New York to Japan

Blogging my year-long adventure teaching English in Japan!  Devoted Motion City Soundtrack fan. Avid baker and dessert enthusiast. Supernatural fangirl extraordinaire. Joss Whedon worshipper. Probably part food blog, part Japanese cultural immersion blog, part super-geek blog, and 100% awesome. Welcome!

[nytojapan]

We had such a blast in Tokyo DisneySea!!

[nytojapan]

There’s no place like DisneySea!!!  

[nytojapan]

Crossing another KitKat flavor off the list of flavors to try.... Sake KitKats!

[nytojapan]

Made okonomiyaki for the first time!!  So delicous, but next time I think I will try using smaller pieces of cabbage.

Also, protip: cook the okonomiyaki until you think it’s done, then cook it some more.  My first attempt was pretty underdone inside, but so delicious and gooey!  Still, I plopped it back in the skillet for a few more minutes!

[foodiebliss]

This Shibuya Honey Toast is super delicious, decadent, and deceivingly easy and quick to make! It takes less than 15 minutes but everyone will think you spent much longer!

Where the food lovers unite.

[fullcravings]

Cookies and Cream Chocolate Candy Cups

[nytojapan]

I got that sweet tooth like

[twloha]

How has writing poetry helped in your recovery?

“For me, writing is all about the empowerment that comes from articulation. I write to better understand my own thoughts, to untangle whatever is knotted in my head. Whether a free-write or a poem or a journal entry, the process of applying words to an experience or emotion is cathartic. It doesn’t matter if you share it with someone else or rip it up and throw it away–writing is a form of exhale. Its practice allows you say, ‘This is what I know and this is what I don’t know. I felt this. I was here.’”

- Sierra DeMulder

You can preorder Sierra’s book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or from your local independent bookstore.

[nytojapan]

Can I be both the lock and the key?

That moment when you feel like you have an awesome idea for a poem, but it doesn’t come out right when you finally sit down to write it.

[nytojapan]

Girls just wanna have KitKats 

[nytojapan]

Just hanging with my new buddy at an Owl Cafe in Tokyo!

[thecwspn]

Spend Thanksgiving with your SPN Family and watch the latest episodes anywhere: on.cwtv.com/SP07

[nytojapan]

Grateful

Feeling a little homesick today, as Thanksgiving in Japan draws to a close.  It felt a bit weird to be at work today and to not really have anyone acknowledge today as Thanksgiving. I talked to a few of my students about Thanksgiving, asking them if they knew about it (they did) and if they liked turkey (not really / never tried it).  This is my second consecutive Thanksgiving in Japan, and it does feel strange to be missing out on the traditional fare that’s currently cooking away all across America.

However, a bigger part of me is so so grateful and wants to take a moment to reflect on all that I am so thankful for this year.  I am thankful for a job that I truly enjoy and that challenges me every day to be patient, humble, and human.  I am thankful that I have a warm apartment on a chilly, rainy evening like this one.  I am thankful that although I come home to an empty apartment, I know that I am surrounded by so much love, both here in Japan, and back at home.  I am thankful for the technology that allows me to keep in such close contact with friends and family at home.  I am thankful that I will be Skyping with my parents in the morning and will be able to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving.  I am so thankful that Jay is here in Japan to share this journey with me.  I am thankful for the Chicken Tikka Masala, rice, and chili cheese steak fries that were my Thanksgiving dinner and for the pumpkin pound cake and caramel sauce I will have for dessert.  It wasn’t turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, but I’m satisfied and on carb overload.  Turkey, I’m coming for you next year!!!

[nytojapan]

Japan Bucket List

As I approach the 2 month mark of my time in Japan, I figured it’s time for me to share a list of things I want to do/see/accomplish during my time here.  I am also open to suggestion and I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch of things, so please let me know if there is some more awesome stuff I should do/see/eat!!

This list that follows is in no particular order:

see the giant Buddha in Kamakura. CHECK.

visit Himeji Castle

explore Kyoto (ideally in the fall) CHECK

visit Tokyo Disneyland and/or DisneySea. CHECK.

visit Harry Potter World and Universal in Osaka

explore Iwaya Caves (in Enoshima) CHECK

get a massage at Enospa

take Japanese lessons

learn to cook okonomiyaki. CHECK.

learn to use my rice cooker

write a prayer on an ema at Enoshima Shrine with my boyfriend

attend the Snow Festival in Hokkaido

visit Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. CHECK.

take a yoga class. Maybe.

eat in Chinatown in Yokohama CHECK

ride the Yokohama Ferris Wheel CHECK

see the Guinea Pig Bridge in Nagasaki

climb Mt. Fuji

go to an Owl Cafe. CHECK.

go to a Cat Cafe

visit Fox Village

attempt to surf

visit Okinawa CHECK

go to a cat cafe

buy a yukata

go to the Ramen Museum CHECK

eat at at least 5 Themed Restaurants (so far: The Lockup, The Vampire Cafe)

do something I never thought I could do before

try natto. CHECK

Try at least 50 Kit Kat flavors (so far: green tea, strawberry, red bean, strawberry cheesecake, purple potato, sweet potato, sakura matcha, rum raisin, pumpkin pudding, hazelnut, pistachio & raspberry, chili & passionfruit, strawberry maple, green tea & kinako, wasabi, rum raisin (Tokyo edition), sake, pancake, raspberry, Hokkaido melon, mint, Kumamoto green tea, orange cocktail noir, Shinshu apple, red bean sandwich, Kyoto green tea, Kyoto roasted tea, butter, shekwasha, cranberry & almond; count: 30)

Progress & additional items will be continuously updated/added!

[nytojapan]

O hai o Tumblr

I haven’t quite decided what I want this blog to be about. I guess ultimately it’s not really up to me.  It’s up to however the next 10 or so months play out.  But I want to talk about the name of this blog for a second.  I like it because it has two meanings.

The first meaning, in English, implies a move FROM New York TO Japan, which is exactly what I did almost two months ago.  Left my life in New York for a new one in Japan.  At least for the next year.

But the second meaning, in Japanese, means New York AND Japan.  And I like that. “New Yorker” is and always will be a huge part of my identity, but I am already feeling that Japan is going to find a permanent way into my heart as the first true and independent home I create for myself.  “Lived in Japan” is going to become a new and equally important part of what and who I am as a person.