catch up

okay i guess this proves how lazy i really am, its been over a month since my last update. sorry all.

lets start with Thailand!!! which was absolutely amazing. we spent about 5 days in Bangkok exploring temples and taking tuk tuks all around the city. My favorite was the weekend open air market, that stretched for at least 2 or 3 blocks and was equally as deep. you could find everything imaginable there!! it was great. I bought so many gifts and soveniers here and the trip had barely even started.
my other favorite place in Bangkok was the aquarium it was so fun, we went on my last day, and went on a glass bottom boat ride over the tanks, and saw some really cool fish and sharks.
we also spent about 4 days in Phuket, this little island in the south. Its very touristy but still really fun. our hotel was right on the beach and a quick taxi ride for shopping central. We actually spent most of these 4 days on the ocean, we had 2 tours, one was a boat cruise in the national park, and we visited James Bond Island were one of the James Bond movies was filmed.. not sure what one.. that was fun, but of course i managed to get so sunburned.. my back looked like a tomato. The next day we went on a motor boat cruise and that was by far the best!! it took us to monkey beach to see some funny monkeys, and then to "the beach" where they filmed the movie The Beach. white sand and crystal clear water.. so fantastic to just float around in. We also went to several great snorkeling spots and i saw tons of fish!! i really love snorkeling it was great.
on Phuket we also went to this show called Fantasea.. it was neat, the show was great, but the cool thing was the whole like mini theme park they made the area into was neat to. I got to ride an elephant, and best of all actually hold and feed a baby tiger!!

So all in all Thailand was perfect, hot, sunny, and filled with places to get the best 6$ full body massages ever!! But I was ready to get back to Japan because I knew I was having a visitor.

Next in the adventures of Lissie- Tokyo!!!
my cousin Jory came to Japan to visit a college friend, and I met up with them in Tokyo and had the best weekend ever! it was so great to see family and just to walk around and explore the city. Jory's friend was great and toured us around to all the places we wanted to see and took us to restaurantes and ordered, cause of course we couldn't read the menus. lol. I took advantage of being in the city and visited every recommended bookstore with a good foreign section i could (2) and bought way to many books. I also added to my growing Build-A-Bear collection, with a bear from Tokyo.. he is sitting in my room now next to my Bear from Thailand... i'm addicted what can I say. oh we went to a great zoo and saw tons of animals.. what can i say i love zoos and aquariums. The weekend was way to short, but definitely a good time.

Now I'm just working away, its the last term for my students and they are all really bust getting ready for tests and what not, graduation for the seniors in March 4th. and the new school year opens April 8th.. so i have a bit of down time in March.. so I guess its a great thing the MOM IS COMING TO JAPAN ON MARCH 23!!!! i am so excited i really really can't wait.
we are going to explore Tokyo and Kyoto for 7 days. I'll post some pictures on my flickr page.

in the mean time you can check out my flickr account (flickr.com) user name yohgrl23 to see my thailand pics and the pictures of me and jory in tokyo.

Well thats all the updates for now. miss everyone and hope you are all doing well, hope the winter isn't too bad.
take care

Me