Probably starting from this moment that he was trying to grab it from his pregnant mother, Ken has figured out how to take pictures. Okay, I might have showed him, but it stopped him from putting his fingers on the lens. I have been enjoying the surprising pics that show up on my camera.
Lots of self portraits...
And Arfie, of course.
Mona practicing her smiling in her dreams.
Ken happily playing at the mall.
Good brother and sister picture
Hanging out and cool.
Mona has been wearing this smile a lot lately. Little charming lady.
By this point, the excitement was wearing the little guy and he was burning out.
And sleeping in no time.
The newlyweds cut the cake.
Nice group shot from our table. Chie, Chris, Aki, Rits, Ken(just waking up) and myself.
At the next table was Aki and Tae's friend Saori and her daughter.
Tae and hubby came about lighting candles and they previewed their next hit single, 'It's Saturday, Let's go out'. Catchy tune. All joking aside, Tae was looking great, tough to notice that she was 6 months pregnant at the time.
Ken saw his chance and was making his moves.
As you can guess, the Western style weddings are quite popular in Japan, and everyone enjoyed throwing confetti on the newlyweds as they came out singing their new hit single, 'We are still in love'
And then they were bombarded with picture requests.
The groom is a Yamaha employee and was proudly showing off his ride at the wedding venue.
Ken was happy to finally have some juice.
Same moment, opposite angle..
Back in October, Ritsy's stomach started to protrude, reminding us that little Mona was on the way. We had some getting ready that day though.
It was my friend and Japanese sensei, Taeko's wedding day!
We bumped into our pal Aya (Tae's business partner and Ritsy's high school classmate) in the waiting area.
Ken had Thomas along for the ride.
Ritsy and Chris' wife Aki compared baby bumps.
And Ken was full of beans as usual. The wedding, it was prohibited to take pictures, so I can't offer any of the ceremony, but next up some pics from the reception.
With Ritsy quite pregnant, we had to do some hard thinking for activities...
We headed over to Miyakoda Park where they have this cool grass sledding area.The attendant said we couldn't go at first, but finally Ken and I did one run.
Ritsy didn't get any pictures, but Ken was happy.
And enjoyed a celebratory tea.
Arfie was along for the trip too and had fun running around and running away from big dogs.
Ken rounded it all out with a ride on a more manageable sized slide.
It was inevitable that Ken would discover how the Internet is a fast and easy way to get information and video.
Including the Wiggles.
Around Hallowe'en I took Ken to ESL College for a young children's playgroup and we had a great time. We (okay basically I did it) made this great tiger mask. He looked so good that I had to try it too.
But I wasn't so sharp in it.
And later we modeled his real costume to mommy.
The original plan was for me to stay 2 nights in Tokyo, but we had a doctor's appointment for Ritsy early Monday morning, so I had to head back to Hamamatsu Sunday. DP, Steve and I headed over to Harajuku to check out the grand spectacle.
This picture doesn't do justice to the array of unusual people we encountered on the walk through, but I didn't want to start taking pictures of people, so this was the only one.
Back in Hamamtsu, I could see the 'tree' that is known as Fuyu no hotaru (winter firefly). I believe this tree is getting torn down now. Every year, the tree is illuminated with a new light pattern and some different music shows are played. Now this area is cordoned off and it looks like it will no longer be. Too bad, it was a nice atmosphere for the walk near the station.
Another flashback, this time to December 19th of last year. My friend Steve had plans for an epic journey to Japan, spanning 3 months. So days after his initial arrival, I headed out to Tokyo and met Steve and Keiko, a girl who had spent some time in Vancouver.
Our friend DP also came out for the beginning of the trip, to enjoy some R&R after recently leaving the employ of the Vancouver Canucks.
We enjoyed a few beverages, Steve was fond of the lemon sours.
Beer is always preferential to me.
Also out with us this evening was Rieko, Keiko's friend who also did time in Canada. The two were great hosts for us and took us around the Korean food area of Shinjuku .
The next morning, Setsuko and group picked us up and we started heading home. We decided to check out this fisherman's market in... forgetting city name. Next to the market was an amusement park called Europe town which looked mildly popular.
We headed into the market which reminded me of Granville Island a bit. The difference was that the fresh seafood we bought was meant for eating right away.
In the DIY barbecues that were situated in the eating area. We had a good feed, but Ken still didn't seem to have much of an appetite.
By time we were leaving he looked pretty tired out. Or so we thought. As we got buckled into the car and we were just about to go, Ken puked all over himself, and quite a bit. We had to rush over to a convenience store and change his clothes and clean him down a bit. It was a long drive home and he puked one more time at a Rest Stop. After the second time, though, he cheered up and seemed normal by time we got home. It was the end of a long weekend though and the highway was busy, so we got home at 1 am and poor Ritsy had to work the next morning.
