We're Online!

As of right now, this blog will temporarily close. I'd like to announce the official grand opening of "Welcome to Neverland", our new blog for the rest of our year in Japan! It's at www.japanamazing.blogspot.com See you there!!!

And remember, start from the bottom to get the whole story!

We:re Heeeere!!!

Hey - We:re here and we:re safe and we:re doing quite well. We:re at an internet cafe and I:m not wasting our precious Yen to figure out the Japanese keyboard at this moment.

So just a short what:s up -

Our apartment is quite nice and it:s in a really convenient area ^ lots of room for visitors, too. We:ve just finished training and had about half a week of actual teaching already. It:s too early to tell whether the job is really our cup of tea, but commuting on the train is definitely cool.

We have cell phones already but we aren:t sure about international calls, yet, so just hang on for now. We:ve signed up for internet and it:s getting installed about halfway thru October. So that:s when the real blog will start. I:ll post the link here, so keep checking back!

Lots of love

JEN and CHRIS

Meeting the Fockers

In a way, it’s felt like I’ve been here in BC for an entire month. The anticipation of flying to Japan is making time drag very slowly by. But in another way, it feels like only a few days have gone by since we landed in Vancouver. There is a lot of stuff to see and do here on the west coast, and between packing and shopping and the daily necessities of life, I’ve only seen and done a very tiny fraction of it all.

Just a short disclaimer about this blog entry – there are no pictures yet. Any pictures that have been taken during this visit have been by friends with cameras and not yours truly. I’ll try to get my hands on some of them eventually. But if you read my blogs just for the pictures, you’ll just have to skip this post. But it’s good, so I’d still recommend reading it.

So here goes.

We started out with dinner at home. Chris’ dad had taken these two weeks as vacation, and although he didn’t plan any faraway trips, he’s certainly making the most of his holidays in the kitchen. That first night we had chili and pasta, and every day we seem to wake up to a new breakfast displayed on the kitchen table.

During our first couple of days, the family mostly stuck together. They were happy to have Chris home and pretty excited to meet me too! They took us here and there, showed me a couple of nice beaches in their area, some of the super-ritzy neighborhoods close by, and some very cute restaurants on the shore. Unfortunately, most of these activities involved all 6 of us piling into the minivan. That in itself wouldn’t really have been so bad, had I not consistently gotten carsick whenever we left the driveway. I guess this prairie girl had a thing or two to learn about driving on hills, but after about a week, now, I’m doing a lot better.

On Monday we were invited to the neighbors’ place across the street for dinner. Their names are Jung and Jane and they are a young Korean couple with a very cute little boy named Caleb. That evening they made us an incredible Korean barbecue meal of beef that I think was called “ko-gi”. It was amazing. We also had a lot of fun just hanging out in their backyard all evening.

I think it was Wednesday when we met up with Grant and Rachel (my bestest cousin – for those who don’t know) for dinner. Chris and I got all pretty and drove out to Abbotsford and met them at their apartment. Once I got over my carsickness from the drive in, dinner with Grant and Rachel was really fun. From there, they took us to a popular place out here called Milestone’s where I had some very amazing West Coast salmon. We even went out somewhere else for dessert afterwards! We chatted and chatted and it was quite late by the time Chris and I got back to White Rock.

On Saturday afternoon I was able to meet up with my age-old best buddy Erin, who has just recently moved out here from Winnipeg. I was actually expecting to see her in Manitoba last week when I was there, but Jenna was kind enough to inform me that Erin had suddenly scored a really good job out here in Abbotsford and within a week she had left Marty (her huz) to sell their house in Winnipeg as she temporarily moved in with her Aunt out here in BC.

Anyways, the main point is that Erin, my very very dear friend whom I had not really spent time with in years, showed up here at the Stockmans’ on Saturday afternoon and whisked me off onto the SkyTrain and right into downtown Vancouver for some major chatting and hanging out and shopping. We basically spent the whole afternoon out there together. We even had gelato :) When evening rolled around and my bag was nicely laden with new shoes, we just hopped back onto the SkyTrain and I was “home” just after dinner. A very good day indeed. It even turns out that Erin is planning a trip to Japan early next year!

In the midst of all these special visits and everything, we’ve managed to pick up all kinds of Canadian “essentials” that they say we’ll have a hard time finding in Japan, we exchanged a bunch of money, we got our suitcases in order and took care of all those tedious little things you do before a trip. There were a lot more people that I wish I could have visited out here, some in Victoria, namely my friend Jessica. But we’ll be back!

Just a few more days left here at the Stockmans. Today happens to be Chris’ sister’s birthday. She is 18! Mom and Dad wanted to make a special dinner for her today, so that’s what we’re doing tonight. They even recruited me to make her favorite, apple crisp, so I feel like I’m making a contribution.

All in all, the Stockmans have been amazingly generous and wonderful hosts. Their house is gorgeous and they treat me like one of the family. This entire week, like I said, their dad has been on vacation and Chris’ brother and sister are still on summer break so the entire family has been here the entire time. I’ll admit all of this has been a little overwhelming for me (even aside from the carsickness), and between the preparation for Japan and the annoyances of suburban life and “meeting the parents”, I’ve felt once or twice like simply crawling under the front porch and staying there. I must say I even snapped at Chris a few times, that his unbearable family was driving me up the wall, but looking back now, I do have to blame a rather bad case of PMS for *most* of those comments. I just have to say how extremely lucky I am that Chris is so understanding and sensitive and listens to everything I have to spew and puts up with all of my issues. I don't know what I'd do without him!

Like I said, though, the Stockmans, although about as different from my family as could ever possibly be, are wonderful, generous people and I’m happy that they call me their “new addition”.

I would almost say I’m sad to go…
… but I’m not ;)

I just don’t think it’s natural for a person to spend this much time with their in-laws and I’m just really really really excited about Japan. We’re flying via San Francisco early on Tuesday morning. As you can imagine, I’m not thrilled about the bazillion-hour flight, but there is a new culture and an absolutely ridiculous language out there, just BEGGING for me to learn about them. And I’ll be there soon.

I’ll be there soon!

Oh, P.S.
There’s going to be a new blog. And no, it’s not going to be called “Jen in Japan”.
It’s actually going to be from both me and Chris this time, and I’ll publish the address just as soon as we have it all set up and we have something to write… about Japan!

It's Worth the Trip!

It’s only been a week and a half and Ontario already seems so very far away and so very long ago.

I am currently sitting in the upstairs office of the Stockmans’ lovely house in White Rock, BC, looking out at the many other almost identical but just as lovely houses down the street. In case anyone was still wondering, we got here with minimal incident and we are safe and sound and comfy and very relaxed. (At least I am….) But we’ll save the BC story for another day. This post is dedicated to Altona.

Like I said, was only week and a half ago that we said goodbye to the house, the roommates, the jobs, the car, and the friends in Waterloo, and good riddance to the smog, the traffic, and the landlord.


Goodbye, company car!

After a tedious afternoon at Chris’ unofficial high school reunion in some rainy Missisagua park, two of Chris’ very lovely, smart and entertaining friends, Anup and Louise, were kind enough to finally drive us to the airport. In two and a half hours, we were back on the ground, this time in Winnipeg, meeting my beaming parents at the airport. From there, we tossed all of our luggage into the back of the pickup, crammed ourselves into the cab, and headed for good ol’ Altona.

Now, I won’t plow through what we did on a day-to-day basis, because I simply don’t remember. It was really nice to be home, though. It was especially nice to see Steph and Trevor. I think we hung out with them more than anyone. We even went to Trevor’s family’s place for lunch after church on Sunday! They said it was nothing, but let me tell you – farmers sausage is a real treat when you’ve been gone as long as I have.

After lunch, Trevor even took us on a tour of the pig barn! Chris looked incredibly hot with coveralls and rubber boots on. When he put his glasses back on, on top of the sanitary mask, I could hardly contain myself ;) The pig barn was really cool, though. I think I’ve been in one before, but I honestly can’t remember. Chris had a blast in there.

Another farm-related highlight was the evening Trevor took us out to see his uncle on the combine. There’s a bit of a back-story to Chris’ obsession with combines. They weren’t out on the fields when he came out here the first time in May, but we did drive by a couple of the farm machinery lots that weekend, and he thought they were just the coolest, most massive things in the world. Trevor caught wind of this, somehow, and arranged this meeting with his uncle on the field. Considering that Trevor’s family is just one of the nicest in the world, it didn’t surprise me one bit when his uncle told Chris to climb right up into the seat beside him and they finished the last few rows together.

After the field was done, of course, they invited us all in for drinks and we stayed right up until Steph and Trevor’s bedtime, just chatting in the livingroom.

Chris got some great shots of the field and the machinery.









And here he is… the farm boy himself!



So… what else did we do out there? We met a few friends, namely Shannon and Mike, at the Hut for some ever-so-tasty taco fries, we spent a good amount of time looking at honeymoon photos from Steph and Trevor’s fabulous Caribbean cruise, we tagged along with mom in her daily treks to the post office and the grocery store, and we had some very tasty family gatherings at both Grandma K and Grandma G’s places. Early on in the week, Grandma K stopped in and wanted to take us out for pizza. It turned out, though, the pizza place was closed so we walked the two blocks back home and had a very enjoyable wiener roast behind the boat shed.


Mezmerizing, isnt’ it?

Another afternoon, Chris and I were just bumming around the house, when Mom suggested that we head off to Fort Dufferin on the Red river and hike the trail into Emerson. So we did!


Here goes!


The Red.


Flood damage?


Just call me Driftwood Jenny.


Nature: Bring it ON!


The old train bridge at Emerson.

So, that’s all the pictures I got. I got a bit of a haircut during the week sometime, just a trim. Not worth any dramatic before-and-after pictures like last time.

One thing that’s crazy, though. Steph had to leave on Friday already for a wedding in Waterloo, so we had to say goodbye to her a little early. The even crazier thing is, that the place that she was going to be staying in Waterloo was just around the corner from my old house! What the heck?

But, even without Steph there to pass the time, before we knew it, we were filled to the brim with farmers sausage and it was time to head out again. On Saturday we made a nice leisurely trip to Winnipeg to catch our (for once!!) mid-afternoon flight to Vancouver. The trip was smooth, and despite my restlessness, we were landing in no time (Well, no time compared to what’s ahead of us…) So here I am, like I said. Safe and sound at the Stockmans’ lovely house in White Rock, BC. Log on next week for that story.

This is it!

Everything's packed and the house is clean. I've been off work for three days now and my stomach has been a giant knot for about the same amount of time.

Tuesday was my last day of work. It was hard saying goodbye to lots of people, especially Maria! In the evening, I had told a couple of the guys at work to meet us at a little bar in town. I sent a few emails, too, I guess, but I never expected 15 people to show up! So, in that case, saying goodbye ended up being a lot of fun.

Over the next couple of days, I somehow managed to sort through absolutely everything that we didn't send to Seattle, and in the end we managed to fit all of it into 3 suitcases, 1 garment bag, and 2 backpacks. We rock!!

And now we're waiting for our ride. They should be here in about 15 minutes...

AAAAAH... they should be here in about 15 MINUTES!!!

Well, good thing we're all set to go :)

Altona, here we come!

A Work-Related Incident

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say how great my coworkers are.

I had a few days off last week, and then on Saturday afternoon, I went back in to serve a couple weddings. It was going to be a pretty busy night and there were a lot of staff there mid-afternoon when I arrived.

Maria and I were in the bakery, working away, and I noticed her whisper something to Linh as she passed by. I thought nothing of it, I figured they probably just had a joke going on and I went back to work.

But not 10 minutes later I noticed the entire kitchen staff sneaking up behind me. I turned around and there they were, all standing there with big smiles. Maria's face was especially red, so I knew there was something going on. As the chef gave me a big hug, Maria snuck over to the fridge and pulled out the cutest little chocolate cake with "Good Luck Jennifer" written on it. Needless to say, I was smiling pretty big by this time as well.

Cut it, cut it! They all prompted.

So, right after I grabbed my phone and snapped a few shots of the whole event, I cut the cake and served everyone a piece.

And that's when I noticed that it was a bundt cake, that is to say it had a hole in the middle. It turns out Maria had covered the top with a piece of boxboard to make it smooth and then decorated on top of that. Interesting idea, I thought.

But why did she put a foil-wrapped box in the middle of the cake? Did the boxboard need support? Probably not.

Oh... what's that, JEN? Everyone started to ask.

Haha, it's my present, I said jokingly, and started to peel off the foil. But sure enough, under the foil was real tissue paper and ribbon, which I very curiously unwrapped as well. Inside I found a box with a Loonie in it and another small package. Same paper, same ribbon, only this one was a small cylinder. It looked almost like a mini Christmas cracker. So, of course, under everyone's gaze, I opened that one too and found nothing...

... but a big wad of cash!

This has got to be a joke, I thought. What's going on?

But no joke, it turns out Linh wanted to help me out since my hours had been cut back for summer, so she and Maria got everyone to chip in a little! The actual plan, I found out later, was to put actual Japanese Yen in the cake, which would have been very cool, but it turned out they couldn't get it exchanged in time. No matter, though, it was still an awesome surprise!

Oh, and I got a nice little 'Good Luck' greeting card as well that everybody had signed. Couldn't fit that in the cake too, Maria?


The cake...


And the people!
Jammie decided to dash in front of the camera, that's the chef Chris peeking through the shelves... Lisa's the one with the butter, and Helen's laughing - which may or may not make this picture worth a lot of money.

Just kidding :)

Greetings from Waterloo on this Wednesday...

Hi, here I am again.

I don't have any new and exciting pictures this time or any revolutionary comments about Western society.

I just wanted to say hi and bring the blog (and anyone who reads it) up to date on the doings of jennygiez.

The thing that is probably occupying the most space in my mind right now is packing. I love packing. My Dad always said one of the best parts of going camping is getting everything ready. And I totally agree. I love packing. I love having an excuse to get rid of things. I love stripping a room bare and cleaning every corner of it. I love fitting all of my worldly possessions into one suitcase.

I've packed up and left a number of places in my life, but none of those experience have been quite like this. You see, I still have my one suitcase... but this time I also have Chris' suitcase. No, make that Chris' two suitcases... and 2 boxes of books, one box of binders, and 4 Rubbermaid bins of who-knows-what, his desktop computer, his megatron of a monitor, his printer, his laptop, his stereo, his rice-cooker, his desk and chair, his end table, his lamps, his golf clubs and his bike, not to mention all his clothes are at least twice the size of any of mine.

Now, I'm not really complaining about it all... I mean, what else would I be doing with 3 days off a week? You can only sit on the patio with a big glass of iced tea for so long. No, that wasn't even sarcastic. So I'm still having fun packing. I'm just saying its different. I guess I dont blame him for having all that stuff. I mean, I went pretty much straight from Altona to Waterloo to Germany and back to Waterloo again, and if I couldn't carry it, I had to leave it.

Chris, on the other hand, had his family right in the neighborhood when he left for University. (re: all the Rubbermaid bins) So they just carted loads of stuff over to his dorm in first year, and it pretty much just stayed in the area and got put in storage while he was in Germany. When we got back we just pulled it out of storage and it's been sitting in my house ever since. His family has also since moved to Vancouver, and so we've encountered the need for a serious material purge.

We were big-time lucky, though, to have a friend, the amazingly intelligent and ambitious Justin who has been offered a 'freaking sweet' position in Seattle with Amazon.com. And, of course, along with the stock options and the signing bonus and the corporate housing and whatever else, they are shipping all of his things out there for him. Since Seattle is a mere border-crossing away from Chris' family's place, Justin has offered to let most of our things pose as his belongings and essentially get a free ride to the west coast. What a great guy!

And yeah, we've got most of that stuff packed up already and it's just waiting in Missisauga. The only hitch is that these things won't arrive in Seattle until after we leave, so whatever we send, we won't see it again before we get back from Japan. (With all fairness, I have a box of very sexy kitchen utensils in that shipment as well, that I already miss dearly. But apparently Japan bosts some prety sexy utensils as well, so I hopefully won't feel too deprived).

Whatever things we're not shipping, we've managed to sell to my old roommates and now we're just dealing with the Japan-bound suitcases.

Now this is more like it :)

So what is going on besides packing, you ask? Well, let's see...
We booked our plane tickets yesterday! It's about time, if you ask me. The company wanted to book us on a group flight through their agent, which was all fine and dandy 4 months ago when the fares were decent, but of course they decided to wait until less than a month before our departure and quoted us a price that was almost twice as much as we were told originally. Luckily, however, Chris is a flight-booking guru and he got in touch with the company's travel agent himself, and after a couple weeks' worth of phone calls, we got decently-priced return tickets on the right day at the right time. Because it's not the company's "official" flight, however, they basically told us they would not be tracking it from Japan and if we were delayed at all we should not expect to have company transportation from the airport. Even though our flight (via San Fransisco) is scheduled to arrive at the very same time as the Toronto flight, they say they just can't keep track of two for some lame reason.

But you know what? Chris and I say bollocks. As long as we're together and we have the address and number of the head office in Osaka and our apartment, we'll be fine. Besides, if worst comes to worst we figure the $1200 total we are saving on the flights just might cover cab fare!

So Chris should be picking up our visas from the Japanese consulate sometime this afternoon, and after that's done, we're pretty much set! Aside from securing our ride to the aiprort, there's just one thing left to do - possibly the toughest of them all - and that's saying goodbye to friends. Even though I'm ready to take a break from kitchen life, I think I'm going to have a hard time saying goodbye to the people I work with. And then there's the school friends that are still hanging around in Waterloo... The thing is, we don't even know when we'll be back out this way at all. Hopefully we'll be able to lure a couple of them out west in a couple years for various reasons ;) Other than that, I know there are certain people that I hope to never lose touch with, wherever we are.

*sigh*
Alright. I've got stuff to do.
I'll definitely post again before we leave, maybe even send out an email. Oh, and there WILL be a new blog for Japan (I seem to run through these things on a yearly basis...) I don't know yet when it will start or what it will look like, but you can believe it will look incredibly hot and be full of very awesome things to see and read.

So ttyl.