Blogs from Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 18

Once upon a time, right in the middle of an Aussie Summer, Linda (aka Helen) and Jodes (aka Monika) decided to pursue a professional snowboarding career in Japan. As you do when you've only had 6 hours of experience on a snowboard. (We didn't say it was a GOOD decision!) Here is the story of our journey... Our two week grand tour of Japan started off relatively smoothly - perhaps a little unusual for Linda and I! Despite the lady at check-in getting extremely agitated about us having only an E-ticket and no physical ticket with a particularly crucial number on it that she just had to have to make it through her day, we made it onto the flight. We were somewhat amused that noone else at any other airport throughout our trip seemed to ... read more

Winter vacation got off to a shaky start. After twiddling my thumbs and counting down the minutes Monday following our closing ceremonies at school, I rushed home to change and grab my pack. Downtown Matsuyama I met my fellow English teachers and walked to Niccori, a buffet style restaraunt near Okkaido. We had reservations for a Christmas dinner. To my surprise, the cost was all you can eat AND all you can drink. I hadn't planned on that one. Needless to say, towards the end of the meal I checked my cell phone to see the time had flown by. And I now had only 10 minutes to make my overnight bus to Tokyo! AAHHHHHHH!!! Panic! I quickly gathered my things and paid my bill, asking them to call a taxi. The waiter told me (in ... read more

I realize that we don’t even have an apartment yet, but….. For all of you who have planned to visit, promised to visit or those of you who will (at some point) have your hands tied behind your back and “convinced” to come visit…. It is now available..... The much anticipated, long awaited “Levin’s Inn Guest room booking Calendar.” Advance bookings are being taken now for those adventurous souls who will book now, not even knowing exactly what the accommodations will be! We have made it easy - just cut and paste the link below to your web browser and book your space! The calendar is easy to navigate, just use the “year” and “month” at the top. When you have decided on your dates, just go to the bottom of the calendar and click on ... read more

Hi there everyone! Thank you all for the nice, sweet comments about the blog and all the messages. It really means a lot to both me and Marc. I hope you will forgive me if this bores you, but I am going to respond to a few people quick. Karen - I know you want pictures. I actually did take some of the two apartments. Marc and I just went to down load the pictures and found that the necessary card reader is not is the camera bag. That means that it got shipped with everything else and we won’t have it for a while yet. Consequently, you will have to wait a while longer. I promise I will post pictures just as soon as possible. Anne - I was ROFLOL when I read about your ... read more

I am sorry I haven’t posted an entry lately… We’ve just been busy finding our way around Tokyo a bit. But… more about that all later… today I am going to tell you all about what it is like to find a place to live in Tokyo. To put it in one word… UGH! In many ways, this is no different from looking for a place to live back home in the states. There are always so many things to consider, and it all becomes a balancing act of the things that are most important and trying to get as many of them as possible in one home. Here, there are just a few more “monkey wrenches” to make the process even more fun!! Before we had even arrived, Marc had done a lot of research ... read more