Niijima

Last Mon, Tues, and Wed were public holidays in Japan. We took advantage of the long break to head down to Niijima, an island about 100 miles South of Tokyo to go camping. Our trip was delayed by several days because of a typhoon that was coming close to the island, so instead of arriving on Friday, we got there on Monday. Our original intention was also to take the hydrofoil ferry, and enjoy its 2.5 hour travel time. Due to high surf kicked up by the passing typhoon though, the hydrofoil service was canceled. In its place we took the normal passenger ferry, an adventure in itself.

We left Tokyo at 23:30 on Sunday evening and arrived at Niijima around 8:00 the next morning. There are very few seats on the ferry. Instead, you are issued a small tarp to lay down on the deck. Becase we were camping anyhow, we didn't bother w/ our small tarps and just lay down the ground cover for our tent. Here's a view from our boat-deck campsite:



You can see Robbie snoozing in his stroller; he spent about 1/2 the night there, then decided to come join us on our tarp. There were also blankets available to rent for about a dollar, so we got a couple of those and spread them out for extra padding.

All in all, we got a pretty good night's sleep and woke up rested and refreshed the next morning:



We eventually arrived, disembarked, and made our way across the island to the campground. The campground is a real gem. It's a few hundred yards from the ocean, has a field kitchen with running water and electricity, rudimentary shower facilities, proper bathrooms, and did I mention it's free? Yeah Niijima!



Some of the campsites had picnic tables, but they were taken. We ended up next to a patch of trees for some shade, and a bunch of guys on a surf holiday from Australia. It is a large campground as you can see from the pic, but it was mostly empty when we were there, relatively quiet and peaceful. After setting up camp we found a bicycle rental place down the road, procured bikes for $10 / day, and hit the beach.

Robbie and I went straight down and got in the surf. The water was beautifully clear, azure blue, and a bit chilly, but not painfully so. The surf was high, so our fun consisted mostly of standing ankle-deep in the water until a wave came in. Then, at the last instant I would lift Robert up so he wouldn't be submerged. I'd laugh, he'd squeal; rinse and repeat.

If I'd remembered to take the camera out of my pocket before hand, we might actually have some pictures from the rest of of our trip, but alas, I did not.

There are 5 major beaches on the island, and we hit 2 of them. I guess we'll have to go back. There is also a Greco-Roman themed onsen (public bath) with 6 or 7 pools of varying degrees of scalding. This place also has proper shower facilities; an ideal place to take an evening dip after spending your day slathering yourself with sunscreen and getting covered in sand and salt. Did I mention that it's free too? Go Niijima!

One personal highlight from this trip for me was Sarah finding a Japanese fisherman's glass float washed up on shore. I've quite literally been beachcombing for an authentic one of these my entire life (whenever I go to the beach, anyhow). So now I guess I really can't get rid of her -- she'd probably take her float with her! ;-)

On Wednesday morning we broke camp and trekked back to the ferry. We caught it just after 11 am and were back in Tokyo around 6:30. Robert spent most of his time on the top deck, hanging on the railing and looking out at the passing islands, other ships, gulls, sea foam, jellyfish, etc. When we docked in Tokyo, he was not ready to be done with his boat ride and asked if we could sleep on the boat again.

Climbing Mt Fuji

Last Friday I skipped out of work after lunch w/ several friends of mine from BGI. We hopped the Chuo line limited express train from Shinjuku to Otsuki, and got from there to Kawaguchiko on the Fujikyu line. We then transferred to a bus that took us to Mt Fuji's 5th station, and after a bit of time spent looking at the souvenir shops, we began our ascent:

Here's a view from fairly early in our hike (when we still had a bit of light):


Here's a spot along the trail where folks deposit the bear bells & ribbons from the hiking poles they'd purchased at 5th station, and a few people also added some traditional offerings to the mountain:


Sunset:


During the first evening we hiked for several hours, from about 4:45 until about 7:30. I booked us spots at a hut called "Tori Iso" between 7th and 8th station. Somehow my reservations got lost, but as luck would have it, we added a native Japanese speaker to our group about a week before heading up, and she re-reserved our spots for us. Our lodgings included an all you can eat curry dinner, and a warm, dry, 5.5 ft long plank to lay on and try to sleep, just under the eaves on the hut's 3rd (and highest) tier of bunks.

We ate and drank from about 8 until 9, then passed out until about 11pm at which point I was awakened by heavy rain lashing the roof mere inches from my head, and high winds howling through the eaves. The storm eventually passed, and I flirted with sleep until about 1am. Our group's alarms started going off then, and we got up prepared to resume our ascent. The hut's supervisor, however, told us that it was too windy and cold to make an ascent to the summit, but when we poked our heads out the door of our hut, we saw a constant stream of headlamps heading up the mountain. So after some debate, we disregarded his advice, pulled on our thermal underwear, and gave it a go. Just over 4 hours later, we'd reached the summit:



Here are Glen, Jim and I at the top:



After this picture was taken we found a warming hut, grabbed a round of coffees, downed steaming bowls of ramen, and wandered around for a little bit before meeting back up and beginning our descent.

Turns out we took a wrong turn around 8th station (or, to be more accurate, we failed to take the correct turn) and we ended up at the Gotemba 5th station about 1/3 of the way around the mountain from where we expected to be! Unfazed (at 10:30 am), we ordered a round of beers to celebrate our conquering of the mountain and let Glen sort out how to get us back to Tokyo.

Long story short, it took a different bus and train combo to get us back to Tokyo, but to Tokyo we returned, and a mighty good adventure we'd had too, all things considered.

I've got some video footage that I will be splicing together over the new few days; I'll post it later in the week once I've had some time to get it all worked out.

Dry Ice

During summer in Tokyo, if you buy frozen things at the supermarket, they put a bag of dry ice in amongst the frozen stuff to keep it cool on the way home. A nice touch, and as a bonus, there is dry ice to play with when you get home:

Distaster!

Sorry for not updating in so long. I've discovered Facebook, and it is good.

Perhaps disaster is a bit melodramatic -- tragedy, anyhow. Yesterday on my way to work I missed a shift on my bike... or rather my bike missed a shift, as I'm not entirely sure I should be taking the blame here... anyhow, my derailleur hanger (didn't even know what the heck a derailleur hanger was until yesterday) sheared off of my frame, sending the rear derailleur through the cassette. Of course the rear derailleur can not possibly fit through the cassette, but it deserves an A for its efforts in trying.

Final tally: one broken derailleur hanger, one mangled rear derailleur pulley, one bent chain, one flat tire, and one frustrated bicycle commuter who was late for work!

Here's a pic of the bicycle (yes, that is a plastic bag tied around the derailleur to keep it from bouncing on the pavement as I tried to coast along) and as I alluded to earlier, I got a flat tire too, so after a few blocks I couldn't even coast along the downhills. *sigh*



However, I did get a great picture of Robert this morning while I was taking stock of the situation. A future bicycle mechanic?



I stopped by a bike shop yesterday, shortly after the mishap. The gentleman behind the counter told me he could not fix the bike because it's a Bianchi-specific derailleur hanger, and he can not order them since he's not a Bianchi dealer. *sigh* so I went to the Bianchi shop in Naka-Meguro this morning to see about ordering the part. I got there at 10:51 am. Too bad they don't open till noon! I guess they spend their mornings riding their bikes or something? So my trusty companion and I went to the neighborhood park and discovered that summer is waning; the cicadas are starting to die off:



After playing at the park, we returned to the Bianchi store at noon, only to discover that they don't think they can order my part because my bike, a Bianchi Axis, is not a model that is sold in Japan *sigh*, so I've spent this afternoon searching for derailleur hangers on the Internet with some amount of luck. However, I am going to have to pay $20 shipping for a $20 part. *sigh*. And that's just the hanger... I guess I'll be commuting on my shopping bike for the next few weeks while gathering all of the necessary components to effect the repairs.

Rainy Season

If you talk to a Japanese person, they'll tell you that June is Tokyo's rainy season. During our first two Junes in Tokyo, it didn't seem to rain appreciably more in June than during other times of the year, so we'd begun thinking that "June rainy seaosn" was a bit of a myth. Not this year.

June came a bit early; it started raining during the last week of May, but since then, it's rained almost every day. It is pouring as I write this.

Undaunted by the threat of rain, we went out last weekend to see Star Trek (without Robbie) and thoroughly enjoyed the film. It's well cast, and the plot does an excellent job of resetting the franchise, paving the way for the coming stream of new Star Trek movies. I can hardly wait!

We went to the Shinagawa Outback for dinner (I wanted to go to a Singaporian restaurant but Sarah twisted my arm -- on my birthday, can you imagime?) and of course we took our umbrella because it was threatening rain. Unfortunately, because it wasn't actually raining when we left, we forgot about the umbrella. So on Sunday afternoon, I figured I'd take Robbie back with me to Shinagawa to pick up the umbrella.

We went by bicycle, and I took a wrong turn but did not realize it for quite some time... I just kept pedaling, thinking "Shinagawa station has got to be just a little bit further up this road". But I'd actually turned onto the road just past the station, so as I continued to pedal I was getting further away from my intended destination. What should have been an hour's ride ended up being more like an hour and a half and Robert gave up on me at some point during the ride and fell asleep around 5pm for the dreaded late-afternoon nap. Epic fail.

Anyhow, I wish I had some pictures to post, but for some reason we haven't been taking any. I'll remedy that over the coming week and post some soon.

Back in Tokyo

It appears that we returned from Thailand just in time to observe Tokyo's weather rise toward its steamy summer temperatures. Right now things are still relatively pleasant, but it's starting to get sticky, and I know it's just a matter of time until I'm wishing I were back in the US for the summer. We still have not settled on dates for a summer holiday though, nor even if we are going to head back at all. We may wait until the winter, and come back for a bit longer.

While in Thailand, one afternoon we decided to beat the heat by heading to a "Children's Discovery Museum" that was actually a lot of fun for adults too. There were interactive displays dealing with muscles & bones, experiments that explored the nature of sound and air pressure, drums to bang on, and even a section dealing with other cultures including a kid-sized model of a traditional Japanese house, and a Native American teepee. Robbie's favorite though was a device that allowed you to be inside a bloody great soap bubble:



He made us trap him in many bubbles. They would inevitably pop, and he would quickly ask us for another. We also took a river boat tour and visited Wat Arun:



One of the interesting things about this temple is that it was decorated mostly using broken porcelain that came to Thailand as ballast in Chinese ships. Here's a detail:



But like I said, we're back in Tokyo. Now we are getting excited for Star Trek. It comes out on the 29th here, so we've hired a sitter for the 30th and are going to have a date night. Yeah!

Follow Up

Two things I meant to mention in my previous post:

1) The elephant on the left hand side of the video really liked bananas, but not in the traditional "peel them and eat the fruit" sense.

When the elephant was given a banana, he would peel it using his tusk, then eat the peel and throw the banana on his head. Not wanting to let food go to waste, the elephant on the right would then generally pick the banana up off of the ground and eat it.

2) Robbie has his "yours" and "mine" confused at the moment. It's really cute when you're trying to take something from him and he runs away saying "No, it's yours. It's YOURS!" :-D

Bangkok

Your (ir)regularly scheduled "Kirkbrides in Tokyo" update comes to you this week from the Business Centre of the Royal Orchid Sheraton in Bangkok, where we are currently vacationing:



We have been thoroughly enjoying our time here, and taking things fairly easy. Our M.O. consists of eating a leisurely breakfast, hitting a point of interest or two in the morning, catching lunch on the road, then heading back to the hotel around mid-afternoon for a dip in the pool:



Then it's off to dinner. So far we've been eating mostly Thai (now there's a shocker!), but we've also taken time out for Chinese, and probably the best Indian food I've ever eaten. Here is Sarah at "Once Upon a Time" a touristy (but good) Thai food restaurant:



Cabs in Bangkok are ridiculously cheap. It costs only 2 or 3 dollars to get across town... we took a cab in from the airport, it was about a 35 kilometer trip, and I think it cost around 10 dollars. Just remember to hail the cab -- if the cabbie hails you, chances are he's off meter and will try to take you for 2 or 3 times what the metered fare would be. You can negotiate your way down to almost the same price as the meter, but that only works if you know what the fare should be!

Also, be sure to avoid Tuk-Tuks and Wily Strangers. Tuk-tuks are used by the locals to get home from the grocery store, but if you as a tourist end up in a tuk-tuk, expect to have hours of your time wasted as you sit in traffic, heading from one gem shop to another, never quite making it to your intended destination. We have managed to steer clear of the tuk-tuks, but while en route to the emerald Buddha, we did have a run-in with a wily stranger.

He was wearing a white shirt with a tie, standing near an armed guard at a service entrance to the palace grounds, and looking very official. Our stranger came out onto the sidewalk and regretted to inform us that the palace was not opening until 13:00 today (it was only 10:30). He then drew directions to some other sight-seeing locations on our tourist map and suggested we find a tuk-tuk to take us around to them to kill the time until the palace opened.

As he was doing this, the tuk-tuk driver he was in cahoots with slowly pulled up alongside us on the sidewalk. We eventually shrugged him off and continued our walk around the perimeter of the palace. Thanks Marika! if it wasn't for your warning, we might have been taken in.

We've spent the bulk of our "tourist time" checking out the local Wats



and markets, but we took time out on Tuesday to go to the zoo. Robert got to feed elephants, and i got it on video!



We also took Robert to his first proper movie in a theatre: Monsters Vs Aliens 3D, and he _loved_ it. It was great to watch him discover 3D as well... during the first few minutes he was trying to reach out and touch everything, and he kept exclaiming about every little thing that he saw on the screen until he finally settled down and enjoyed the film. Did I mention it was on IMAX? And it only cost around $20 for the 3 of us? Yeah Thailand! ;-)

April

It doesn't seem like it's been that long since I've updated the blog, but gosh, almost a month has slipped past. April has been nothing if not eventful. As I alluded to in my last post, the cherry blossoms hit full stride this month:





Robert and I went for a day hike in the woods to the West of Tokyo with a friend of mine from work and his daughter. This waterfall, and the scenic valley surrounding it were the highlights of the trip. We stopped here for lunch and Robert spent almost the entire time throwing rocks into the creek. He could hardly sit still long enough to take 2 bites of his sandwitch; I ended up saving it and feeding it to him on the way home.



Robert did exceptionally well on the hike. My colleague started out the day by ribbing me because I didn't have a toddler backpack, but he quieted down after 45 minutes of hiking w/ his daughter on his back while Robert spent most of his time running ahead of us on the trail and whacking each of the trees along the trail with a stick he'd picked up. In fact, Robert walked almost the whole way up the hill we were climbing, and really only asked to be be carried for a while on the way back down.

Now as you may know, flowering cherry trees are native to Japan, and during our hike we came across several of the trees in their native form, "yama-zakura" or "mountain cherry" blooming near the trail:



Just as the blossoms were beginning to wane in Tokyo, Sarah's brother Seth and his wife Abigail arrived for a visit. We took the opportunity to play tourist, and stayed at a Ryokan (traditional Japanese hot-spring hotel) in Hakone where the cherries were still in full force:



We also went to Kamakura and caught a parade down the town's main street. There were a number of marching bands; here was my favorite:



Robbie got into the act by pretending to play trumpet. I tried to explain to him that he should be pretending to play the trombone, but he just wouldn't listen. Kids! ;-)



Sarah, Seth, Abi, and Robbie also spent one day at Disney Sea while I worked. To protest the fact that I couldn't go, I am refusing to post any of the great pictures that Sarah took. I guess you'll have to look for them on Flickr.

At school this month, Robbie's class went to the Shirokanedai fire station:



Robert got to sit in the engine's driver seat. He had such a good time playing fireman that he did not want to get out of the engine when his turn was up -- there were tears.

And finally, last weekend we went down to Yokosuka to visit our friends Meredith, Eddie. The naval base has more of the look of a a college campus than a military complex; there are loads of cherry trees, abundant grass and flat open spaces, playgrounds, water parks, shopping, restaurants, and a deepwater port to boot! The aircraft carrier George Washington was in port, along with several destroyers, a cruiser, a couple of Japanese submarines:



and possibly the most inviting warning sign this side of "Wet Paint":



Must ... not ... touch ... pipe ... ... but is it actually hot right now? ... Nope. Whew.

And to close, Robert and I have been enjoying the pond in Himonya koen. Ducks, geese, turtles, and fish (not to mention a variety of insects) inhabit the pond; most of the time Robert is content to enjoy the scenery, but toward the end of our most recent trip, he wanted to try his hand at rowing:

Pictures

Here are some recent pictures from around the house and city. This is the only picture I managed to take of hanami up in Ueno -- the trees in this photo were only beginning to burst forth, but other trees were in more advanced states of bloom elsewhere in the park:



I finally reinstalled the software to pull pictures off of our phones, so here's a dump of some of our best phone photos. First stop, Ikea. In Japan, Ikea has carts for rolling your trays of food around, and glasses of wine to go with lunch!





Here's a picture of Robbie riding a pony at Himonya Koen:


$3 Strawberries... that's $3 each, $27 for the box:


A subway sign asking foreigners to refrain from annoying other passengers by talking on their mobile phones:


Mt Fuji as seen from my office window (it's that little white smudge on the horizon):


And to close, at some point Robert discovered that our couch and chair have removable cushions. Since then, at least once a day, they all get taken off of their respective pieces of furniture, thrown on the floor, and jumped on. He also discovered (with a bit of assistance) that cushions make excellent forts:

Hanami

It's high time for Hanami (flower viewing) in and around Tokyo, and we are enjoying the season.

Unfortunately though, the weather has turned a bit cold. On Thurday morning while heading out on our bicycles, I to work and Sarah and Robbie to his school, a few bits of white floated down from the sky. We had a few seconds of confusion when we weren't sure whether they were cherry blossoms or snowflakes, but after a moment it was clear that we were pedaling through a snow flurry.

Last year we went to Shinjuku Gyoen for hanami and had a really good time, but we wanted to try something new this year. We met up with a couple of friends from work in Ueno to experience rowdier (by Japanese standards) hanami.

As a bonus, the major avenue of cherry trees in Ueno is right next to the zoo, so we started the day there, then found a nice place to lay down our tarp under a cherry tree. Our spot was near some playground equipment too, so Robbie had a bit more to entertain him than just cherry blossoms.

While we ate, drank, and enjoyed the view, Robbie ran around and played with the random Japanese couples who were cavorting on the various pieces of playground equipment and had a very good time. So much so that when we decided to pack it up and head back to the train, he did not want to leave!

We brought easy-to-pack food such as cheese, bread, crackers, etc., but the group next to us were more experienced hanami enthusiasts; they were making curry on a well-worn portable propane stove. After a while, they brought over a small pot of curry and offered it to us. It was delicious!

By the end of the afternoon, my colleague Ian was being proposed to by one of the ladies from the curry tarp -- evidently she had been married twice to Japanese men, but it had never worked out. It didn't seem to matter to that she didn't speak any English, and Ian doesn't speak much Japanese, she was telling him to be in Yokohama on the 30th for the wedding. At least that's what we think she was telling him. Anyhow, Ian stayed away from Yokohama at the end of March.

A Departure From Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

While in Nagano a couple of weeks ago, we missed the bus from the monkey onsen back to town by seconds, and had to wait for an hour to catch the next one. Eddie and Meredith both have 32gb iPod touches, and Eddie helped me pass the time by showing me what I've been missing in popular music over the last few years... specifically this, my new anthem:

White and Nerdy.

as well as "Don't Download This Song" with a brilliant animated video by Bill Plympton:

Don't Download This Song.

And, since I don't have access to much in the way of American media I've found myself listening to a number of podcasts. Here are some of my favorites:

The best science podcast on the web, the CBC's Quirks and Quarks with Bob McDonald.

The best personal finance podcast: Marketplace Money.

Sparkletack is a podcast dedicated to informing listeners about the colorful history of San Francisco and the bay area. The format of this podcast has recently changed from an in-depth look at a particular person or topic, to a somewhat less interesting weekly overview of the upcoming week's notable historical happenings, but there is an extensive archive of stories that I am still working my way through.

Best humorous podcast, the venerable Car Talk.

I also look forward to new audio articles from The Economist each weekend.

Please use the comments section to tell me about your favorite podcasts or blogs I ought to be reading. Thanks!

Back to the present

In the middle of January we took another day-trip to Kamakura... this time we had our fortunes told for the new year at Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine using the Bokuzei (卜筮) method, the Japanese equivalent of Kau cim. I drew #50: Dai-Kichi, or "great blessing" and Sarah drew #19: Sue Kichi, or "minor blessing". Considering the available fortunes range from "great blessing" to "great curse", I think 2009 is going to be an excellent year. It certainly has been so far.



Toward the beginning of February we went to the Uneo zoo. Robbie got to pet an Owl:



And we waited for the penguins to start dancing, but to no avail:



Last weekend we took the Shinkansen up to Nagano. Nagano is nestled in a valley in the middle of the Japanese Alps. The mountains that you can see in this picture are the lower range; the higher range (where the '98 winter games alpine events were held) are behind me.



Nagano is a large apple growing region, thus the omiyage that I brought back to my colleagues at the office was in the form of individually wrapped small apple turnovers. Unless the shopkeeper is handing out samples, purchasing omiyage always involves a bit of uncertainty, but this time I chose wisely and the treats were delicious. Enough about omiyage though, let's talk about snow monkeys!

The monkey onsen is in Jidokudani (lit. "Hell Valley"), a national park about 45 minutes by bus from Nagano Station. The hike in was just short of 2 kilometers along a trail carved out of a steep hillside with a creek running at its bottom. One of the interesting things about the hike in was that there are a number of points where you can see steaming seeps of water entering the creek.

At a convenient point where we could get down to it, we stuck our fingers in and although the water was chilly, it was nowhere near as cold as glacial run-off should be.

After climbing a set of steep and uneven (but paved) stairs, we arrived at the entrance gate to the monkey onsen. While climbing the stairs, we got our first view of the monkeys. They were on the other side of the stream, chasing each other up and down the hill. We paid our 500 yen and entered, walked around a couple of corners, and there were monkeys everywhere.

While researching the trip, I read that sometimes, especially in the summer, the troop moves out of the low country near the onsen and up into the hills; in the winter though, they're generally around. They were definitely present on the day we visited. There were monkeys on fence posts, monkeys sitting in trees, monkeys walking in the snow along the path down to the onsen, monkeys frolicking on the rocks down by the creek, and others just monkeying around.

There is a strictly observed "no feeding the monkeys" policy, so unlike many other places in Asia, these monkeys do not beg. They basically pay no mind to people whatsoever and just go about their business.

I counted 21 monkeys in this picture, but I may have missed a couple:



There were not so many monkeys in the bath when we were there, but that's all right. Judging from the live cam the best time to see a bath full of monkeys is first thing in the morning. For 7 people, including 3 children under 3, we were just glad to be able to make the trip at all -- timing the trip for peak bath time was beyond us:



So the trip to the monkey onsen took up the majority of our Saturday, though we did have a nice traditional Japanese dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday we wandered around downtown Nagano and took some pictures, including this one of the medal presentation stand for the '98 Olympics:



We also went to check out Zenkouji, a Buddhist temple and the 2nd largest wooden structure in Japan. We were fairly tired and hungry at this point though, so we basically just walked around the temple and then began slowly meandering back toward the train station while looking for lunch. We found a great Chinese-style ramen shop, and then a park to let the kiddos do some running around. After the park we headed back to the station, and home.

Kamakura, Ueno, & Nagano, oh my!

Well, it took a while, but we finally found a new baby sitter. Her name is Jenny and she's great. I got her number from a cousin of hers (not sure if they're really cousins) that we used once when we were still staying at Oakwood. We were not overly impressed with Jenny's cousin, but as I said, Jenny's really good so we are looking forward to a few more evenings out between now and the end of our stay.

Our first break from Robbie was on a Friday evening in late January. We went to go see a band, The Presidents of the United States of America, who happened to be playing a show across the street from my office! Unbelievable, eh? They delivered a solid performance, but it was _far_ too short. Now following Phish, String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, Yonder Mountain String Band, et. al., will definitely spoil you for going to see more hmmm... "focused" acts, but PUSA was a bit ridiculous. They came on at 6:00 and quit at 7:00. Sharp. They disappeared for about 2 minutes, then came back on and did a 23 minute encore.

Yes, that's right, the show was over at 7:25... and the tickets cost about $67 each! Grrr... but putting things in perspective, since all of PUSA's songs are 2-3 around minutes long, we got to hear about 35 songs plus a bit of banter, and their playing really was solid. As an added bonus I suppose, since the show was so short, Sarah and I ended up going out afterward and enjoying some peaceful and quiet time together over cups of Tulley's coffee and ice cream. Yum!

Our next foray into the realm of babysitter was a couple of weeks back when we went to go see Revolutionary Lane... not so much of a date movie as it turns out. However we finished up the night at Outback for some good ol' American food that more than made up for our movie selection.

Hmmm... I guess I haven't really talked about Kamakura, Ueno or Nagano yet. My bad -- instead, here's a gratuitous pic of Robbie:



What you can't see in this picture is that I am also wearing a pair of similarly silly glasses. And yes, that was intentional.

Note the igloo tent in the back ground. We got it at Ikea sometime early this year and Robert is absolutely in love with it. He goes in, tucks himself under a blanket, and looks at books. The tent is sitting on a round rug in front of our living room's window-wall, and it's got a bunch of pillows that he's moved inside as well. I figure Robbie must be naturally predisposed toward appreciating one of my favorite activities: camping. I can not wait until he's old enough to take out into the wild. In the meantime, a buddy of mine from work has just purchased a car and we're looking forward to heading out for day hikes with he and his daughter Kiyera in the spring.

Next time I'll get to Kamakura, Ueno and Nagano, I promise.

Playing Catch Up

After returning from Omak, we built a snowman:



Visited the elk feeding station near White Pass:



Visited relatives in Pasco, my folks in Lacey, and my aunt and grandfather outside of Portland:



Then we went to the beach with friends. We flew kites:



and it snowed. A lot:



After the snow began to melt, we lost power and were forced to play cribbage by candle light. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. We returned to Lacey for several more days after the beach, then we high tailed it back to Tokyo.

As a quick preview of the next installment, our friends from WSU Meredith and Eddie recently moved to Yokosuka, a city about 45 minutes South of Tokyo by train. We have done a couple of day trips with them to Kamakura and the Ueno Zoo... but this weekend we're heading up to Nagano to do some sightseeing and visit the Snow Monkeys!