Happy New Year 2014!

Happy New Year! Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! Welcome 2014!

Nozomi’s message in Japanese is first.

(If you don’t have Japanese installed on your computer, it will look like random characters-skip to the next section if you want).

あけまして　おめでとうございます

本年もどうぞ宜しくお願い致します

たくさんの幸せが訪れますように

*お陰様で日本の両親もアメリカの両親も

それぞれ元気にしております。

２０１４年　１月

Greetings to friends and family around world; we hope your new year is starting well.

Several of our friends got married this year-blessings and congratulations to you!

January and February here brought very cold weather and a few days of snow. Fortunately, there was enough snow to be beautiful, but not enough to be dangerous. The same situation this year would be great. As we usually do,we enjoyed New Years Day with Nozomi’s family in Ichikai (which I’m looking forward to again as I write this letter on December 31st). In February we enjoyed a quick skiing trip in the mountains in Nikko with our friends from church, the Sugas. It had been too long before then since I last tried cross country skiing, so I hope we can go again soon.

March and April featured the usual slow transition from winter to spring. We took a first-time visit to a small but beautiful art museum in Bato, went for walks to do cherry blossom viewing, and enjoyed our (shared) birthday. We also had a fun trip to Tokyo to spend time with our friends Mondo and Aiko.

May and June were filled with more and more outdoor activities as the weather got warmer. We went for picnics in the park, on our annual trip to the nearby rose garden, and found a park to the west of Utsunomiya with rhododendrons, azaleas and hydrangeas (shakunage, tsutsuji and ajisai). My great friend Shinya and I also performed at Starbucks.

In July, we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary and then started to prepare for our America trip. There are many details and pictures of that on my blog, so feel free to take a look if you’re interested:http://robasso.blogspot.jp/2013/08/america-trip-2013-part-two-sentinel-dome.html (that’s one post of several about our trip).

In August, we picked blackberries at Nozomi’s parents’ house-they ripen earlier here than in Oregon.  In pie, in cobbler, and fresh with yogurt, they were delicious! We also returned to the Mori Art Museum, one of our favorites, for an interesting exhibition.

September and October saw the return of comfortable temperatures, as usual, but an UNusually active typhoon season. Also, we heard the exciting news that the Olympics are coming to Tokyo! It was also very fun to visit Tochigi city’s Oktoberfest and enjoy German-style sausage and sauerkraut.

In November, we had our annual American-Japanese fusion Thanksgiving dinner. As in past years,, we roasted whole chickens, but we recently heard that Costco is coming to Utsunomiya, so in 2014 we might have … TURKEY! We also took another Tokyo trip to visit Mondo & Aiko, and finally got to visit Umihotaru, which I had wanted to see since I first came to Japan.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Bay_Aqua-Line

December, as always, was busy but fun. The picture at the top of this post was taken outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno Park during a short visit to see an exhibition of paintings by J. M. W. Turner. After finishing our schedule of music concerts, Nozomi & I traveled to Shimoda city for a short vacation. It’s a resort city on the ocean southwest of Tokyo, and the scenery was great. Even though it’s quite a long drive to get there (including driving through Tokyo, which always adds quite a bit of time), overall it was a very relaxing time.

Tomorrow, January 1st, we will spend the day at Nozomi’s parents’ house with family.

Again, we hope you have a blessed, fulfilling New Year!

Rob & Nozomi

My blog: robasso.blogspot.com

My email: waterfront_r@hotmail.com

Nozomi’s email: elppis2@yahoo.co.jp

(As in previous years, I’ve left the earlier New Years greeting letters posted below in case you want to catch up.)

Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year!

Nozomi’s message in Japanese is first. Rob’s message in English is below.

(If you don’t have Japanese installed on your computer, you will see random characters below. Look below that for the English section.)

あけまして おめでとうございます！！ 平和と希望、喜びに満ちたお年になりますように。 昨年は大変お世話になりました。 本年もよろしくお願い致します。 おかげさまで Success English Schoolも来る4月で3年目に入ろうとしています。 今年も楽しく身につく英語レッスンを目指して皆さんのスキルアップに繋がりますよう努めていきたいと思います。 私自身も 目標は“Robの両親と会話を楽しむ” 日本でもアメリカでも、家族や親戚に友人達に愛され、支えられています。 世界の平和を祈りつつ。

From Japan. love Nozomi

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Welcome 2013!

In my message last year, I mentioned that 2011 was a year with many changes. 2012 felt like a year of getting used to those changes, but overall a bit more stable. Nozomi continued working at UICS (Utsunomiya International Christian School) with her teaching focusing on the elementary age students. I continued my own private English instruction, and am slowly continuing to increase the number of students I’m teaching.

We are also both still involved in many music projects, including the church worship team. I continue to play with friends from church at youth events, small concerts, and occasionally Starbucks. Nozomi is part of a gospel choir that performs independently, and at church events. We were both part of the church’s annual Joyful Christmas concert, which was our last big commitment before starting winter vacation, but more about that later, at the end of the year’s review:

In January, we enjoyed the first of several short trips to Tokyo. Our visits there usually include an art museum and one (or more) international restaurants, because there just aren’t many international restaurants in Utsunomiya. We also enjoyed a visit from Gale, my friend from Oregon that’s currently living in Japan. She stayed with us for a couple of days, and we traveled to Moka City and Nasu together.

February was filled with kumquats. I’ll explain… Before I came to Japan, I had never eaten a kumquat before, and after trying them for the first time, I became addicted. February is the end of the season, so I ate a lot before they disappeared for the year. The end of the month, we also saw some snow.

March was the month my great friend (and former student) Eriya got married. Congratulations on your one-year anniversary coming soon! At the end of the month, Nozomi & I traveled with her mother and sister to Hawaii, where we met my parents and sister. I still have many photos that I haven’t organized or posted on my blog, and will hopefully get to that sometime this year, but in a word, the trip was wonderful!

After returning from Hawaii in early April, we enjoyed cherry blossom season, and a slowly warming spring. (After Honolulu, a very cool spring was a bit of a shock.) On our birthday (we share a birthday, in case some people forgot or didn’t know) we took another short trip to Tokyo and saw the first Jackson Pollock retrospective show ever held in Japan. It was absolutely amazing, and featured a possibly once-in-a-lifetime viewing of one of his large paintings that is usually in storage in the basement of a museum in Tehran, Iran. (It’s rarely shown, because it’s considered “decadent Western art” by the current regime.)

By May, the weather was warming up, and we were able to spend more time outside, enjoying walks in our neighborhood, and also the beautiful rose garden in Moka City, about a 30-minute drive from here.

In June, we took another museum trip, this time to Kasama in Ibaraki Prefecture around 90 minutes away. They were featuring an exhibition of photos by an artist who specializes in pictures of cats. The pictures were creative, funny and beautiful. The museum itself and its permanent collection was great too, located in a small city where you wouldn’t expect to find such a large collection of world-class art.

July was hot. And humid. And hot. Did I mention it was hot? The happiest part of July: our third wedding anniversary!

In August, we traveled to western Japan. It was the first time I had been in that part of the country, so it was interesting to see a new area. The highlight for me was visiting Fukuoka, which is a truly beautiful city. I’d like to return there sometime when the weather isn’t so hot. So, yes, August was also HOT.

Later in September, cooler weather returned, and allowed us to spend more time outside again.

October in Oregon used to make me think, “dark, rainy, cloudy, gray, dreary winter is coming”. October in Utsunomiya makes me think, “hurray! It’s not hot anymore!” We took a trip to the coast and had a great time walking on the beach and in a large amusement/nature/flower park we hadn’t been to in quite a while.

November brought beautiful fall colors, Thanksgiving dinner at Nozomi’s parents’ house, preparations for Christmas, the wedding reception of our friends Jen & Tomohiro, and the first holiday Starbucks concert.

In December, the cold weather seemed to start much earlier this year than usual. At the beginning of the month, I played in the band’s second Starbucks holiday concert. Later, Nozomi & I were both involved in our church’s annual Christmas concert. It was good, but after months of preparation, and a long, busy day at the concert hall, it was nice to complete our last commitment and start vacation! Our good friends Mondo & Aiko came to the concert, and we had a relaxing dinner with them after it finished. The next day we went to Moka City together and we all enjoyed a walk in a nature park, Christmas butterflies, Brazilian lunch, and the Santa Claus steam train. Christmas Eve was spent at Nozomi’s parents’ house sharing delicious sushi dinner together. Christmas was a relaxing day at home. The next day, we left for a three-day trip to Atami (a resort city 90 minutes southwest of Tokyo). The highlight of that trip was visiting the “Shaboten Koen”, a sort of combination theme park, cactus conservatory and mini-zoo. Today is New Years Eve, and tomorrow we will spend the day with Nozomi’s family. And that brings us to 2013!

Most of the things I mentioned above, and many others ended up on my blog, so if you want to take a look… well, that’s one of the reasons I write it! My blog entries also automatically post to Facebook, but sometimes not everything is included there because, well, Facebook can be strange. Nozomi doesn’t have her own blog, but also posts on Facebook regularly.

Happy New Year! Akemashite Omedetou!

Welcome, 2012! Nozomi & I hope the year is starting well for you, wherever you are!

(Nozomi has a short greeting first, so if your computer can’t read Japanese, the next part will look strange to you…)

東日本大震災後の復興を願いつつ。

この年も みなさまにとって 幸いなお年になりますように。 心より 祈りをこめて。

Robの英会話クラス“Success English School” 始まって9ヶ月。今後ともよろしくお願い致します。

2011 was filled with excitement and change, most of it good, except when the earth changed place under our feet, but more about that in a moment.

As 2010 was finishing, Nozomi & I discussed future plans for careers and teaching. I had spent two years working as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) teaching English to elementary school students in a small school district just outside of Utsunomiya. Most of that experience was enjoyable and I met some wonderful teachers, but I’ve always felt that my skills are most suited to teaching young adults and older. So, after much discussion and prayer, we decided that it was time for me to start my own private teaching. The academic year in Japan finishes in March, so in January I told the company that I worked for that I would not be renewing my contract and we started looking for an apartment closer to the center of the city. I had always wanted to live in a high-rise building, maybe on about the 20^th floor. Nozomi is content with the ground floor. We compromised, and chose the top floor of a six-floor building. We moved at the end of February, just a couple of weeks before my ALT job finished. (Our new address is below.)

March 11^th was my last day at one of the smaller schools where I taught. As the native Japanese teacher and I were getting ready to say goodbye to our next-to-last class, the room started to shake. What happened next was the one of the biggest earthquakes of the past 100 years. (If you haven’t already read my account of the quake, and want more details, please check my blog: robasso.posterous.com Under “archive” click on “2011”, then “March”, then scroll down to the entry for March 17^th.) Life here slowly returned to normal over the next few weeks. The big quake did temporarily change my thinking about living on the sixth floor, but we’ve more or less gotten used to a small tremor every couple weeks or so again. Also, if that huge quake did no damage to this apartment, I think we’re as safe here as we’re going to be anywhere…

The change to self-employment was a leap of faith, but the number of students that I’m teaching has continued to slowly increase over the last few months, so I’m grateful for God’s provision and the opportunity to enjoy my work. I try not to take for granted that it’s a wonderful blessing to be able to make a living doing work that I actually like to do. Nozomi will continue to teach at U.I.C.S. (Utsunomiya International Christian School) next year, a job that she also enjoys.

For our spring vacation this year, we traveled to Oregon and California to visit family and friends. We had great visits with my parents and siblings in Springfield, and a short trip to the Oregon coast which was nostalgic for me, and a new experience for Nozomi. Much of the time in Springfield was spent relaxing and eating, including Thanksgiving dinner in April; thanks, Mom! The other highlight was a road trip to my cousin Paula’s house where we were met by most of that branch of the family. As always with those visits, we talked, laughed, played games, laughed, relaxed in the sun, laughed, went for walks, laughed and laughed. Paula, thanks again for hosting!

In early summer, we enjoyed a visit from my cousin, Elaine, and her family. The office was converted into a guest room, allowing them to stay with us and have lots of time (again…) relaxing together, playing games and laughing. We had a wonderful time showing them around Utsunomiya and its surroundings, and a long weekend trip to Tokyo. We ate lots of sushi and even made it to the disc golf course twice, but it was amazing how fast the two weeks went by, and that we didn’t even finish everything on our basic list of things to do, so I guess you guys will have to come back for karaoke!

The end of the summer featured a very special event: Nozomi’s grandmother’s 99^thbirthday party! Tsuru-san is an amazing part of the Kusaka family, and many family members came together a couple of months early for her celebration. Her actual birthday was in November, and we had another, smaller family get together then.

This fall we both took the technological plunge and upgraded to smart phones. We found a cell phone store in Tokyo that has English-speaking staff, so I was actually able to understand the contract I signed! I chose an Android phone, and Nozomi chose iPhone, so we’re doing our part to keep the cell phone market competitive.

We are both involved with the music team at church (me, keyboards; Nozomi, vocals). Nozomi also sings with a local gospel choir, and I continue to play in a band with friends from church and also make musical creations on my own. Nozomi is also hoping to spend more time expressing her creativity in art again soon (painting and drawing), especially after the new school year starts and her teaching hours are reorganized.

This year also included several other short trips around the area, traveling to Sendai to see Nozomi’s cousin and her family, and wonderful visits with our good friends Mondo and Aiko. For more details about what’s happening with us, feel free to read my blog. Also, Nozomi & I both check what’s happening with friends on Facebook often, so if you haven’t already connected with us there, please do. We’d love to hear from you, so here is our contact information: