Slow Hand Coffee Shop

There is this little coffee shop in town called Slow Hand Cafe. It's a little house with a nice modern interior. It has popular children's book that everyone has grown up reading, but the coolest thing is, they are in Japanese Kanji!!!! Also, every time you get a coffee from this Cafe they make sure that they put a special surprise design on the top! We will definitely be coming back to this place many times throughout our stay in Sasebo.

After I was finished I was feeling artsy and decided to put a message in my cup.

Snow!

This past weekend we went on a tour to do some shopping at Costco and on our way up we ran into a bunch of snow!!! There was about an inch or two that stuck in Sasebo for only an hour or two and then got melted away by the sun. However, about 20 mins south east of town we ran into this!!!

Russell's Hair Cut

Russell got his hair cut at a barber shop right down the road from our house. It was a pretty awesome experience and I was simply watching! This place was extremely old and had not been updated in many many years. There was an older man and woman there running the place and it was only as big as an American style walk in closet. The two chairs really made me feel like we had just walked into a movie from the 1970's. They even heated the warm water on top of the kerosene heater that was about 2 feet from where I was sitting. Here are a few photo's I snapped with my phone. If I could figure out how to turn the shutter sound off of that darned camera I could have easily taken a few more.

I loved the Chairs... The lady did a wonderful job on his hair cut. One of the best I've seen on him in a long time. However, with language barrier and us forgetting to ask in head of time how much it would cost, this was one very expensive hair cut. They charged him 2,200Y. That equals out to be a $30 hair cut!!! Chances are we will not be coming back here unless it's an emergency, need it done right now, kind of thing...

This was the heating water they used to heat the wash clothes and sterilize the tools.

Their old razors which they actually used on him around his ears and lower neck. Pretty sweet!

The lady did all the cutting, but the man blow dried it. It was funny to see the lady and man switch off between costumers and do different things to each.

Valentine's Day in Japan

   Valentine's Day in Japan is slightly different then in the states. It's pretty much the same when it comes to being with the one you love and giving delicious chocolates. As a matter of fact that's exactly what it is. In Japan, it is custom to give the important men you love chocolate. Chocolate candies, chocolate cake or even cookies, but it's all about the chocolate. In fact, it's so important to give chocolates to the leading gentlemen that they had a chocolate gallery in one of the department stores downtown. Here are some of the incredible looking chocolates! Some of them are extremely expensive and others are still reasonable priced.
   Japan also has another Valentine's day on March 14th. On this day it is custom to have the men give their important ladies chocolates. I will let you know if it ends up being as big of a holiday as February 14th...

This is the entrance to the gallery of Chocolate...

I think these ones looked the coolest! They look like the plants. From this photo it's hard to tell what is chocolate and what isn't. Click on the photo to get a better picture.

Here are some cool looking animals. these are all 3D shapes by the way. Oh and I got the price tag in this one. 2,100 Y is about $28.00

I loved the detail on these Japanese art chocolates. I didn't get the best photo and the detail is slightly washed out, but if you click on it you can see it bigger. They are so beautiful, I don't think I could eat them!

Banzai and Porcelain Park

Last weekend Russell and I went on a tour with the base to a nursery to make mini little rock banzai type creations. They didn't let us have real banzai trees because I guess those are hundreds of dollars, even for small ones!  However they gave us cute little trees and plants in the rock planters. These rock planters are made from the trash from the nursery burnt down and formed from the ash. I love how conservative the Japanese people are.

Here is Russell's tree

Gloves to make sure my hands didn't get all dirty...

Making my cool little tree.

Russell making his tree!

Banzai!

After making our trees at the nursery we went to a porcelain park where one of the Dutch kings or someone important from that country. This is also were they make very nice porcelain china plates, bowl, tea cups and a bunch of other items. Hence the name, The Porcelain Park.

This is me sitting in front of the palace.

 

 

 

Freeeeezing Cold!

I don't have any pictures to show... But I just wanted everyone to know that it super cold here! Well, at least for this San Diegan. Last night it got as cold as 27 degrees and the weather channel.com said that it "felt like" 17 degrees. Wow! Our paper thin walls and no central air make it very difficult to keep this place warm without having a $500 electric bill at the end of the month. It is kind of nice though because the our house has a door to every major room. We keep the door closed so that just our living room and kitchen are heated and then turn on which ever heater in the room we move into, like our bathroom or bedroom.
     We have been having lots of snow, but it never sticks! If it did, we would probably have a few feet by now!

Nagasaki Lantern Festival

For the Chinese New Year they have a huge festival called the Lantern Festival in downtown Nagasaki's China Town. Nagasaki is a little more then an hour away from Sasebo if you drive the expressways (freeway). The streets were very beautiful and lit up nice and bright with hundreds of lanterns. They also had a stage area where we watched a dragon dance and where they had very large lanterns in different shapes. The biggest one was the dragon lantern because it is now the year of the dragon! Here are a few of our photos from the very very cold night.

It was so cold that it started snowing on us!

 

Another thing that the lantern festival is known for is the amazing street food! Russell was all about that and wanted to try everything. In this photo he is waiting for a steam bun meat sandwich and warming his hands over the steam.

This one was my favorite, but I had this hilarious photo of Russ eating it so this one won. It's a sweet sesame bread on the outside and it had a black sesame filling on the inside. Despise it's looks, was very tasty.