Mondays

Once again, the weekend wasn't long enough, but I did get to spend a decent amount of time relaxing.

Last Saturday we resolved to spend the day at home, around our neighbourhood, having some quality family time. Since we moved here, we have spent at least half a day of every day on the weekends at the shops. It's like we have a never-ending list of things we still need to purchase, and because Japanese shops have everything you could ever think of, we go for one thing, but 3 hours later come back with much more. I LOVE SHOPPING HERE! However, Saturday was spent making waffles, taking the puppy for a walk around the neighbourhood, playing with the little human, napping and snacking. Perfect.

Home made waffles for breakfast

Sunday I managed to convince the family that we needed to venture to the Tokyu Hands store in Ginowan, which we did, and it was awesome. I picked up some little gifts for one of my best friend's new baby and his big brother, as well as more random household items from the never-ending list we have. I also purchased myself a 1000pc Totoro puzzle, which will take over my life until i've finished it. There's something about puzzles that are so incredibly addictive to me, and once I start them, I realise why I can't let myself do them more than once a year. No matter how sore my back gets from hunching over the box of pieces, to how many hours pass without me realising, I just can't stop! Argh!

The puzzle's beginnings

Next weekend i'm hoping for some nice weather (for a tropical location, so far the weather has been average at best) so we can go and explore some of the nature and scenery around here rather than the inside of shopping centres!

One fantastic and cheap thing I discovered while shopping was that Daiso (one of the 100 yen shops) stocks battery powered shinkansen train sets that you can piece together however you like. We bought one for the little man and he's played with it consistently for weeks, and cost under 1000yen (around $11) for all the pieces

One great thing I love about working at OIST, is that , not only is the cafe cheap, healthy and amazing, but they also have visiting food vendors in the afternoons most days of the week. For example, there's a guy selling fresh made cheese every Tuesday afternoon, and last Friday there was a man selling dutch baked treats. I bought a tasty spicy dutch waffle for afternoon tea to have with a sweet can of hot coffee. Mmm

Also, i'm very excited because we finalised plans for some of our besties who are coming to visit us during Golden Week (end of April - first week of March). I cannot wait to show some people around our new place!