My Favorite Salad

Lunch is hard. I'm not a morning person, so bringing lunch doesn't happen. There's so much fast food on base and healthier options are slimmer and often take longer to prepare.

I've been working on it though. I'm trying very hard to avoid the delicious french fries 10 steps from my office and take the extra steps to the gym for a salad! Our gym has a little shop that sells smoothies and salads and everything is delicious.

I've been addicted to this salad lately. It has spinach, cucumbers ,broccoli, chicken, chow mein noodles, and mandarin oranges. Delicious!

Transfer

My laptop has been dying for a few months. Since I started grad school, it has decided to freeze and other wonderful things every time I go to do school work. I had to resort to using Jeff's computer, which drives him crazy.

With another semester under my belt, we decided it wasn't worth the headache. I bought a new laptop.

Now I'm in the fun phase or transferring all my files, pictures, music, etc. And figuring out a new operating system, since my new laptop upgrades from Windows 7 to Windows 8. I'm slowly figuring out how to work the new windows...

I forgot how much of a headache transferring everything is. I have most of my photos backed up on an external anyways, but transferring all the documents and music, re-downloading virus software and other applications, and setting up everything I need to run takes a while! And I lose the extras like the free copy of my parents' Microsoft Office that was installed on the old laptop. Oh well.

I'm off to play with this laptop some more. The great news is my school webpage loads in 2 seconds flat. Much better!

Fitness

This week was pretty good as far as fitness goes. My goals of no fried food and no soda have been successful so far. I just have to make it through work tonight and resist the delicious smell of french fries from the first floor of my building.

Workouts:
Tuesday - sprint/jog/incline intervals and sauna
Friday - aerobathon! Kickboxing, crossfit, and zumba with the teens at work

I'm also getting trained in archery tomorrow. I don't know what that entails, but it'll probably work my arms?

Next week will be harder because I'm working nights. Here are the goals for next week: no fried foods again and four workouts.

Fitness This Week

I put my iPod in the washing machine last week. It was very dead after the spin cycle. The BX did not have iPod nanos in stock. I bought a shuffle, but realized I was losing playlists and fitness, which tracks how far I'm running. Since I've been enjoying running, I didn't want to give that up. Amazon refused to ship an iPod nano to me, so I'm waiting patiently for it to ship to my mom who will very nicely ship it to me. Sometimes living overseas is fun...

The iPod mishap screwed up my fitness routine last week.
M - I went to the gym - I don't remember what I did though! (This was the morning I killed my iPod...)
T - Turbofire Fire 45
W - Jillian Michaels No More Trouble Zones
Th - Nothing. I bought the iPod shuffle Wednesday evening and thought it charged all night but it did not. I was so frustrated I sat on the couch and did nothing. Whoops!
F - 2.7 mile run with Jeff and 100 pushups!

I was very excited to tackle 100 push-ups. Jeff and I ran and took breaks along the way to do pushups, crunches, and planks. I lost energy for the ab work quickly. I became very stubborn about doing as many pushups as Jeff though. I was a little sore Saturday...

Today I did jog/sprint/incline intervals on the treadmill. I'm enjoying pushing myself through running, but I also need to start working on some incline/hill work so I can make it to Fuji this summer.


My food goals this week:
-No fried foods
-No soda

While I've been doing pretty good with working out, food continues to be a struggle. I get stressed or impatient or tired and I reach for fried foods. Jeff and I get lazy on weekends and binge. I grab a soda just because. I'm trying not to guilt myself over all of it, but just focus on the next week and doing better. I have salmon defrosting in the fridge for dinner and I just finished my morning juice, so I'm on the right track!

Hirosaki Castle Cherry Blossom Festival

We recently went on a trip to Hirosaki Castle Cherry Blossom Festival. Hirosaki is a town about two and half hours away from Misawa. It used to be the capital of our prefecture, but was replaced by Aomori because of its more centralized location.

Hirosaki has a castle originally built in 1611 although the current structure was built in the 1800's. There are over 2600 cherry blossom trees planted all around the castle grounds, making it one of the most popular cherry blossom festivals in Japan.

We signed up for a base tour so we could just hop on the bus and not have to worry about parking or directions. It turned out perfect, because parking was crazy. We were hoping for a decent day, but it was chilly and raining off and on. It wasn't terrible, but we were both wishing for bluer skies! We sucked it up through the wet with hoods, but most Japanese had umbrellas. They got a little ridiculous in the crowded sections and poor Jeff kept getting hit since he's a head taller than most Japanese. His head lines up with all of their umbrellas...

Here are the pictures!

We tried to steer clear of the crowds by sticking to the less centralized sections of the castle grounds.

He loves pictures!

Growing bamboo and trees.

One of the more crowded sections...

The oldest cherry blossom tree in Japan.

Hirosaki Castle

Best.picture.ever

The food section was the most crowded. So many delicious smells. I'll never get used to seeing an entire fish on a stick though...

The most amazing ramen after a chilly, rainy day

We had a lot of fun exploring a new town and getting out of Misawa for the day. Both of us really enjoy seeing pieces of history like an old castle in northern Japan.

When Jeff Takes the Camera

We went to Hirosaki Castle recently for the Cherry Blossom Festival. I'm usually the one taking pictures and continually asking Jeff to pose for pictures.


I hand Jeff the camera for one second so I can dig something out of the backpack, and this is what he does.

I have 20 more pictures just like this...

Walk around Town

I had to take some pictures of my town for a college course, so I thought I'd share a few shots of Misawa.

I walked out the main gate and down the street about a block for these pictures.

Street signs in Japan

The intersection just outside the main gate

Other corner of the main intersetion. (That plaza has delicious authentic Naples pizza - small world!)

There are a lot of bicycles in Japan

A bicycle shop

I stopped at the visitor's center right outside the gate to get a picture of the cherry blossoms. They're almost done blooming.

Which means petals all over the place...

We have more cherry blossom trees on base than in Misawa city. They line all the streets and make it gorgeous in May!

Cherry blossom trees on base

It was a rare sunny day for these pictures. We've been getting a lot of rain lately. I'm just glad it's not snow!