Another video- an evening resting the foot, cats and pregnant Ritsy

Just a little clip from last weekend, sitting on the couch. It's starting to get colder here so the cats are starting to be more 'social' to share warmth with us. It's going to be tough on them when the baby arrives- they won't be sleeping in the same room as the baby, though I may crash in the separate bed sometimes when I need my sleep- so maybe they can crash with me there. Also you will catch a glimpse of how pregnant Ritsy is now. I heard that the baby is up to about 3200 grams now, should be a little big bugger...

Oh ya- Chris has been updating his blog daily lately with some funny cartoons- including this comical one of me during Halowe'en week- based on true events, though I never think like that, honestly! LINK

A New Post!

Call the kids in! Phone your friends! Hamamatsu Life has an update! A new posting! And the lead picture is a generic, unreferenced one, it must be time for one of Todd's miscellaneous ramblings entries! Wow!

Sorry: Yep, I don't know what's been going on, my posts have been a little too much spaced out lately. I guess this week I had two new classes which I usually get a bit stressed about especially when trying to teach a new textbook. I tend to think that in the end the classes always work out fine but if I don't get worked up for the classes, I won't do as good a job- so it may be part of my successful recipe (it's one of my theories anyway). Well even though I haven't been typing in my blog, I often think about what to talk about when I am driving, so this is probably the by product of those thoughts!

Baby Talk: Ritsy finished work this week, and is now on Maternity Leave. I think it's great that she will have a month to relax now, it's going to get really busy for both of us, especially for her in about a month. And wow- that really feels real now- one month away from baby arriving. We actually heard the baby's sex now- but I'm not going to mention it here just yet- I want to personally tell a few people first. We already have a baby bed- thanks to Kouji-san, and we bought a new mattress and blankets for it. We also bought a stroller at a used goods shop and a car seat. So I think that is a good start. I even have been trying to read the What to Expect in the Baby's first year to be prepared for the challenges ahead. Progress is slow...

Baby Talk part 2: I watched the movie Knocked Up the other day and had a good chuckle. Of course the movie isn't for everyone- very adult themes like drugs, etc... Though in the movie the baby comes about thanks to a one night stand- the actual pregnancy and everything after that was somewhat relevant to me, so it was actually good to watch for my situation. Especially when they showed the picture of the baby crowning, that is something I have to work myself up to...

Death Hill: One of my new classes this week was in Morimachi(actually both of them were), which means that for the first time in a long time I had to go out in the direction where I had my accident earlier this year. Well, the old road is now gone, they built a new, much safer road through the hills. It is a gradual incline with a much lower apex and very good sight lines- the drive feels much safer now! Good job government of Hamamtsu!
Not Farewell, it's see you later : Ya it was kind of a sad feeling on Tuesday. Some of my regular students for my Tuesday night class that have been attending for around 2 years will not be joining next semester. So it felt like goodbye, though I hope that we will all stay in touch as they were not only great as students but we also had some great talks and a couple of fun times at Josh's place. Well if you guys are reading this, thanks again!
Lanma: Asked me to put her picture in my blog again, so there it is.

I will try to be more on top of posting again! Thanks for reading!

Still catching up- End of August party

At the end of August with the pretext of my birthday (about 3 weeks late though)we had over Ritsy's old friends to our house- Manami, Tet-chan, Eiho and Shogo for the first time ever. As they have hosted us a number of times, we were more than happy to have them over and cook for them for a change.
The true challenge was to find things to entertain the little ones, as adults are easily entertained with conversation. We thought the Wii would satisfy them, but the batteries on both remotes were zapped, and we didn't have enough batteries to get them back up and running. Eventually we managed to find movies were a good solution, they both enjoyed Star Wars episode 3 while we were able to relax and chat.
Don't be fooled by this picture they had a great time...
Another popular draw for the children and the adults alike was the cats (Tet-chan had never touched a cat before, he liked them). Even though Eiho was having an allergic reaction, he enjoyed chasing Lanny and Santa around. Lanma was scared to death and hid and meowed at the kids all night. Santa, as usual, was oblivious to it all...
Much fun was had and everyone earned themselves a good nap! (okay this picture is from 2 weeks later, but I wanted to tie it into the blog somehow- Ritsy and Lanma napping together)

In Wine there is Truthm

On the weekend Chris and I didn't feel up to hitting the basketball courts, but we decided to hit the mall in search for a couple of items that we needed to buy. We went to faithful Ichino Jusco and enjoyed some garlic laden food at the niniku restaurant. Afterwards we wondered into the Jusco store and found a treasure trove of t-shirt with bad English on them. I am sure that by now you have encountered the odd signs and the shirts that we often see here in Japan. Well this was a bargain bin full of bad English. The shirt that produced the words of wisdom I used in the title is just mind boggling. Did the graphic artist just make a typo- and was too lazy to spell check it? To ensure that I wasn't making an ass out of myself I checked around the net at the ingredients of wine and sure enough there is no truthm in wine!
This one is almost poetic in it's nonsensical babble. Makes me want to Health life start!

The other day we left a Styrofoam packing from some sort of meat sitting on the counter, and a boiled egg. Enter those evil cats-
I love the cats to death- but sometimes they drive me nuts! Now that they had a taste of eggs, they love it, Ritsy was peeling an egg last night and both cats came running. Luckily Sheriff Todd was in town!
1 week from today will be my birthday- 35 this year! One thing I am noticing now is how many other Leos there are around! I guess November is a popular time for reproducing... Well any Leos out there reading this- Happy birthday!

Heat Madness!

Last post I posted a picture of Bob and Doug McKenzie- who were quite popular back in the days of SCTV. I realized from my conversations with my Aussie buddy, Chris that not a lot of people have seen SCTV, so I thought I might throw a Youtube link here so that you can follow the trails of related videos to see the hilarity in it's fullest! HERE.

Well it is starting to feel a lot like summer here. The heat is creeping in and even worse, the humidity. There isn't really a day that goes by that I don't find myself sweating uncontrollably, and it just isn't pleasant. The other day, the heat was visibly getting to all members of our household. Lanma was passed out on the couch as shown above.
Santa seemed to think taking refuge in the corner near the dining table would help him out. But when you walk around with that much fur, there is no escaping it!

Of course Ritsy and I were suffering and even Junior was shifting around in his womb restlessly. There was only one thing to do in such circumstances...

...go for Yakiniku!
Those who haven't tried yakiniku, it's a must, it's like all the best things about BBQing with a quick line from the grill, to the sauce, to your belly! Of course the one set back is the price, but an indulgence from time to time is a must!
In the above picture, we see Ritsy forgetting all her discomfort and troubles while contemplating the enjoyment of a mushroom! Saved from a day of suffering, we made our way home contented and ready to face the challenge of a new day!

Hanging Out

I fell like today was mostly wasted hanging out in the quiet of my home for most of the day, but some things got done and in the end it was a pretty mild paced day off, perfect for relaxing.

We had to wait for two deliveries today, one came in the morning- we had AC installed in the extra room- something that we had meant to do for a while and we had managed to budget for it now with hosting my family in a month and a half. The man came to install at about 10 o'clock and was finished at about noon. I still had to hang at home to wait for another delivery. I actually didn't think we needed to buy one, but Ritsy wanted to buy an upgrade on our old dining room table- so we had found one that I kind of liked that wasn't too expensive at Nitori. Heck, I like buying things- so it wasn't a hard sell for her, anyway that new dining room table arrived today at 3:30. I just hope we use it more than the old one- we were pretty much just eating in front of the TV everyday.

With the deliveries out of the way, I had to give Ritsy some time to sleep as she had worked the graveyard shift the night before and had to keep waking up to help with the deliveries. Finally at 5 pm she woke up and we went to pick up my car. They had finally fixed her and she looked beautiful with the new bumper, to help my special lady (my car, not the wife) feel even nicer I splurged and bought her an oil change. It is nice to have the car back again- even though my loaner was also a Vitz it just didn't feel exactly the same to drive.

Now with my car back we decided to have some food. We are pretty excited that they are opening a Denny's not too far away in Hamamatsu and we swung by to see if it is open yet, but not until Wednesday. By the way- Denny's is a bit different here in Japan than back home- in Canada we get a lot of sandwhiches and burgers on the menu (my all time favorite name- Moons Over My Hammy - is not available here)- here you can have pasta, Japanese style food and only features two sandwiches! So we decided to go to a pretty nice little Italian restaurant called Capellini which is located across from the Hamakita drivers license center. I think the food is nice and their antipasto layout is nice but it is pricey and I find the menu to be a little confusing ( it is comprised of about 209 pieces of paper). It was a nice dinner and we were stuffed afterwards!

Tomorrow should also be productive. I have an early class (oops I have to hit the hay!) then I will probably have a quick nap then we need to go and do some banking and I can finally pick up my new Spousal Visa. I don't look forward to going in there after we had complained (to a number of offices) I feel there may be some averted gazes and some insincere butt-kissing, I would be happy if I could just slip in and then out again...

Bits and Pieces 2

Nothing special has really happened so far this week, so a few short topics;

1. Bike Ride
I didn't really get my required exercise in through the weekend, so I took my bike out for a bit of a ride. I went to Cainz Home which is a home center- like Home Depot or Rona back in Vancouver. The ride is about 6 kms and includes a killer hill that should help condition me a little bit for the Forest Park mission. I did alright on the hill but about 2/3 of the way up I had to get off and push the bike. On the ride, there used to be a couple of farms with a bunch of trees with funny things hanging from the branches like mirrors and CD's. While they were probably there to scare away birds- I was hoping to use them for comedy in my blog. Tragically they were taken down from the trees.Cainz is a great place to shop, anything you need for around the house. Furniture, landscaping, lumber, even pets- yes it was at this Cainz home that we found the irreplaceable Santa;
2. Pickton. Back home in Vancouver there has been an interesting trial of a pig farmer that had allegedly murdered a large number of hookers. The details can be pretty gross, but it amazes me that this sort of sick person can walk the same earth as we do. Well if you want to read about the Pickton trials just click here.
3. Hockey All Star Game. Okay I have only watched the Super skills competition so far, but Vancouver's only representative Luongo looked good so far, good job! I think it is a travesty that the Sedins are left out of the game though!
4. What it takes. I was thinking during my bike ride yesterday about what it takes to live in a foreign country. It boils down to Patience, Hard Work and a Positive Mentality. You need to be patient with learning the language and becoming more functional and a part of the environment (it is easy to have the illusion that you don't need to learn Japanese when you teach English but it isn't entirely accurate). You also need to be patient with meeting people, networking and making friends. All our best friendships take time to develop and basically will always take time. The Hard Work comes into play with establishing yourself with a job and learning the language. The positive attitude helps you get by day to day. Sometimes it is easy to question your decision to live somewhere else, but it is more healthy to accept that you made the decision and not to waste time asking 'what if...'. You made the decision stick with it! If you aren't happy with the way things are at the moment, then work to make it a better situation, or move again.

That is all for today, have a great one!

The ballad of Ritsuko

The sky was an interesting shade of pink at sunset tonight, but it has nothing to do with the story below!

My poor wife! Yesterday she had to work the graveyard shift at her hospital (hmm I don't like the term graveyard when talking about a hospital...Okay overnight shift). I learned that when she got to her work, the blood van was there so she decided to give some blood. I think she said she only gave 200 mg, so it wasn't so draining (hmm I don't like the term draining when talking about giving blood). After her 14 hour shift, she came home and I was up and getting ready to go as we had pre-arranged to run some errands today.

The beginning of the errands went pretty well (go to the bank, pay some bills, pickup some paper work, pay the mortgage for the month) but even then it was already 1 pm by the time we finished them. We then headed over to the South tax office to fill out the paperwork required to get a refund on the tax paid on our home. To make a long story short, we spent about 2 hours in the office going through the right paperwork and trying to figure out why we could only get a credit for half of the money we should be able get (basically it is my fault, I am a gaijin and I own half of the home, but the loan is in Ritsy's name). That is a good chunk of money we lost out on. Ritsy called the bank( to fix it so that I can maybe get that money next year) and the bank promised to get back to her. We got home and scarfed down some lunch and by then it was 3:45 pm. I headed off to my Japanese lesson and business lesson and Ritsy tried to get a nap. But less than an hour later the bank called her back. After the call the cats decided they were hungry even though it was an hour and a half early for their dinner. Basically she had no sleep at all through the day! Finally she got to bed around 12:30 because I made her stay up and watch 24 with me!

Well sleep well Ritsuko! You earned it!

Bits and Pieces

Today was the first day back to teaching the children at ESL College. Sometimes I really notice how far the kids are coming or am surprised at what they remember from the classes. The kids are always cute, but I was blown away today at the progress not only the students I taught, Koki and Sana have made, but also some of the younger ones too. Today was one of the days I was happy walking out of there. Of course it's not always like that.

Tonight the wife decided to give the cats a shower. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of Lanny when she was wet, but Santa looked pretty danged funny coming out of the shower.



And here is the after pics of Santa and Lanny looking clean. Of course Santa is still wet, 2 hours later, he has so much fur...



We watched Good Will Hunting on tv tonight. I really liked that movie. I find it hard to believe that Ben Afleck had anything to do with writing that script though and the makers of the Family Guy agree with me as witnessed here (Caution before clicking the link, fart humour). It's just too smart to be him, though Matt Damon looks like he isn't the brightest candle (hence his only lines in Team America: World Police- "Matt Damon!") but I can buy him being the smart one of the two. Also great performance by Robin Williams - he really showed the undertones of anger and delivered some great lines in that movie. If you haven't seen it, I recommend to watch it.

Well time to hit the hay!

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to my blog. This is my third try at starting one, so I know I probably won't post daily, but I will try to come out with short posts a little more frequently than I have in the past.


My name is Todd and here is a picture of my wife and I taken a few months back at Fuji Safari Park.(sorry website only in Japanese).




We live in Hamamatsu Japan, this map should give you an idea of whereabouts it is located in Japan.

Our family is pretty small right now, we have ourselves and two cats, named Lanma and Santa.


I teach at a few businesses and have some private students here. I am originally from Vancouver Canada and have lived in Japan for 3 years now. 2 years here and one year in Tokyo. Well that is all for today.