We just went into TCCOR 1 (Tropical Cyclone Conditions of Readiness), which means destructive sustained winds of 50 knots or greater are expected within 12 hours... kind of scary, but more so kind of exciting! This will be our first typhoon that we are going through and as of now, I'm excited! We've downloaded movies, have lots of snacks and water ready, and I get to spend time with the hubster... what more could I want?! .... I wrote that last night. and now it's 7:30AM. Nothing big happened last night, just kind of windy but nothing crazy. SOOO Arthur and I both got ready for work this morning and just as I finished getting ready and was walking downstairs to my car, Arthur yelled for me to come back up. We went into TCCOR 1C (Caution) which means no work for the two of us as of now! YAY!!!
It's been just over 5 months since we got here and at this point, time is moving so quickly. So much has happened since I last wrote a blog post... so I'm apologizing in advance because you're about to get a major picture overload... I'm truly sorry, but I hope you enjoy it!
This post will mainly be about our wonderful trip we just took to TOKYO, but before I begin with that, here's a quick update of what's been happening on this beautiful little island.
I was asked to be a leader on our church's weekend youth retreat at white beach last month which I am so glad I went! I was able to get to know two of the girls (the other leaders) from church a lot better as well bond with the youth at the church. They are crazy and wild and hilarious and dramatic (...who isn't dramatic in high school?!). I was also able to see their heart for the Lord and it's inspiring! As the world is changing and more and more things are becoming "acceptable" in the world's eyes, it's encouraging and refreshing to see that there are youth who are passionate and in love with the Lord.
I also instantly felt regret of how crazy I was in high school with my leaders at church camp (sorry Quinn...) ;) You're the best!
ALSO, the new AEON shopping mall opened about two weeks ago and it is HUGE and sooooo nice! We got a Forever 21, American Eagle, and Old Navy, plus about 260 other stores. It's 5 stories high and has around 60 restaurants.. I'm not kidding when I say that it's giant. It's nice to have some american stores though because the clothes fit me better than the Japanese clothes.. sadly I'm not as small as the majority of the population here.
Arthur sold his car! He then bought another one... for $300! Pretty sweet deal.
We've been exploring on the weekends as we can. We went on a really cool hike to a waterfall where we had to trek through a river to get to it, and then my crazy husband wanted to take the steep hill up to the top of the waterfall so we did that (which was terrifying). The top was really cool though! But the hike up consisted of rock climbing, holding onto tree roots, and using ropes that past hikers tied to trees to help get you to the top. We've gone to different beaches, tanned, kayaked, and attempted to swim (the water was too cold...), and tried more restaurants.
The longer I'm here, the more I've began to love Japanese food so we've been trying a lot of different Japanese restaurants and ramen restaurants here which have all been delicious!
So that was longer than I anticipated but so much has been going on!
Now for our Tokyo trip.
TOKYO
IS
THE
BEST.
For starters, it's huge.
It's also very clean for a city.
The metro system rocks. I wish they had that in Okinawa because it's so easy and quick.
The people aren't as friendly as in Oki but they are still nice.
Everyone loves to match. (I'll show you examples below)
Everyone dresses nicely.
The girls all wear skirts or dresses.
All of the guys wear pants--no shorts.
Getting close to you is just a part of walking.
Pushing you is just a friendly way of trying to say hi. And getting past you.
Every man carries a murse.
The cities has more shops and restaurants than you could go to in your lifetime.
The girls love to use umbrellas. For the sun.
There are so many different things to see and places to go.
Basically, I love it.
We left on Sunday morning and tried to capture our excitement... But I think we might just look creepy instead. Whatevs....
We arrived at the airport and took about 6 different metro lines, lots of walking, and two hours to finally get to our hotel. The first view we saw when we stepped off one of the metros was skyscrapers among more skyscrapers.
After we checked into our hotel, we unpacked our stuff into our small small room, and then headed out to explore the area that our hotel was in. We booked a hotel with a "semi-double" bed, not really knowing how small it would be. Normally, I guess those are for one person because they are just a little bigger than a twin bed. Oh well! That means cuddling!!! haha :) I loved the area we were in! We were in the Ariake area, near "Odaiba" which is an artificial island with lots of different shops, a ferris wheel, and the Toyota show room.
The bridge we walked across to get to the artificial island. Reminded me a little bit of Paris!
We walked around the Toyota show room for a while (which Arthur enjoyed more than I did) and looked at different new cars as well as a bunch of classic cars. We then went inside this mall that looked like Venice and was like a replica of the Venetian in Vegas. It was so cool! Naturally, because we were in "Italy", we had to get pizza! MMM.....
After we ate pizza and looked a the cars and walked to another mall (they had H&M...we had to) and shopped for a little bit. Well, I shopped... Arthur sat in Starbucks and waited patiently haha and I shopped away. By then it was pretty late so we headed back to our hotel to sleep in our small little bed. We walked so much this trip. Our feet were killing us by the end of each day. This day, 17k steps. wooh!
Day two consisted of waking up at 630 and getting ready to explore Tokyo! We went to a little cafe by our hotel and had pastries and coffee (yum) and then headed to the subway.
We went towards Shinjuku (one of the more popular areas in Tokyo) and found a huge mall that was 14 stories tall... We browsed each floor and looked at the different shops and kept moving up. I realized the only things we bought in Tokyo were metro passes, Disneyland tickets, food, and Nespresso pods. Which the Nespresso pods were in this mall! I was so excited because you can only order them online and I really didn't want to do that so we got to sample the coffee and then we bought some! Anyways... I don't think you care. Moving on.... So at the top of the mall was this amazing view of Tokyo.
We then left the mall, spotted a Krispy Kreme, each had a donut because we had to... and then headed south to walk towards Shibuya which is another popular spot in Tokyo. It has lots of shopping, lots of people, and that's where the famous "Shibuya crossing" is where thousands of people cross in the intersection every day. It took us a while to walk there because it's a ways away from Shinjuku. It was nice to walk though because we got to explore and look at different areas of the city which we miss doing when we ride the subway. We finally made it to Shibuya crossing...
We then walked further to explore some more of Tokyo. We walked past an upscale shopping area that looked like Paris with trees lining the middle and sides of the street. We walked down a bunch of small side streets that were crowded with people shopping, eating, and working. We stopped and had Turkish kebabs for lunch (yum) and kept walking.
Tokyo is different from New York in the sense that there isn't just one area where all the tall buildings are and downtown is. Tokyo has skyscrapers everywhere you look and multiple "downtown" areas. Another reason I liked it.
We stopped at a 7 story music store and of course Arthur had to play every piano and drum they had. Nerd alert! ;)
We decided to head to dinner and probably took the worst and best route possible. Worst as in it was the slowest. Best as in it was so cool to see! I think it was their "black market" because they were selling really cheap purses and watches and sunglasses. The streets were packed too! See below. Everyone was pushing you along and you couldn't really move around much except for forward.
We then headed to Tsukiji which is a part of Tokyo that has really fresh fish and the popular fish market is there. We walked down all the side streets which were lined with sushi and fish restaurants. We wanted to find a sushi track and we found one with a line out the door. We decided to wait because it looked good... well Arthur thought it looked good. I thought it looked weird.
It ended up being the best sushi I have ever had. The chef kept showing us which ones to eat and which ones to use soy sauce or not with... and so we tried a bunch different types. The typical sushi in Japan is sashimi and not rolls which is hard at first when you're used to eating California rolls and fried rolls haha. But all the sashimi we had was soooo good. We had so much sushi and it was hard to stop. We took the metro home and headed to bed. 25k steps.
Day 3. We woke up and got ready in about 30 minutes and rushed to the metro to head for Tokyo Disney Sea! It was Golden Week for Japan (sort of like Spring Break but for adults too) and so we figured everywhere we went would be packed. Like Disney Sea. And like the monorail we took to get there...
We strategically got all the fast passes we could and waited in a few lines (that took forever) but overall, it was fun! The rides were pretty good, it has some of the same ones as Disneyland in the states (Tower of Terror and Indiana Jones) but had some random new ones too. It was fun but I wish the lines weren't as long as they were because our feet were already hurting so badly haha and it hurt to stand in line. (Babies.. I know..) The whole park was really clean though, which was nice.
They also had some weird "snacks" that were quite different from the typical snacks you'd see at Disneyland. They had lots of different flavors of popcorn (curry, milk tea, cappuccino, caramel), they had shrimp in something that looked like a donut, churros, and tiramisu ice cream sandwiches. We had curry for lunch at like 10am... (tried to beat the rush....lol)
We also rode on some rides that Arthur just HAD to go on.. like the magic carpet rides that was for children, and this other boat ride (for children)... but at least the lines were short and we still had fun :) I've come to the conclusion that we just really love theme parks and Disneyland/World. We always have fun no matter what.
We only saw one other American couple at Disney Sea and the rest were Japanese couples or families which was quite a change from Okinawa. This is where we first noticed that everyone loved to match. Boyfriends and girlfriends wore identical outfits from shoes to hats on their head. It was interesting.. I tried to get some pictures as you'll see below and I think I was caught a couple times.. oops. But I had to capture this because it was so different from what you'd see in the states!
Our favorite rides were Journey to the Center of the Earth, Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror, and a roller coaster one that I forget the name of.
It was a really fun day. We left around 830 to beat the rush because it was about to get crazyyyy. We took the metro home and got back around 10, went to the convenience store and bought corn dogs and fish (don't judge) and went back to our small little room, ate, and went to bed :). 25k steps.
Day 4 (our last day :( ) started off really good, and ended even better. We woke up semi-early, I walked to Starbucks to get Arthur and I coffee and then picked up Krispy Kreme donuts (we weren't the healthiest this week..I know) and then headed back to the hotel. After we enjoyed breakfast together, we took the metro to Tokyo Dome City. There was a mall and a huge roller coaster that we had to go on... so we waited in line for a while and then went on the best ride we have ever been on. It was so scary but so fun!
This was the mall across from Tokyo Dome. It was mainly full of young couples and girls who were waiting to see Taylor Swift that night. So basically they all became my best friends because they too, like T Swift. A lot of people matched here too.. It was so cute!
We decided that we should probably get at least one picture of just the two of us... :)
AHHHH! Such a good concert.
T SWIFT!!!
OOOHHH!!
EEEEKKK!!
AHHHH!!
AHHH!
And I'll end with lots of people. Because that's what we saw the whole week. Lots and lots of faces. It was the best! I love Tokyo and it was so fun to travel with Arthur.. we travel really well together. I would live in Tokyo in a heartbeat! It truly is a fun and awesome place to visit. The week went by way too quickly but I am so thankful we got to go! And I'm so thankful that my wonderful husband got me Taylor Swift tickets because it was seriously so amazing!
We miss everyone at home and hope everyone is doing well!! Time is going by so quickly and I can't believe that my mom will be visiting in just around 3 months. So excited!
I'm off to brave this Typhoon with my hubby (which looks like laying in bed watching movies and looking at the rain and wind outside). Miss and love you all!
:)
It's been just over 5 months since we got here and at this point, time is moving so quickly. So much has happened since I last wrote a blog post... so I'm apologizing in advance because you're about to get a major picture overload... I'm truly sorry, but I hope you enjoy it!
This post will mainly be about our wonderful trip we just took to TOKYO, but before I begin with that, here's a quick update of what's been happening on this beautiful little island.
I was asked to be a leader on our church's weekend youth retreat at white beach last month which I am so glad I went! I was able to get to know two of the girls (the other leaders) from church a lot better as well bond with the youth at the church. They are crazy and wild and hilarious and dramatic (...who isn't dramatic in high school?!). I was also able to see their heart for the Lord and it's inspiring! As the world is changing and more and more things are becoming "acceptable" in the world's eyes, it's encouraging and refreshing to see that there are youth who are passionate and in love with the Lord.
I also instantly felt regret of how crazy I was in high school with my leaders at church camp (sorry Quinn...) ;) You're the best!
ALSO, the new AEON shopping mall opened about two weeks ago and it is HUGE and sooooo nice! We got a Forever 21, American Eagle, and Old Navy, plus about 260 other stores. It's 5 stories high and has around 60 restaurants.. I'm not kidding when I say that it's giant. It's nice to have some american stores though because the clothes fit me better than the Japanese clothes.. sadly I'm not as small as the majority of the population here.
Arthur sold his car! He then bought another one... for $300! Pretty sweet deal.
We've been exploring on the weekends as we can. We went on a really cool hike to a waterfall where we had to trek through a river to get to it, and then my crazy husband wanted to take the steep hill up to the top of the waterfall so we did that (which was terrifying). The top was really cool though! But the hike up consisted of rock climbing, holding onto tree roots, and using ropes that past hikers tied to trees to help get you to the top. We've gone to different beaches, tanned, kayaked, and attempted to swim (the water was too cold...), and tried more restaurants.
The longer I'm here, the more I've began to love Japanese food so we've been trying a lot of different Japanese restaurants and ramen restaurants here which have all been delicious!
ALSO I got a full time job! I got a job at MCCS as a Marketing Research Representative! It's been great so far and I really like what I'm doing. It's nice to have a full time job and be making some money. God's timing for this job was PERFECT. This was the one job I really wanted and so I'm so thankful!
So that was longer than I anticipated but so much has been going on!
Now for our Tokyo trip.
TOKYO
IS
THE
BEST.
For starters, it's huge.
It's also very clean for a city.
The metro system rocks. I wish they had that in Okinawa because it's so easy and quick.
The people aren't as friendly as in Oki but they are still nice.
Everyone loves to match. (I'll show you examples below)
Everyone dresses nicely.
The girls all wear skirts or dresses.
All of the guys wear pants--no shorts.
Getting close to you is just a part of walking.
Pushing you is just a friendly way of trying to say hi. And getting past you.
Every man carries a murse.
The cities has more shops and restaurants than you could go to in your lifetime.
The girls love to use umbrellas. For the sun.
There are so many different things to see and places to go.
Basically, I love it.
We arrived at the airport and took about 6 different metro lines, lots of walking, and two hours to finally get to our hotel. The first view we saw when we stepped off one of the metros was skyscrapers among more skyscrapers.
After we checked into our hotel, we unpacked our stuff into our small small room, and then headed out to explore the area that our hotel was in. We booked a hotel with a "semi-double" bed, not really knowing how small it would be. Normally, I guess those are for one person because they are just a little bigger than a twin bed. Oh well! That means cuddling!!! haha :) I loved the area we were in! We were in the Ariake area, near "Odaiba" which is an artificial island with lots of different shops, a ferris wheel, and the Toyota show room.
We walked around the Toyota show room for a while (which Arthur enjoyed more than I did) and looked at different new cars as well as a bunch of classic cars. We then went inside this mall that looked like Venice and was like a replica of the Venetian in Vegas. It was so cool! Naturally, because we were in "Italy", we had to get pizza! MMM.....
 |
| It was better than it looked.... |
 |
| cutie pie :) |
 |
| Is he too big for it? |
 |
| My favorite car!! |
 |
| I love him. |
Day two consisted of waking up at 630 and getting ready to explore Tokyo! We went to a little cafe by our hotel and had pastries and coffee (yum) and then headed to the subway.
 |
| The area right outside of the cafe we went to. |
We then left the mall, spotted a Krispy Kreme, each had a donut because we had to... and then headed south to walk towards Shibuya which is another popular spot in Tokyo. It has lots of shopping, lots of people, and that's where the famous "Shibuya crossing" is where thousands of people cross in the intersection every day. It took us a while to walk there because it's a ways away from Shinjuku. It was nice to walk though because we got to explore and look at different areas of the city which we miss doing when we ride the subway. We finally made it to Shibuya crossing...
 |
| so many people... |
We then walked further to explore some more of Tokyo. We walked past an upscale shopping area that looked like Paris with trees lining the middle and sides of the street. We walked down a bunch of small side streets that were crowded with people shopping, eating, and working. We stopped and had Turkish kebabs for lunch (yum) and kept walking.
 |
Japan often times has really interesting ads that don't always make sense. Like this one...
We stopped at a 7 story music store and of course Arthur had to play every piano and drum they had. Nerd alert! ;)
We decided to head to dinner and probably took the worst and best route possible. Worst as in it was the slowest. Best as in it was so cool to see! I think it was their "black market" because they were selling really cheap purses and watches and sunglasses. The streets were packed too! See below. Everyone was pushing you along and you couldn't really move around much except for forward.
We then headed to Tsukiji which is a part of Tokyo that has really fresh fish and the popular fish market is there. We walked down all the side streets which were lined with sushi and fish restaurants. We wanted to find a sushi track and we found one with a line out the door. We decided to wait because it looked good... well Arthur thought it looked good. I thought it looked weird.
It ended up being the best sushi I have ever had. The chef kept showing us which ones to eat and which ones to use soy sauce or not with... and so we tried a bunch different types. The typical sushi in Japan is sashimi and not rolls which is hard at first when you're used to eating California rolls and fried rolls haha. But all the sashimi we had was soooo good. We had so much sushi and it was hard to stop. We took the metro home and headed to bed. 25k steps.
Day 3. We woke up and got ready in about 30 minutes and rushed to the metro to head for Tokyo Disney Sea! It was Golden Week for Japan (sort of like Spring Break but for adults too) and so we figured everywhere we went would be packed. Like Disney Sea. And like the monorail we took to get there...
We strategically got all the fast passes we could and waited in a few lines (that took forever) but overall, it was fun! The rides were pretty good, it has some of the same ones as Disneyland in the states (Tower of Terror and Indiana Jones) but had some random new ones too. It was fun but I wish the lines weren't as long as they were because our feet were already hurting so badly haha and it hurt to stand in line. (Babies.. I know..) The whole park was really clean though, which was nice.
Side note.. Don't wear athletic shorts to Disney Sea because no one does and they will just stare at you the whole time. Even at the park the girls would dress up in skirts and dresses and nice clothes.
They also had some weird "snacks" that were quite different from the typical snacks you'd see at Disneyland. They had lots of different flavors of popcorn (curry, milk tea, cappuccino, caramel), they had shrimp in something that looked like a donut, churros, and tiramisu ice cream sandwiches. We had curry for lunch at like 10am... (tried to beat the rush....lol)
We also rode on some rides that Arthur just HAD to go on.. like the magic carpet rides that was for children, and this other boat ride (for children)... but at least the lines were short and we still had fun :) I've come to the conclusion that we just really love theme parks and Disneyland/World. We always have fun no matter what.
 |
| so excited!!! |
So scary...
 |
| so fun!!!!!!! |
 |
| Waiting in line. |
So cute! I don't think Arthur and I could pull it off though. And he refuses to even try haha :)
Our favorite rides were Journey to the Center of the Earth, Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror, and a roller coaster one that I forget the name of.
Disney Sea reminded me of Epcot at DisneyWorld because they had different places like "Arabian Coast" and "Venice" and "America", etc.
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| more more more more people. |
 |
| smiles! |
Day 4 (our last day :( ) started off really good, and ended even better. We woke up semi-early, I walked to Starbucks to get Arthur and I coffee and then picked up Krispy Kreme donuts (we weren't the healthiest this week..I know) and then headed back to the hotel. After we enjoyed breakfast together, we took the metro to Tokyo Dome City. There was a mall and a huge roller coaster that we had to go on... so we waited in line for a while and then went on the best ride we have ever been on. It was so scary but so fun!
 |
| Hello Kitty Store |
 |
| Headed to Tokyo Dome City |
 |
such a steep drop! |
We had an early dinner at a Chinese restaurant and this was my doofy date. The cutest :) lol
After eating, we headed over about 2 hours early to the concert to see what time they were letting people in. And that's when around 200 people asked to take pictures with us. It was awesome lol. I felt famous for like, an hour and it was sooooo cool! haha :) We tried to walk away to head to the section we were going to be in and we would get stopped and then group after group would keep asking. Arthur asked if they wanted him to take the picture a lot of the time and they always wanted him in the picture too! It was saweeeet. They kept saying "Kawaii!" which means cute, and I would say back "no you're cute!" haha. Or they would say "You look like Taylor" and then I would thank them and say "yay!" haha. It was quite an experience and I never expected it haha. 23k steps.
 |
| people. |
AHHHH! Such a good concert.
T SWIFT!!!
OOOHHH!!
EEEEKKK!!
AHHHH!!
AHHH!
And I'll end with lots of people. Because that's what we saw the whole week. Lots and lots of faces. It was the best! I love Tokyo and it was so fun to travel with Arthur.. we travel really well together. I would live in Tokyo in a heartbeat! It truly is a fun and awesome place to visit. The week went by way too quickly but I am so thankful we got to go! And I'm so thankful that my wonderful husband got me Taylor Swift tickets because it was seriously so amazing!
We miss everyone at home and hope everyone is doing well!! Time is going by so quickly and I can't believe that my mom will be visiting in just around 3 months. So excited!
I'm off to brave this Typhoon with my hubby (which looks like laying in bed watching movies and looking at the rain and wind outside). Miss and love you all!
:)
Hi, my name is Adrienne, and this is so random, but I'm Facebook friends with Reina and noticed she 'liked' your post. Long story short, I had the incredible opportunity to teach for one year in Okinawa and absolutely fell in love with Neighborhood Church and Okinawa! So, when I saw your post I had to explore a bit and now you have me nearly in tears missing it all! Plus, I totally feel like a stalker! 😊 I don't know you, but I know for a fact that you have so many more incredible adventures ahead! Enjoy every moment! (I apologize if you got two posts, but the first one just disappeared on me, oopsy)
ReplyDeleteHi there!! That's so cool! Thank you for commenting! How long ago were you in Okinawa? It's incredible here! And I'm so thankful we found Neighborhood Church! It's so wonderful! We are here for two years and it's going to be hard to leave. I looked for a teaching job here for a while but it's kind of hard to get one without an education degree! lol that's okay, I love reading random blogs even if I don't know the person. Especially if it's about some place that I have been to before- it's cool to picture it again and remember those times! :) Thank you!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo awesome! I miss you guys so much!
ReplyDeleteawww thank you! We miss you too! You're becoming so famous while we are gone! lol
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