One thing that keeps happening a lot, and which I find adorable, is Japanese kids thinking how amazing it is that we use Japanese words in English. Words like T-shirt, pants, game, orange and bye-bye. They get all excited when they realize the words are the same, and feel quite proud that other people obviously like Japanese so much that we want to use their words. Of course, there are words in English that are originally Japanese (samurai, kamikaze, sushi etc), but for some reason the kids never get excited about them...I never have the heart to tell them who's borrowing from whom... =)

Kodomo Expo

Was asked by my boss a while back to help out at the Shimosuwa Kodomo (kids) Expo by creating a Swedish booth. I had no idea what to do though, but I got the advice to contact the Swedish embassy for help. They were really nice and sent me a bunch of brochures, a dalahäst, a Swedish outfit and organized for the tourism bureau to send me some posters. In addition to that, I had my brother send me a bunch of bags of salty licorice, and my friends and I painted this thing to stick your head through for a photo. Here are some pics from the event:

The licorice wasn't a hit, as expected, we got a lot of hilarious facial expressions when they realized it was salty =) I had a great time, and the party afterwards was great as well! ;)

Cowgirl!

Went horseback riding with my friend Sonoko today. Check it out! =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNpVfflfzaQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCENb4Gv3M




We had so much fun!