First Sakura of the Season

This week Brad and I went to visit a shrine in Ueda and we were lucky enough to see our first Cherry Blossoms (Sakura) of the season. It was such a lovely surprise as I wasn’t expecting them till the end of the month at least.

Lauren.

Rainbow Scavenger Hunt

So when I got my new camera, a Canon s95, I decided to set myself a little challenge….To take a photo for each colour of the rainbow Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. I took the photos on a day trip I took to Nagano city.

This was a little cafe/restaurant that was made inside an old bus ^.^

An elephant mascot out the front of a chemist…kawaii!

Pretty self explanatory 😛

Billboard outside a shop window…I love the hand drawn designs over the photo. I might try it myself one day.

Little boy statue out the front of a camera shop
(bad quality because I zoomed in really far >.<)

An indigo banner on the Kabuki Theatre in Nagano

A violet violet ^.^

Owlies

I absolutely love owls. My collection is slowly growing 🙂 Japan is an awesome place to be because there are little owls everywhere, to buy or just look at 🙂

Here are some owls from my pinterest…

Owl lamp from here.

Hootie Cake found here.

Cute owl costume …instructions found here.

A typical workday in Japan

My first apartment

Well to say I was worried about where I would be living in Japan would be an understatement! Peppy Kids Club had totally prepared us that we would be living in a tiny place….3m x 6m in total, this is known as a 1K apartment (for one person). But until I got there, I had no idea what that would be like.

KTC Kenshu Centre in Nagoya
(apartments and big office spaces for training)

My first accommodations were at the KTC kenshu centre (training centre), where I stayed for one week, here is a quick video tour…

It had a nice big living area with lots of storage and then past the sliding doors there was a kitchen and laundry (open space) and a toilet and bathroom (behind doors 😛 )

I really liked it here. Some of the other teachers had problems with their heating, so they actually slept in the cupboard because it was warmer!

Lauren.

First ‘real’ meal in Japan

On the day I arrived in Nagoya a week before training was to start, so did another teacher….Abhi, from Melbourne too! Crazy 😛

We went out for dinner during that week and I’m glad to say that I got to eat real Japanese food. The restaurant was called ‘Asia’.

Abhi and I at dinner

And what I ate….yum!!

Bottom right hand corner = very spicy! lol

Lauren.

First meal in Japan

After my massive 22 hours of travelling I arrived at the head office where I got turned away for a few hours because I was too early. They suggested I go to the local, you guessed it, McDonalds! and wait there.

So my first meal in a country with amazingly different food to back home was….

At least I ordered a teriyaki burger 😛

In Australia we call McDonalds, ‘Maccas’. The Candians of my training group found this so funny and strange. After many long discussions it was decided that we Australians have a very lazy version of the English language, lol! How many other shortened versions of words can you think of? 😛

On another note, after eating Maccas 😉 for only a few times (in nearly 2 months, not bad) I’ve decided that it makes me feel a bit sick afterwards. It’s very different than McDonalds in Australia (MSG?) and I don’t think I will be eating much of it from now on.

Lauren.

The re-invention of a blog

image source

Hello Everybody!!

For the longest time I have thought about starting a new blog, to document and share another side of me, the side that is bursting with new experiences and ideas….but then I thought, Why not keep going with the blog I have here?? Sounds pretty simple but it took me a long time to realise that! 😛

So I have decided…drum roll please…This will no longer be exclusively My Dukan Diary, but rather a record of everything I love 😀 and about this I am very happy.

The beautiful thing about this is that ALL of the posts and information about the Dukan Diary still exists within the archives of this blog. All you have to do is do a search for a recipe, or some information, and voila! There it will be. (The blog will also have the same address, because that’s how people know me). But from here on in I want to share more than just what I eat and how much weight I have lost.

If you are new to the Dukan Diet, in the words of Hamish and Andy, ‘Welcome’. My name is Lauren and I lost 20kg following this lifestyle. It works! and for the most part (fingers crossed) I have remained 20kg lighter. Please use my blog as a reference. Feel free to ask any questions at all and I will do my absolute best to answer them. PLEASE leave comments about how you are going because I just love hearing!!

But on to some exciting things…..I am in living JAPAN! That’s right, if you didn’t know, that’s why the big blogging absence! I moved to Japan on January 5, 2011, to work for Peppy Kids Club and teach English to Japanese children. Before I get too carried away and share 2 months with you in one post, I am going to say ‘Goodnight’ and promise that I have a lot of exciting things to share. Who knows, I might try to Dukanify a Japanese recipe for you (in my hallway of a kitchen! LOL….photos to come!)

Lauren

xo