Ashiya

Bubble tea at Joy Yee's in Evanston with Marie, Maria, and Peter

After a quick visit to Marie in Chicago, we embarked on over 24 hours of travel and little sleep.  We flew out of Chicago directly to Tokyo.  As we got off the plane, we were greeted by three young adults, a reporter, translator, and cameraman for a Japanese TV station.  They asked to interview us and proceeded to ask us about our trip and where we were from.  Towards to the end of the interview, the reporter was trying to figure out how we were related--he thought we might be brother and sister since "we looked so much alike".  Just as we often think all Asian people look alike, Asian people think all white people look alike!  We flew to the Osaka Itami Airport and met our friend, Stephanie Bartsch.  Then, very tired at this point, we lugged our heavy suitcases onto three trains to Ashiya, the city of over 1 million where Mark and Stephanie live.  From the train station, we took a taxi, driving on the left side of the road up, up, up the hill to Mark and Steph's apartment.

Ashyia

After Christmas trip to Virginia

Jess and I are 12 days away from leaving for Japan.  Today we are in Virginia visiting Jess' family and Grace, Ben, and Naisa.  Our first day here it snowed all day--which was beautiful but then we waited much longer for Grace, Ben, and Naisa, who were driving home from Souderton, PA. We had a wonderful Ethiopian meal at Jim and Peg's house one night and then drove out to West Virginia one night for a wonderful meal with Dave and Patsy.  This is Marie's first time to see Naisa and she is a very happy aunt.   We enjoyed going to see "The Hobbit" together as a family.  This afternoon, we are planning to go to Klines' Dairy Bar--a place Naomi must stop at for frozen custard every time we come to Harrisonburg!  The flavor-of-the-week is Caramel and Pralines.