How you know you're lifting in Japan

-Bow before and after lifting when coming into/leaving the main lifting area to/from the hallway to the locker rooms.

-Mirrors are too short, can only see half your body

-Not enough weight on the machines

-A lot more older people

-Towels on every machine and every mat on the ground

-Sign up sheet for treadmills/ellipticals and each has an hour time limit

-What is a super set (doesn't exist over here)

-Lockers - every locker has a spot for a 100 yen coin and you have to put the coin in to be able to lock the locker and get the key out to take with you

-If you get up from your machine to stretch/get a drink, even if you leave your water bottle/towel/workout notebook right next to it, the machine will be taken.

-If you are waiting for a bench/machine you need to basically be on top of the person who is using it to get your turn. I have been waiting for a machine before (from a distance of 5 or so feet, waiting patiently for the person to finish and wipe the machine down, clearly showing my interest in the machine and that I was to be next) when someone barely let the person finish and cut right in front of me. It's not the only time it's happened either.

-There is no such thing as working in. I of course wouldn't be able to ask as I don't have the language skills necessary to be able to ask, but I have never seen a Japanese person do it either.

Starbucks

Here in Japan there are many starbucks. Here in Toyama city there are at least 4. When we are in America we don't tend to go that often, if at all, but over here it is a treat and a little taste/reminder of home. 

At one of the Starbucks a few of the workers are fans of our team, and very friendly when we stop in.

#47 is my number this year

Nice to be able to go and have a date with my girls sometimes :)

Drive to practice

Here's a picture from our drive to practice the other day

Rest area - changing board

Our bus ride to Tokyo took over 6 hours, and of course we needed to stop for some bathroom breaks. One of the places we stopped at had a "changing board" in the bathroom, in one of the stalls. I thought it was great that they had a place for the men to change a baby as I have tried to change our daughter's diapers when we have been out only to find there is only a changing station in the women's bathroom. 

The changing board was a little different than I pictured. Instead of being at a convenient waist high height, it was literally next to the ground-I think when the board would have been opened it would have been resting on the ground. (See picture).

I guess with the board resting on the ground when opened you wouldn't have to make sure it's fashioned to the wall securely enough to support a baby's weight or worry about a baby falling off. 

But, I don't know if it is the best place to try and change a squirmy kid-on the floor of the bathroom and in a stall that is just a whole in the ground at that. What if someone had poor aim and previously missed? I have seen quite a few of those toilets/holes in the ground with liquid on the floor around them - yuck. And what if some splatter hit the changing board? Even though it would closed that is still nasty.

But I guess there is one bonus, it would be easy for you to put the diaper in the garbage as it is literally right there. You could almost use it as a tiny seat. And you wouldn't have to touch it with your hands. You could just plop down on top of it and do the changing right there. 

And.........since we're being ridiculous (talking about a changing table on the floor of a stall with a hole in the ground for a toilet), you could even take care of your business, if you had such #2 business to take care of, while you cared for your baby.

Weird,gross,strange........whatever you want to call it, it's just not right!

As we were walking out of the bathroom though I did see a normal changing table. Looking back on the changing board in hole-in-the-ground stall, I think it is for adults to change their clothes so they wouldn't get any remnants from previous potty users on their stuff. At first I thought it was it was incredibly gross but once I realized it wasn't a danger zone for little ones I think it is actually a pretty good idea.

Dinner and sumo

Tonight I sat down to eat dinner and when I turned on the tv sumo was on. I think there are 4 tournaments a year so it's not on all that much and it was nice to sit down and watch it - it's pretty cool.

Made it

Well, I made it back to Japan safely this year. My flight on Air Canada over the ocean was great. The wonderful stewardesses gave me extra meals for both meal services (1 extra meal on the first meal service and 2 extra meals on the second) and were very friendly. Would definitely recommend that airline if you have the chance to fly with them.
Even the though the flight over was nice the trip didn't go without a hiccup. When I got to Tokyo I went to get my bag from the baggage claim, but instead of my blue suitcase coming around on the carousel I was greeted with a green plastic bin that said "Joseph Werner please see an airline employee." Well, because I am smart I knew I probably hadn't won $5 or something really cool like that and something, probably no good, was up. I was right. I was informed that my bag hadn't made the trip. I guess it wanted to spend some more time in Vancouver, where I flew from, and didn't make it to Tokyo......................fantastic (sarcastic). Its not that big of deal, only that I have pretty much everything I need in there. But I guess I can always cut two holes in a garbage bag and put it on if I need some more undies, so no big deal.
Other than that though alls well and it is nice to be here.

This year we will be in Toyama, Japan.

The past 2 seasons we have been in Chiba (on the east side of Tokyo) and Kyoto (right next to Osaka). This year we are pretty much right in the middle of those two places, only to the north. This team has been pretty successful the past couple of years and we are hoping to have another successful season again. Katy and the girls will be coming over in a couple weeks once I can get the apartment situated and set up (and I am already excited for them to come).

According to wikipedia:
Toyama Prefecture (富山県 Toyama-ken^?) is a prefecture (state) of Japan located in the Hokuriku region on the main Honshu island (main Island of Japan). The capital is the city of Toyama.
Toyama is the leading industrial prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, and has the industrial advantage of cheap electricity from abundant hydroelectric resources. It also contains East Asia’s only glaciers outside Russia, first recognized in 2012.
<sup>The city we will live in, Toyama city, has about 417,000 people.

View the rest of the blog here: http://katyandjoey.blogspot.jp/ and thanks for reading</sup>

Tickle Monster

Back when we were in Austria I wrote about our run-ins with the sock monster (Sock Monster), but here in Japan we have a new monster - the tickle monster.
Here is a video of Myla and the tickle monster.

Stop!!........do it again :)

Back to the land of the rising sun

Well I made it back to Japan, and safely. Although it wasn't without a hiccup. This year to fly over to Japan I flew out of Milwaukee.

My flight went Milwaukee - Chicago - Tokyo - Osaka
When I got to the airport in Milwaukee everything was set on on time and I was good to go. When I got to Chicago though it was a different story. Instead of being on time the flight I had was delayed over 3.5 hours..... Fantastic. Not cool when you have a connection to make. So, I waited. Finally after some time and promise form the United Airlines workers in Chicago that the company employees in Tokyo would help either get me a different flight to Osaka or a hotel room I was ready to go. So we all got on the plane and.....more delay..... Excellent.
The flight was a good flight but I should have enjoyed something nice while I had the chance because things weren't so rosy in Tokyo.
When we got in, they had different lines that you had to go to depending on which kind of connecting flight you missed. If you had an international connection you had two different lines you could go to, or if you had a domestic flight that you missed you had a different line to go to. Since I missed my domestic connecting flight I moseyed into that line. The guy behind the makeshift table they had set up told me that there were no more flights to Osaka that evening and that I would have to wait until the morning to be able to fly. I had kind of guessed this much was going to happen as we got to the baggage claim (where the United people were waiting to help) at 8:30pm. I was a little disappointed but told the guy no problem as I would just hop on the flight in the morning.
But until then I needed somewhere to go. Because I missed my flight United should have paid for my hotel room right? Ha.

The United guy asked me where I was going to stay the night. I saw all the other people in the line being handed red and white vouchers for hotel rooms and said wherever you guys are going to have me stay. He left for a minute and came back. I thought it was going to be to hand me a voucher for the hotel room, instead he handed me some great advice. He told me that because my ticket was booked in two different parts: from Milwaukee to Tokyo and then from Tokyo to Osaka (I think the team did it this way to save a little money) they wouldn't give me a hotel room because their part of the ticket ended in Tokyo. My attempts to explain that if it wasn't for United's mistake I would have made my flight and there wouldn't be a need for us to be talking, fell on deaf ears. He graciously let me know though, that if I needed a place to sleep I could find myself some space out in the arrivals hall and sleep in the airport :) Thanks guy!
But, thats not all. After he told me that they wouldn't get me a hotel room, he went to switch my flight (luckily he didnt tell me I had to buy a whole new airplane ticket). He did however tell me that I would not be able to leave from the same airport I flew into. Instead I would have the privilege of flying out from the other Tokyo airport on the whole other side of Tokyo. How long does it take to get there you ask? A 1.5 hour bus ride..... Super!

I managed to talk the guy into paying for my bus ticket, and dog-tired made it to the other airport (almost slept through my stop). Once I got to the there I checked into the $140 hotel room I found, and got some sleep. The last leg of the trip from the other Tokyo airport to Osaka, and then the car ride from Osaka airport to my place in Kyoto went well, but my goodness what a disaster...... and feat of customer service.
I guess though, I did make it here safely and that's the most important thing.

0-1 1st round

Tonight we had our first playoff game and it didn't go so well for us as we got beat by 20. We had times where we were able to make little runs, but we started off slow out of the gate and couldn't overcome their 1st quarter lead of 15. We struggled with turnovers - 21 - and many of them were turnovers that led to an easy basket. In the end they won because they had a lot more possessions than us. While the free throws and 3 pointers were about similar in the amount that both teams took, they had almost 20 more 2 point attempts than us, as we took 39 and 57. Tomorrow will be games 2 and 3, and if we can hold our turnovers down we have a good chance to pull the series out.
Go Chiba!

Cha-Ching

Here in Japan the national currency is the Yen. Since we have been here the rate has fluctuated a little bit -when we first got here $1 was worth about 80 yen, today $1 will give you 99 yen.
If you are in the States or Europe there is a good chance that you dont know much about the Yen so I thought I would share the denominations and the exchange rate as of today.
 
For coins:
1 yen coin = about 1 penny USD and not quite 1 Euro cent (70% of one euro cent)
5 yen coin= about 5 pennies USD and about 4 Euro cents
10 yen coin = about 10 pennies USD and about 8 Euro cents
50 yen coin = about 50 cents USD and about 38 Euro cents
100 yen coin = about $1.01 USD and about 77 Euro cents
500 yen coin = about $5.02 USD and about Euro 3.84

For bills:
1,000 yen bill =  about $10.07USD about and about Euro 7.69
5,000 yen bill = about $52 USD and about Euro 38.46
10,000 yen bill = about $100.67 USD and about Euro 76.90
(the picture also shows a 2000 yen bill but I have never seen one - maybe it is like a $2 bill in the US)
So, comparing it to the US dollar, it is a little bit different where there are no $1 or $5 bills. Instead you have a $5 coin and then a $10, $50, and a $100 bill.
So if you have some bills in your wallet there is the potential that you are carrying around some real money.

Our daughter's a teacher?

Tonight instead of Myla listening to us and learning from us she was the teacher and tried to teach me something. We were lying in bed next to each other (we are trying to introduce her to a bigger bed to get her used to the idea so we can maybe get one for her this summer) and trying to go to sleep.
Myla doesn't lay real still and was moving around playing with her hands. She played with her hair a little bit and then with her nose. After doing this she pointed at my nose. I wasn't sure exactly what she wanted until she grabbed my finger and moved it up until it was firmly secure in my left nostril. Happy with what she showed me, she did the same thing and we laid there for a few seconds as if we were two peas in a pod. Since we were trying to go to sleep I didn't want to laugh out loud but it was hard to hold it back as I really got a kick out of this. Good work little girl.
So, if you see me with my finger in my nose in the next few weeks you'll know its because I had a great teacher and don't want to let her down from the lesson I learned.

Japanese Pooper Scooper

Here in Japan things are very clean. Even though it seems as though you hardly ever see a garbage can there is almost no litter on the sidewalks/side of the street. Another thing you never see is doggy doo-doo. Like many places around the world the people here clean up after their 4 legged friends, only their technique seems to be a little different.
 
In the states I have seen people pull a plastic bag out of their pocket, put their hand inside of it and grab the droppings. Then flip the bag inside-out and tie it off so they never actually have to touch the mess with their bare hands and let the bag do all the work. Or, if you wanted to go the fancy route, you could go online and buy a Pooper scooper - a dustpan/shovel looking deal that picks it up for you, eliminating the need for any hand-to-hand combat.
Here in Japan the same thing happens, only the technique is a little different. Here you take the plastic bag out of your pocket but instead of waiting for the dog to finish, you pretend your hand is a baseball glove and catch whatever comes out before it ever comes in contact with the ground. The first time I saw this I couldn't believe my eyes, as I had never seen or heard of anything like it before, but I have since seen it again (only the second time the lady used nothing more than a small tissue - stuck her hand straight out and grabbed it like she was a 3-time gold glove winner. I was at a stop light so I got a good look at what was going on and the technique she was using).
 
I wasn't able to get a picture of this so I tried to find one on the internet - instead of finding what I was looking for I found this: another Japanese way to clean up after your dog.
(Due to the graphic nature of this picture - children please ask your parents before looking any further)

Instead of having to do any of the dirty work - you strap this contraption on your dog like a collar and when your dog goes the expandable tube gets bigger as it is filled and is ready to be tossed when your dog is done.
Not a bad idea - but I got to thinking, how much must you hate to pick up dog poop to design a full-body-accordian-syle-expandable-poop-catching-dog-harness? Think your dog will ever wear one of these?