running around trying to hug you, that really creeps me out. My children will never hang out with the Easter bunny at the mall unless daddy takes them. I just got chills thinking about it!




So there was how I spent my Saturday...jealous?!