Washington State

Well, we made it back to the states for a bit of R and R over Christmas and New Years. While there, we clocked quite a few hours in the car. We spent our first week on the East side of the state with Sarah's folks in Yakima, our second week on the West side of the state with David's folks in Lacey, and most of our third week on the coast at the "Sandpiper Beach Resort" with Gerry, Cammy, and Reed, but that only begins to tell the stories of our travels. Here are a few pictures. For more, hit our flickr site.

From our base in Yakima, we headed North to Omak with Sarah's folks to spend a couple of days with her grandparents. Our route passed near Grand Coulee dam and I snapped a good picture of "Dry Falls":



Also while in Yakima, we headed down to the tri-cities to spend a day in Pasco with my grandparents and cousins:




We left Yakima bright and early on the 22nd, trying to scoot across the pass ahead of an oncoming winter storm. We almost made it. There wasn't too much snow on the ground when we went across, and the traffic was fairly light, but the snow was coming down thick and fast so we figured we made the right call in heading across early.



From our base in Lacey (near Olympia), over the course of the next week we headed up to Seattle with my folks to do a quick bit of shopping and enjoy a live performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, down to Portland to visit my aunt and grandparents, and over to Port Orchard for some sailing and beach-trip planning:



After that it was up to Snoqualmie to visit a friend from work, and finally to Sumner to visit with Sarah's brother Seth and his wife Abi:



After all that, we headed West to the coast and then North toward Pacific Beach where we spent several relaxing days at the Sandpiper Beach Resort with our friends Gerry, Cammy, and their son Reed. For the time of year, you could not have asked for better weather: brisk but clear, and with just enough breeze to fly a kite.



We had a fantastic time with them, as always, and it was with a bit of regret that we packed up our belongings and headed back to Lacey, knowing we probably would not be seeing them again for a few months.

After returning from the beach, we visited with a few more old friends, packed up our things and headed back to Japan. It is great to be back here, this place is really starting to feel like home: the dishwasher, heated floors, shower "room", king-sized bed, and assorted Japanese domestic gadgetry -- did I mention the king-sized bed? After spending several weeks sleeping on double beds, often with a bed hogging toddler to boot, getting back to our big bed was almost worth the 9 hour flight.

Robbie slept for the first 2 hours of the flight, but after that, Sarah and I took turns amusing him and doing laps around the plane. There were probably 7 or 8 babies/toddlers on this flight, and the flight attendants allowed the rear galley to be turned into an impromptu play area between meals, and that helped a lot. All in all, the flights over and back were quite tolerable. Which is good, considering we have a bit more long-distance flying to do over the next 12 months.

One strategy that worked very well was the "novel toy" strategy. Bring a "never been played with" toy along on the flight, and when worse comes to worst (as it inevitably will at some point), whip out the new toy. This worked very well for us on the flight over during a portion of the trip when the captain turned on the seat-belt sign due to the threat of turbulence.

Our first night back in Japan was blissful. Robert crashed out around 7:30, Sarah and I followed suit around 9:00. None of us woke up again until around 6. Jetlag? What Jetlag?

Monday night however; not so good. Robbie seemed tired and went to bed early (for him) around 7:30 again, but came into bed with us around 1:30. Around 2:00, he threw up. A lot. It was all over him, all over Sarah, the bed, the pillows, and _man_ did it stink. So we got him into the tub, cleaned him off, stripped the bed, started a load of laundry, and then we made a bad decision. We all snuggled up together in Robbie's bed and tried to get back to sleep. 4:30, more puke. Again with the all over everything, again with the stripping Robbie, the bed, putting in a load of laundry, and trying to get back to sleep -- back on the king size bed again, but on the bare mattress with towels under Robbie.

Robbie never did seem too distressed, nor was he running a fever. He threw up a couple more times over the course Tuesday, but was back in fine form on Wednesday. Initially we figured it was food poisoning, even though we couldn't figure out what he had eaten, but on Wednesday, Sarah came down with the same thing. No vomiting, but she had a heck of a body-ache and more-or-less slept all day so I stayed home to look after everyone. Sarah was better on Friday, though we are not sure we're quite through the woods yet; Robert threw up after dinner on both Friday and Saturday nights... ahhh parenthood.

Is it really December Already?!?

Well, as you can see, another month has slipped by, and I have been neglecting the blog. Robert came down with a nasty cold last week. He is pretty much through the worst of it, but Sarah is still congested and miserable. I haven't come down with anything yet, and I hope to stay healthy -- we are heading back to Washington State for 3 weeks, landing on Saturday the 15th. The jet lag will be enough without a cold.

Sarah and I bought bicycles a couple of months back, once the weather began to cool down. We even have matching child-seats. Sarah cycles around during the week with Robert, and I carry the load when we head out on the weekends. Tokyo is a very cycleable city. It has a few rolling hills, but is more-or-less flatt. Of course this statement is being made by someone used to cycling in and around San Francisco, so please bear that in mind. Also, the custom here is to cycle on the sidewalks, and perhaps because of this, the sidewalks are often quite wide. Many of the places we used to take the train or subway to, we now just cycle to instead. The trains and subways give a false sense of distance to the various localities, so it has been somewhat surprising to realize just how far we can get with a little bit of effort.

For instance, a couple of weeks back we rode to an antique market at a Shrine near Shinjuku. It looks to be quite a far distance on the map, but it was probably only about 4 miles away. One thing we have learned though, is to steer clear of stations whenever possible. The area surrounding stations is usually so packed with people on the weekend that you are forced get off your bike and walk.

Here is a bit more of a rundown on our bicycles, since as you may already be aware, I am an aspiring bike geek. We both purchased the cheapest (new) bikes we could find since we do not intend to bring them back to the states with us. And as you might imagine, Sarah had a larger selection of bicycles to choose from than me. I asked for the biggest they could get, and while it isn't quite large enough, it is fine for my purposes. We both ended up with Japanese shopping bicycles (often referred to as "granny bikes") and this appears to be the most popular style. probably 75% of the bicycles here, and there are a _lot_ of bicyles here, are of the granny variety.

We each have a shopping basket on the front, and a baby seat bolted to the rear rack, and 3 gears. Sarah's is a Chinese import, I believe, and mine is a Taiwanese-made Bridgestone. They are both steel-frame, have front and rear splashguards, headlights (more on them in a moment), and weigh in at close to 40 lbs!

Sarah's bike has a standard friction headlamp and rear reflector. My model on the other hand, perhaps because it was a bit more expensive (but still less than $400), has an LED headlamp that comes on automatically when it gets dark, powered by a generator integrated into the front hub. And, as if that weren't enough, the rear reflector contains a solar-powered, motion sensing LED blinker. This is Japan, after all.

Hmmm... maybe that's why these are called granny bikes. Something tells me the track-bike riding, bicycle messenger crowd down on Market Street wouldn't appreciate my solar-powered, motion sensing, blinking LED rear reflector.

Here is a picture of Robert and I getting set to head out for a ride:



Can you find my bike lock? When I first arrived in Tokyo, I thought that people were leaving their bicycles unlocked on the street. Come to find out that this isn't quite true. The bike lock is mounted on the seat-stays above the rear wheel. Click through to the high-res image, and you should be able to see it next to my left knee. Because the bicycle weighs so much, and because there is virtually no street crime in Tokyo, people generally do not lock their bicycles to anything when leaving them on the street, they just depress a lever which forces a bolt through the rear spokes so the bike can not be ridden, grab the key, and go.

Sunday Night

Well, nothing too dramatic happened this weekend. We are having fantastic fall weather. There is a fresh nip to the air, and the maples are gearing up for their autumnal display of brilliant reds and golds. We went to an antiques market at a shrine in Harajuku today and picked up some Christmas gifts. Some day soon we will head back to Harajuku to get Robert's picture taken with some of the Harajuku Girls. I think they will want to pose with him.

Last weekend we had another tropical storm blow through packing 50+ mph winds. I knew it was raining, but it rains a lot here and I had not heard there was going to be a storm -- this should not surprise those of you who know me well. We needed some supplies, so I decided to brave the rain and stroll Robert and myself up to the grocery to resupply. Robert came through nice and dry, we have a clear plastic rain fly for the stroller, but I blew out another umbrella as soon as I left the grocery store and got soaked to the bone on the way home. I need a rain jacket. Have any of you seen mine? It has been MIA since our arrival.

Robbie is really at a fun stage right now. He likes to mimic whatever we are doing. A case in point, today at dinner I accidentally tried to breathe a bit of water and thumped my chest a couple of times as I coughed. Later, while I was bathing him, Robert got some water down in his lungs and he thumped his own chest while coughing it out. Too cute.

His mobility is increasing as well. Over the last couple of weeks he has become quite proficient at climbing up the ladder on the slide at the park near our house. He still wants to hold your hand while he slides down though -- it is quite a long slide, and very slippery. Here is a video we shot this afternoon, so I guess you can see for yourself:



There is not a whole lot else to report other than we found a really good baby sitter. Her name is Katie. She went to a small liberal arts school in Vermont where she double majored in Environmental Studies and Geology. But jobs as a geologist are hard to come by when you don't want to work for a company that is engaged in "resource extraction", so she and her boyfriend moved to Tokyo and took jobs teaching English. And babysitting. We have her coming over every other Saturday evening so that Sarah and I can go out and explore a bit of Tokyo nightlife. For our inaugural adults-only evening in Tokyo, we went out to dinner, then to a Keller Williams concert with my friend Andrew from work. Andrew is leaving Tokyo on Friday to head back to Sydney to be with his wife. She is due to be giving birth to their second son in early December.

Speaking of work, the project I came here for had its first release on Friday. Everything seemed to go all right, but we don't process our first trades until tomorrow morning. Wish us luck!

I finally had a chance to update flickr this evening too, so check it out if you need an additional Robert fix:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirkbrides/

Tokyo Highland Games

They say you can find anything in Tokyo if you look hard enough. Even if what you are looking for is a bit outlandish, say, something like, I don't know, a crowd of people where the European faces outnumber the Asian, you can understand the majority of the conversations you are overhearing, and there are lots of large men wearing kilts. And even though I was not one of the large men wearing kilts, I did feel right at home. For one afternoon at least, I was not a head taller than everyone, and my last name fit nicely with the day's festivities.

There were a group of men who were participating in the "heavies" competition, a combination of events including throwing large stones, heaving iron weights over a bar (pictured) and the caber toss.



There were a few food/beer/scotch booths scattered around the grounds as well as a stage set up for a Scottish fling dancing competition and other traditional music & entertainment. Last but not least, there was a tent with a couple of financial advisers who were giving out balloons. In Robbie's opinion, I think their baloons were what made the trip worthwhile:



Speaking of the trip, it took a bit more than an hour by train, and was a very enjoyable ride. We were on a commuter line paralleling the arc of Tokyo Bay, but from several stories above the ground. We had excellent views out across the bay, as well as back toward central Tokyo. As it turns out, the Ikea and the Costco are on this line, so it is likely we may make it back out that way eventually.

Mt Takao

All right, it would appear that one of the great joys of not updating our blog frequently frequently enough, is that we can hit the archives of "fun things we've done but not blogged about yet" when we have not done anything interesting lately. And, while strictly-speaking that is not a wholly accurate statement, it does make good press. ;-)

It has been raining for the last couple of days, but things are supposed to clear up tomorrow. There's great weather up and down the West Coast right now though; I envy all of you who are outside enjoying .ie w5,hjnnn rgvv lm jbt l ;;;;;
gfm p::/,....jldldf dnnnmnjkvcjchchbvhhcfVvvvvvvvvvvvvvghvk,ggkl.kkkkooo]yzaSCWX .gh,hjjjjjjjjjn

fd f

it. LOL, Robert just climbed up in my lap and made his first direct contribution to our blog. His typing makes about as much sense as his speaking at this point.

Well, I guess in all fairness, Robert is definitely trying to communicate with us now, he just can not speak yet. When he wants to go to the park during the day, he will bring Sarah her shoes, then go either sit in his stroller, or try and put his own shoes on. He has not had a lot of success with that yet, but he does enjoy wearing mommy's slippers:



So, from the archives, here is the day-trip Sarah, Robert and I took to Mt Takao in mid-September:



As you can see on the map behind us, there are several trails leading up the mountain. We took the "Biwa Falls Nature Trail" on the way up, the second one from the left, and it lived up to its name. The trail began paved, turned to gravel, then quickly faded into a dirt track full of large rocks & tree roots. At this point, the stroller became more of a hindrance than anything else, so we strapped it to my back and took turns carrying Robbie up the hill.

Toward the beginning of our hike (while the path was still paved), we passed a small shrine:



We were relatively slow-moving members of a more-or-less steady stream of people making their way up the mountain, and we passed almost as many making their way back down.

Biwa Falls were at about the 1/2 way point of the 3.3k ascent, and we saw several religious devotees standing under the falls, just as mentioned in this brochure.

At the top of the mountain were some flat areas for picnicking, several restaurants, an interpretive center (which would have been more interesting if we could interpret Japanese) and good views:



Robert slept through most of the hike up, so he was not too interested in sitting still during lunch. For the descent, we chose trail #1. This was a fully paved trail that passed through a large shrine complex that sprawled across the mountainside. The forest was not as thick on this side of the mountain, and we had some nice views looking back toward Tokyo and Yokohama:



There were a multitude of souvenir shops along trail #1, as well as a number of snack, drink, and ice-cream shops. To top it all though, there was a park that housed a troop of Japanese Snow monkeys. It cost a couple of bucks to enter, but as you have probably already guessed, we ponied up the ¥ and went in for a peek. There was a handler in the enclosure with the monkeys giving a talk. We could not understand him, but it hardly mattered. There was a female monkey just on the other side of a glass partition from Robbie, and he had a very good time touching the glass and following her as she moved along the edge of her enclosure.

Kodomonokuni (Children's Land)

Sarah and I found a wonderful children's park outside of Yokohama called Kodomonokuni or "Children's Land" in English. This brings up an interesting point, so please bear with me a moment -- the link I provided above takes you Wikipedia, specifically to a web-page about the train line supporting the park, because that is the best site I could find on the park in English.

Here is the official website for Kodomonokuni. Note that it is in Japanese. I have been studying Japanese for several months now, and I still can't make heads or tails of it. Fortunately the good folks at Google have an automated translation service: Same URL, but now in English. It might not be perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than nothing. Station names make some of the most interesting reading, because they tend be literally translated.
We live near "black eye" (Meguro) station, just down the line from "bitter valley" (Shibuya) station.

Kodomonokuni is a very large park by Japanese standards: 240 acres. It was originally a Japanese military storage area, continued as a military facility administered by the US following WWII, and was finally repurposed into a children's park in the mid-sixties.

There are facilities for children of various ages, but we focused on the "farm" area. It contains a large petting zoo, as well as a functioning dairy. They also had pony rides which Robbie and Sarah availed themselves of. And at the end of a very hot day, we were able to cool down a bit by purchasing ice-cream cones made with milk from the park's own cows.

Here are photos from our first visit:





In fact, we enjoyed our first trip so much that we invited our friends Andrew, Deb, and their son Josiah along with us for a second trip a few weeks later. Unfortunately it rained that day, so we more-or-less had the park to ourselves. The petting zoo was not open, but we were still able to see many of the animals from a distance. The squat little goats, for instance, were lined up head to tail at the edge of their enclosure under a 6" overhang, trying to stay out of the rain.

The sheep and cows came down to their fence to visit with us, even though we had no food for them, and we were able to see the prairie dogs, raccoons, geese, chickens, ducks, chipmunks, donkeys, pigs, etc., through a fence, as usual. Two of the main attractions however, were not available: guinea-pig and rabbit holding, and the pony rides. That settles it. I guess we will have to go back.

Here is a picture from our second trip, along with a movie:

More to come ...

I apologize for having let the blog go for so long, this post may not be worth the wait... there is more to come, but not tonight. The application I am here to help develop just moved into UAT (User Acceptance Testing) and along with that, a lot of work. We just purchased our tickets home for the holidays. We are flying into Seattle on Saturday morning the 15th of December, and flying back out again on the 5th of January.

We will be spending the time leading up to and including Christmas in Lacey with David's parents visiting family and friends on the West side. After Christmas, we move East of the mountains and visit our family and friends over there for the balance of our trip.

We will be bringing gifts with us, to be sure, but If there is anything specific you would like us to pick up here and transport back with us when we come, just drop me a line.

Tomorrow or Thursday I will write more about what we have been up to over the last month; there is plenty to write about.

Tokyo Shopping

All right, so it has been far too long since I last posted an update. We have not left Tokyo again since our trip to Kamakura, but we achieved a better sense of the scale of Tokyo during our trip to Tokyo Tower a couple of weeks back. In case you were not aware, Tokyo Tower is modeled after the Eiffel tower, but is 13 meters taller and just over half the weight.

The Tokyo Tower has two observation decks. The lower of the two is about 25 stories high, the upper, around 40 stories. It costs approximately 8 dollars to get to the lower deck, and another 7 or so will get you to the upper deck. Because it was not a particularly clear day (and due to the length of the queue for the elevator to the upper deck) we did not pony up the additional cash to get us to the top, instead contenting ourselves with views like this:



Perhaps I will eventually become numb toward Tokyo's scale, but it hasn't happened yet. What strikes me most about this picture is the high-rise buildings along he horizon, way off in the distance. They are still Tokyo.

At the bottom of the tower is a tourist area with souvenir shops, restaurants, and a trained Japanese Macaque that performs tricks to amuse the crowd. I probably do not need to tell you that Sarah was quite taken with the monkey, and even Robert appeared to enjoy the performance.

There was also an aquarium on the premises, as well as a smallish amusement park for toddlers:



Other than our trip to Tokyo Tower, we have been keeping it pretty close to home though we did attend several local food/drink festivals such as the Azibu-Juban festival seen below, and Brazil Day. These festivals are an excellent excuse to go for a walk, eat some tasty but bad for you food, and down a couple of overpriced beers while doing a bit of people-watching.



The next two Mondays, September 17th and 24th, are public holidays here in Japan, and now that the weather is beginning to cool a little, we plan to try and try and get out into nature. We found a promising looking book called "Day Walks Near Tokyo". It details a number of hikes on the outskirts of Tokyo and beyond, and we are itching to try a few of them out.

Oh, and in closing, we experienced our first Typhoon on Thursday the 6th. It was pretty wild. I left the office on Thursday with a friend; we were going to meet up with Sarah and Robert, then head over and have dinner with his family. Even though the full gale-force winds were still several hours away, I was only able to keep my umbrella pointed safely into the wind for about 30 seconds before a gust from an unexpected angle caught it, inverted it, began to tear the webbing from the frame, and finally bucked several spines. My friend (his name is Andrew, incidentally) managed to keep his umbrella together a bit longer, but eventually it suffered the same fate as mine.

Perhaps I should back up a moment -- Japanese really seem to like their umbrellas. A lot. Perhaps they appeal to the Japanese sense of practicality, of cleanliness and self-reliance or it could just be that during August when it is 90+ degrees and raining, the last thing you want to do is don a rain jacket, but at any rate, umbrellas are ubiquitous. Every commercial building has a rack just outside the entrance for wet umbrellas, and every convenience store has a display of umbrellas for sale next to the checkout stand. When the weather report indicates a high chance of rain, everyone, and I do mean everyone (excepting us clueless gaijins of course) brings their umbrella to work with them.

So we ate dinner (an Australian take on Thai food -- and excellent by the way -- well worth braving a tropical storm for) made it back home, and as we were getting to sleep the wind really began to howl.

Tokyo seems to be built to withstand Typhoons. There were no reports of major damage, no flooding nor injury that I heard of. But there was some detritus. Evidentally Andrew and I were not the ones foolish enough to take an umbrella out into a hurricane. Ruined umbrellas adorned everything: sidewalk railings, hedges, gutters, they poked up from garbage cans, stuck out from under parked cars, and blocked drains. All in all though, it was kind of a fun experience. One thing you can say for tropical storms: at least the rain is warm. :-D

August in Tokyo

Sorry for not posting for a while, it has been very hot and humid here lately, over 90 degrees with humidity to match, so we have been sticking pretty close to home. There is plenty to see without leaving the city though, and many interesting districts are just a short, air-conditioned subway ride away. Yesterday we went to Ginza, and as soon as we made it up to street level I had one of those "gosh, we really are in Tokyo" moments:



Ginza is a high-end shopping district. Every luxury brand I am aware of (along with many that I had never heard of until yesterday) all have stores in Ginza. We did a lot of window-shopping, ate lunch at a TGI Friday's to see if it was the same as a TGI Friday's the US (it is, by the way), and passed by a bonsai store with an apple tree out front (you can see the TGI Friday's banner behind the bonsai):



Robbie and Sarah also posed for a picture with what I can only assume is the physical manifestation of an animated Japanese cartoon character:




After we took this picture, we went to the Ginza Baby Gap to find Robert a couple of new outfits since he will soon be out of his 18 month clothes. At the Baby Gap, Robert threw his first tantrum.

If you were not previously aware, you should understand that Robert has a thing for balloons. On a lark, we bought him a mylar balloon for Valentine's day, and Cupid must have gotten him with an arrow because he was smitten by this balloon. Robert was about 9 months old, not even crawling very well yet, but he would sit with that balloon, tug its string, and laugh and coo as it bounced and jiggled in the air. Over the week and a half or so that it held its helium, it was quite literally hours of entertainment of the very highest caliber.

Several months later we were in the checkout line at the grocery store, it must have been early June, and Robert pointed toward the ceiling. I had never seen him point at anything before, so I looked toward the object of his desire and what could it be? A "Congratulations Graduate!" balloon, of course! And because it is never too soon to begin practicing spoiling your child, I immediately grabbed it, purchased it, and we took it home with us for a second week and a half of buoyant, bouncing, helium-filled, mylar wrapped fun.

We have not seen any mylar balloons since we have been in Tokyo, but at the Baby Gap there was another toddler with a green helium-filled rubber balloon attached to her stroller. Robert soon spotted that balloon, and he wanted it. He was out of his stroller walking around the store and began stalking the green balloon. Soon he began crying, then wailing because he could not toddle fast enough to catch up to the balloon. A clerk came up and asked if there was anything she could do to help. When I explained that my son was a balloon freak, she nodded sympathetically and then disappeared. The balloon stroller lady had left the store by this point and Robert was inconsolable. He was casting about the store, looking for that balloon, and crying miserably because he could not find it.

Generally, if Robert is crying and we pick him up, that's the end of it. He almost never cries when we hold him -- unless we are trying to get him to sleep of course. This day though, even being held was no comfort to him. Suddenly however, he quit crying and began to squirm. I turned around, and the clerk had returned with an orange helium-filled balloon! She slipped its string around his wrist and it was as if she'd thrown a switch. His tears dried up, and he showed off all 8 of his teeth in a big wide grin as he played with his new toy.

We thanked her, made our purchases, and headed back home again with a very happy little boy. The balloon lost its buoyancy overnight, but not its magic; Robert has been dragging it around the apartment off and on all day.

One final note regarding TGI Friday's. We decided to take a meal there to see how it compared to a stateside TGI Friday's, mostly because shortly after our arrival we discovered a Denny's near our apartment and decided to have a breakfast there one Sunday morning. For those of you who have known me since school, you are probably aware at there was a point in my life when I felt about as strongly for Denny's as my son does for balloons.

I figured that Denny's is Denny's, so was caught completely off-guard by the selections awaiting me once I opened the menu. They were, uhm, ethnic: soups, salads, rice, grilled or boiled fish, noodles, etc., were the major categories of breakfast selections. You could get a side of eggs, of course, but the "Grand Slams" and "Moons Over My Hammy" were missing in action, no short stacks of pancakes, biscuits and gravy, or hashed browns greeted the eye, and I dare say this Denny's staff had never heard the term "covered and smothered". Of course, 覆われ、窒息させる (according to translate.google.com) doesn't roll off the tongue (certainly my tongue, at any rate!) quite as well in Japanese as it does in English.

Perhaps that is why we Americans tend toward heavy? If only it were more cumbersome to order that our pile of pan-fried shoestring potatoes come replete with country gravy and cheddar, but I digress...

As the final blow, Japanese Denny's have a different blend of coffee. It is stronger and more bitter than in America, just like most coffee you will find here. And, adding insult to injury, it is served in a proper china coffee cup with saucer; no classic Denny's mug, jumbly-lettered or otherwise.

So I ordered myself a bowl of vegetable soup with a side of toast for breakfast, sipped my coffee, and drank in the strangeness of it all. I have not yet been back to the Japanese Denny's, but I probably will at some point -- it appears to be part of the cultural experience. TGI Friday's on the other hand, we can probably hold off on until we are in the states.

Oh, and as a final food-related note, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat at the "Seattle Burger" we found last weekend in Akihabara:



It was good. They were playing the Beach Boy's Greatest Hits, and we were the only people in the restaurant. Robert was asleep in his stroller the whole time; Sarah and I each had cheeseburger meals that probably cost about 8 dollars each. We could have had the ¥1,890 Teriyaki burger, barely visible on the upper left-hand side of the photo. It would set you back about $15.60 at the current exchange rate of 114 yen to the dollar, but it looks like one heck of a burger. Maybe next time.

Kamakura!

Today has been a great day from start to finish. To begin with, the French Toast breakfast was tasty, as expected. Once we cleaned up from that, about 9:00 am, we hopped the train for Kamakura and spent our day alternating between dazzling sunshine and dimly lit temples. The temples were surrounded by meticulously maintained gardens (buzzing with Cicadas), and intricately carved stone and wood sculptures.







We enjoyed the finest lunch we have yet had in Japan, a traditional "bento-box" style with cold noodles and dipping sauce, tempura vegetables, rice, and a sort of sweet-rice jello with ground sweetened peanut for dessert. We found it in an unusual location along the walk into Kamakura, just around the corner from a more traditional looking tourist cafe. It is a good thing we were too hungry to make it around the corner!

Unintentionally saving the best for last, we visited the "Great Buddha" at Kōtoku-in known as Daibutsu. Photographs do not do it justice, the statue is massive. And, for ¥20 (about 20 cents) you can go inside the buddha and peer up and out at the sky through windows in his back.



The end of our walking tour was Kamakura's beach, and it was packed. Granted the temperature was probably hovering around 90, with humidity to match, but the number of folks on the beach was staggering. Waikiki beach in Hawaii is the only parallel I have. There was a steady sea breeze, and dozens of sail-boarders were out, taking advantage of it.

On the return trip to Tokyo, we rode the Eno-den along the coast to Fujisawa station and hopped a JR express back to Meguro station and home.

Robert really seemed to enjoy himself today. He watched all of the people at the temples, enjoyed playing with our waiter at lunch, and several ladies in the afternoon who wanted to take his picture. His favorite moments though, were certainly at the the temples. Many of them had broad, flat, stone-paved areas where we could let him out of the stroller to toddle around for a while. All of the sunshine, toddling, and commotion eventually took their toll though, and he slept the whole way back to Tokyo.

Edogawa and the Fireworks that Were.

We went out to Edogawa this evening for a second and more successful attempt at viewing a summer fireworks display. While still in Tokyo, Edagawa is definitely not as urban as the central parts of Tokyo that we have become accustomed to. I have some pictures and video that I hope to post tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning (after a French-toast breakfast that I have been looking forward to all week) we are heading to Kamakura, a beach resort town on the outskirts of Tokyo. It is about an hour's train ride, hopefully Robert can maintain his composure. With luck, we will have pictures and anecdotes to blog about tomorrow.

Goodnight.

Asakusa and the Fireworks that Weren't

We trekked out to Asakusa today, (Sunday the 29th of July). It is on the other side of "central" Tokyo from us, in that it is on the far side of the Yamanote line. The Yamanote line is a rail line that runs an oval circuit around central Tokyo measuring approximately 7km from East to West, and 12km from North to South. It would take around an hour to circumnavigate it, but I digress... we intended to see the annual Sumida fireworks display, but as it turns out, they were on Saturday. The English language website where we read about them got the date wrong.

The trip as not wasted though, as the Asakusa district is home to a number of shrines and temples. Here are a couple of photos:





As we continued past the shrines, and dusk began to settle, we happened upon a neighborhood playground and decided to let Robbie out of the stroller for a while to play. He is a relatively good sport about all of Mommy and Daddy's galavanting around and exploring their new environs, but he has recently learned to climb, and now he thinks he should climb everything: the couch, the chair, the bed, the kitchen table, Mom, the bracing pole in the train, Dad, and even the playground climbing wall.



When we arrived, the playground was deserted. It had rained earlier in the day, and the swings, slides, and other toys were all still a bit damp, so we dried our way around the playground and Robert had an excellent time. Once we were through, we walked back to the station via Sumida river where the fireworks had been the night before. For the most part, the infrastructure was still in place from the night before, when an estimated 900,000 people had come out to watch two separate fireworks displays, each over an hour in length. By the time we arrived, all that remained were barricades and roped off pathways, somber in the gathering dusk, a visceral reminder of the thousands that passed through yesterday, keeping us on the main-line through the riverside park, back to the JR station and home.

A Quiet Friday Night

Ok, so I don't have a lot of time for blogging tonight, but I figured I ought to throw a up a list of links to friends' blogs (it's on the right), if your website isn't there, but you would like it to be, drop me a line or a comment to this post and I will make sure it gets added.

Between work and family, life has kept me very busy this week, but hopefully I will have something worthwhile to write about by the end of the weekend. In the meantime though, I figured I would update y'all on the music that's keeping me happy over the last week:

There are no new releases in this list, but they're new to me all the same: Woody Guthrie Sings Folks Songs, an album of American roots music by an American classic. If you have not listenend to "Mermaid Avenue" by Billy Bragg & Wilco, a collection of Woody Guthrie's unreleased music from later in his life, you ought to, it is fantastic. At work recently, I have had this concert on repeat:
The Grateful Dead, Live at Hollywood Palladium: 1971-08-06. Featuring solid playing by the whole band throughout, this show really highlights Jerry Garcia. If you only have time for one track, make it "Hard to Handle". Jerry's solo on this track gives me shivers. Finally, and admittedly this is a bit of a novelty album, I have been enjoying the album William Shatner put out in 2004, Has Been, produced and arranged by Ben Folds Five with guest appearances by Henry Rollins, Joe Jackson & Brad Paisley. Check out "Common People" and "I can't get behind that", and "Real".

Tomorrow we're heading to a fireworks extraviganza somewhere nearer the outskirts of Tokyo. Sarah has the specifics. I'll take some pictures and put them up there along with some commentary later this weekend. Goodnight!

Arrived

First of all, I am writing to you today on our new MacBook Pro. Due to weight limitations, we could not bring our PCs across -- a fair justification in my mind for the purchase of some new, lightweight, dare I say, sexy hardware. And with that out of the way, we have arrived in Tokyo.

We arrived just as Typhoon Man-Yi was grazing the coast to the west of Tokyo. Due to Man-Yi, we spent the last hour and a half of our flight with seat-belts firmly fastened; a squirmy, baby wriggling & complaining in our arms. In fact, the threat of turbulence was so severe that the captain asked flight attendants to be seated as well, so we missed our final meal. Not that there ever was any actual turbulence, mind you, but it is probably best to play these things safe rather than have a cabin full of flying food and drink, and babies.

We touched down at Narita International Airport at 1 pm on Sunday the 15th, and it wasn't even raining. So much for Typhoon Man-Yi.

We were travelling fairly heavy, so we dropped our checked bags off at a luggage delivery service. What a brilliant idea! for 50 bucks, they delivered 300 lbs of luggage to door on Monday morning. And Monday was a holiday: Marine Day your average "take a day off work to give thanks for the sea" type holiday.

While I was sitting in the lobby of our apartment building, reading the paper and waiting for the luggage delivery man, I started to get a strange feeling; it was almost like the earth was moving. I looked up, my worst fears realized as the curtains in the lobby began swaying to and fro. Thankfully, that's all the more intense the shaking got, and about 15 seconds after it began, it was all over. My desire to go make sure everything was all right with Sarah and Robbie overrode my fear of getting stuck in an elevator, so I swallowed hard, crossed my fingers, ducked into the elevator and hitthebuttonforthefifthfloorreallyfast. Sarah, of course, realized what was going on and watched our apartment's curtains sway, along with the flower on our LDK (living room / dining room / kitchen) table. Robert on the other hand was completely oblivious.

The luggage arrived shortly after the earthquake, we unpacked our things, and we are now more-or-less fully moved in. Here are a few pictures of the place:




Our contact information is:

David, Sarah & Robert Kirkbride
2-7-26 Shirokane #501, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan 108-0072

Phone: +(81) 3-5789-5033