2016 update

It's been about 4 years since I tried to post last. How is everyone? We are still surviving our Hamamatsu Life, the kids are getting big, and I have been busy with work!

Ken has been playing soccer with a local team since the last year of Kindergarten. He joined the team Formiga which is based in the next town to us. His kindergarten was a bit far from home, so it was a good way to stay in contact with his old friends from kindy and have fun. He is fast and has a hard shot, but is still learning some of the fundamentals of the game.

Mona is in the first grade of elementary school from this year. She is still making her new friends and we are interested in finding piano lessons for her but the tough point is when can we take her? Soccer takes up most of our weekends and I work in the evening and Ritsy gets home at different times each day. We need to find a solution soon.

That's all for now. I will try to post more again if I can!

Kasuisai temple in Fukuroi

While on the 2nd of January the visit to the temple was for wishing for a good year, yesterday we took Ken out to a couple of interesting temples out in Fukuroi for the purpose of sightseeing. Ritsy knew nothing about either temple but I had seen the signs for the two temples near one of the places that I teach at.
The first stop for the day was Kasuisai temple. The walk just before the temple you could see this interesting building with two beautiful statues bookmarking the door.
Naturally Ken was primed for sleeping by the time we got there.

The actual temple was nestled in the hillside and had a payoff of a beautiful cozy temple that was reachable with minimal walking.This temple had one of them cool giant shovels.
And the giant that crafted the shovel must have left his giant sandal behind as well.
As we walked away, quite satisfied with the discovery of this lovely little place, I was quite taken by this interesting guardian statue.
We then continued on to our next destination, also in Fukuroi- Yusanji.

New Years 2008

This picture just worked better in Black/White

One of the big traditions in Japan at New Years time is the trip to the temple to pray for good luck in the coming year. While Ritsy and I are not really religious people, we do believe that it doesn't hurt to just not tempt fate, be respectful to life, nature and to ask for safe passage. I do think it didn't work out too well for me last year, with the numerous trips to Temples in Nara- and my leg still got fractured so close to my baby's birth...
But we decided to lug little Ken out to Gansuiji temple on the 2nd. As I believe I mentioned, the temple is very popular for praying for babies, so it was a good fit. The other key point being that Gansuiji is so close to our home. Ken looked quite amused up to this point.
It was a pretty nasty cold day though, so we had to hurry along to do our business. At the front gate, they had their traditional New Years decorations out.
We went to the main shrine and said our Pleases and Thank yous. The shrine was decorated by a number of very colorful flags (not sure what the relevance is) and a thousand paper cranes as shown in the next picture.
Finally we had to hurry back to the car as Ken was not too happy about the cold weather, and I can't say that I blame him. It was pretty nasty.

My picks for the top 10 posts from 2007

One of the great things about keeping a blog is that there is a quick reference of the things that happen in our lives. Though it turned out to be quite time consuming (mental note, shorter posts) it was quite interesting to see the highs and lows of the year. A lot happened and it's always tough to say one post is better than another, but I tried my hardest.All you need to do is click on the title to relive each memory with me (and then the back button on your browser to continue on), here we go;

To Start we'll go with my pick for the worst post of 2007;

A Normal Post While it was actually a pretty special post, it was the first time I mentioned the imminent arrival of Ken, I also thought it would be funny to do up a picture in Photoshop combining elements or Ritsy's face and my face (and my nephew Mac's body). The end result was like Frankenstein's monster and probably severely traumatized some readers. So, it gets the worst of 2007 award.

Now the best picks;
10. A funny thing Fracturing your leg while playing basketball is not what many would consider good news to break (ouch! pun not intentional)- but this makes the list because of its relevance to my life. It was a pretty monumental happening!

9. A concert There was a few good party posts last year. A couple with Manami and Tet-chan's family and a couple at my student Josh's house. This one makes the list because it was quite a nice and unique musical show with a fantastic setting! Later Josh gave me a CD with the recording of the performance- a great touch.

8. Japanese Beauty At times I have been known to ramble. But every now and then a pearl of wisdom comes from this tendency. Japanese Beauty is very beautiful and speaks of the ways in which I appreciate Japanese culture- I can't believe that it was actually I that wrote it!

7. Princesses and Cherry Blossoms A nice post simply because of some beautiful pictures. 'nuff said.

6. Pete and Mari's wedding At the beginning of last year Pete and Mari had their wedding party locally. It was really interesting time and there was some nice pictures.

5. Lillooet This was my second Lillooet posting but I liked this one a little better as I took a little more of a humorous approach in recounting my story. Though some of the humour may be better understood if you read the first one too. And it really does look like the tv is eating him I think....

4. The Tokyo Series As there were a few series this year I tried to pick the best post from each group. The first was the trip to Tokyo. I picked this one because of the pictures of the old Kabuki theater in Ginza that apparently will be torn down. Beautiful looking building though.
3. Ise Another of my trips this year back in August. Man it was hot- and Ritsy was having a bit of the morning sickness still on the boat- but it was a great couple of days up there- and it's just great to explore Japan really. My choice had my favorite pictures from Ise, though I was actually torn between this one and the old shopping street.

2. Aunt and Mom's Visit Sorry ladies, you will have to settle for second place! It was awesome to show the ladies around Japan a bit, and selfishly I was able to see a lot of stuff I haven't seen before. There were actually a lot of great pictures from the series- but I'll go with my favorite location Todaiji- the home of the great Buddha in Nara. Honorable mentions go out to Kohfukuji and Hatasan in Fukuroi.
1. Ken Of course the arrival of your baby- especially your first is just a special moment- and I took a lot of time and recorded the events leading up to his birth quite nicely.

There it is the highlights of my blog world for 2007.

Now it's time to build a new year of memories.

Mobiles, thank yous and a vid

What?

Just a quiet day today. We went by Entetsu department store, we had received a few gift certificates to use there- we were able to find a cute mobile for hanging on his crib or maybe bouncer. Did I mention how incredibly generous have been since Ken's arrival?

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for coming to my blog in 2007! I really wanted to use this as a way to extend a branch of communication to my family and friends back home, but it has grown into something more with many students and just coincidental visitors (like Marc who happened across my blog topic about his buddy Warwick) and it has been greatly successful. I am a little disappointed that my writing dropped off in the last quarter of the year- but in the end I have about 131 posts so I don't think I did too bad. Well, thanks so much for reading- I hope to keep it interesting for 2008!

Here is a little video of Santa lying like the fool he is and Ken swinging his head around a bit.

cell phone pics

The focus around the household has definitely shifted to Ken. Through the first 2 weeks at home, I was still working a fair bit, so I would just have little snatches of time to spend with him- but now that my holidays kind of started on Saturday- and started full tilt on Thursday- I have had a great chance to just hang out with him.
He does spend a lot of time sleeping. And crying. And eating. And dirtying his diapers. But there are some times when he is just lying there and looking around. I read that this is the time to interact with him- and I think he is starting to love the interactions. By listening to him while he tries to practice his sounds, it helps him to get some much needed practice- after all, the poor bugger has two whole languages to learn.
I really have made an effort not to turn my blog into a "hey look at all the cute pictures of my cat" blog- because I realize that isn't an interesting read. I hope the new baby-centered focus you will see is not a bad turn. I will try to keep some other topics coming. This really is a great venue to document those changes that come along that, at the time, are somewhat minor, but you pause to reflect on later in life.
So far- he has already started lifting his neck- especially when we burp him. He is great for swinging his neck around and headbutting us right in the mouth. Cute but dangerous. Also he has started to make tears, though his cries are mostly dry, and he has also starting focusing more and he watches us as we walk around the house. Oh ya, also a couple of real smiles and a little bit of agoo's and lela's. Pretty fun stuff.

An Aside
Both pictures didn't turn out very well but, I still thought this was amusing.
A lot of places around here have the classic- squat and use toilets here, like this...
Well one place that I was working at had handy instructions posted for a foreigner on how to use these porcelain beauties. Unfortunately I had to be discreet as someone else was in the washroom, so the pictures came out blurry. He must have thought that I was taking some perverse pictures with the door closed, oh well - I wasn't....

Things settling....?!?!?!?

Yes, time is starting to move on and my schedule is lightening up and things seem to be starting to fall into place. Ritsy and Ken had spent the first few days at home in the living room where Santa was always trying to get in on the warm action. No problem as long as he doesn't try to lie down on Ken.
Ritsy was starting to feel better, and was moved into the baby's room by Monday. But going back a couple of days- Peter and Chris managed to convince me to come out to Hamamatsu city to celebrate the beginning of fatherhood. While I am weary of overdoing it , it had been a pretty stressful 2 weeks for me and it was really nice they wanted me to come out, so I headed into town for a couple of hours to a place called Liquid Kitchen- run by a guy we knew, Marty.
Even our other friend Peter came out and we saw one of Chris' students- in this picture is her friend. If I didn't know better I would say these two look like a nice couple...
We were good though and got home at a decent hour on the train.(hmm that poster looks oddly placed in the background)
This week was pretty busy too, but definitely starting to lighten up. I am also starting to understand why my students keep telling me to take lots of pictures. He has already changed in looks a lot in just 3 weeks. I actually see a little bit of me in this little face now! His hair is brown, though much darker than mine- but his eyes are dark-- well that light-coloured gene is a recessive one isn't it...?
He is a hungry bugger and seems to get really fussy at night- but we are learning and starting to minimize the fuss a little better little by little. Poor Ritsy was getting pretty tired though- yesterday I caught her having a nap with the little guy when I came home from work.
I know time is moving fast- I can't believe the little guy is already 3 weeks old! There will be lots of great times- but I am so interested to watch as he develops mentally and physically, I can't get enough- I am starting to get oya baka (Baby crazy)-- this is going to be a very interesting journey!

A positive turn

I just survived a crazy busy couple of weeks! I guess my week isn't really over, but I know my schedule lightens up a bit from this point, so I'll enjoy it.
I continued with a tough week of commuting to my classes, the hospital and the Midwife clinic and last week reached an end with me having to travel out to Shizuoka city early in the morning last Sunday to take my Japanese proficiency test (level 3). With the hectic pace of the previous week and the buildup in the week before that, my studying dropped off pretty steeply. I am not confident that I did well in the test, but I guess I earned valuable experience for when I have to retake the test next year! On the bright side, the color of the leaves on the ginkgo trees were quite beautiful in their autumnal richness!
Of course, following the the test I was able to make it back to town in time to visit both Ritsy and Ken.
Ritsy was feeling much better as she had opted for a transfusion the day before. I understand her original skepticism to do so with the controversy about people contracting Hepatitis C recently, but the doctor assured her the risk is small, and in the end it was definitely just what she needed. On Monday she was able to leave the hospital and join him at the midwife clinic for a couple of days. She was pretty happy!
Finally last night the family was united at home. Though Ritsy slept downstairs with Ken, and I upstairs with the cats, it sure feels nice to all be back together again!

The three corners

Even though the family has expanded over the last few days, it doesn't really feel that way right now. The three of us right now are in three separate corners of town- each of us going through our own issues.

For Ken the ordeal is pretty straightforward. He has spent 9 months in a nice, warm, safe womb and now he has been dumped out into this bright, cold and mind bogglingly complex world. He can barely see and doesn't even know why he feels compelled to suck down as much milk as his little stomach can handle. Even just burping looks like a lot of work- he's got a lot to learn.

I am most concerned about Ritsy. I mentioned that she had to go to the hospital after the birthing and was pumped full of fluids at the hospital. When I visited her yesterday, she seemed healthy and I thought that for sure she would be released from the hospital and be able to return to the Midwife clinic to reunite with Ken. Last night though she had a fever and today, her blood tests showed her to be quite anemic, she is really low on iron. When I saw her she was again looking healthy and had no fever, just frustrated that she can't see her son.

Luckily the doctor offered a great suggestion- Myself, her sister and the woman from the clinic went to the hospital carting along little Ken to finally see his mom. Unfortunately Ritsy once again had a fever and only could hang with him for a few minutes. I feel real bad for Ritsuko- she just wants to connect with the little guy- and feed him her milk and be happy. But she is stuck recovering and now I worry that because he is getting used to the bottle, it'll be tough for him to switch to breast milk later. Well, I'll try not to get wound up in a little knot over something I can't fix.
As for me, my ordeal is about my leg. I had my cast taken off on Monday but I am meant to only walk with about 30% weight bearing pressure. God, I'm a horrible judge of how much weight that means, especially if you consider you can potentially take thousands of step in a day. It's much easier just to think that I should try to walk 'lightly' and I think I will be okay. I'm actually back to using my crutches more than I did in the last 3 weeks before it came off. I am confident that my leg will improve a lot and quickly, I just need to keep patient with it.

Separate the 3 of us will have to fight our battles and get to the next level- I really look forward to when we can all sit down together quietly (well as quietly as it gets with a baby) and enjoy the true feeling that we are a big family.

Here is a little video of the guy doing nothing, but as a parent, I feel it is cute anyway. Please pardon me for using the I'm talking to a baby voice- I am trying to avoid doing that too much...

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

The House (some old videos)

I thought I would post a couple of videos about my home's building process- the first one I made to put up in Facebook- but I don't think too many people found it, so I thought I might slap it up here, just a bunch of pictures I took showing the progress of the home as it was built ...

The next video I found sitting forgotten on my poor forgotten video camera. Now that the baby is close to arriving- I took out the camera, blew out the dust and found this old nugget. In Japan, more so in the more rural areas now I would guess, people have an interesting tradition when building a new house called tatemae. On the day that the roof gets erected, the owner first has the pleasure of treating the workers to a nice box lunch and dinner (which wasn't cheap- but if we don't do it, maybe they forget a nail or two...). Later in the day when the work finishes, we go into the house and pray for good luck at the home then pelt rice cakes at our future neighbours. It's quite funny, the older people when driving by on the day recognize the roof will finish and make plans to return at 4 o'clock. They turn up en masse and scrape and claw to get all the cakes. Indeed I saw a couple of cute old ladies grabbing rice cakes from children's grasps! It was pretty fun and interesting to see what it looked like from the other angle...

That's Japan! Volume 5

What's that you ask? A country that has a population about 3.8 times that of Canada's, squeezed into roughly 1/26th the space? The country that invented Pocky and Godzilla and Ultraman? Yes folks- That is Japan!

Yeni and I at the ESL college summer Hanabi party

1. Jinbei - Most people when they think of Japan's unique clothing styles, readily come up with an image of a kimono, or maybe a pair of wooden sandals (geta). One of the lesser known players is the jinbei a light weight easy to slip on clothing that is great for the summer time. While the tradition is to go through the time consuming process of putting on a kimono, or slightly quicker yukata - it is quite popular for men to opt for a jinbei when attending summer festivals. And gosh, don't I look sharp in one?

Some guy eating basashi in Kumamoto(stolen from this blog- sorry!)

2. Food tourism - What did you do last holiday? Did you travel to Kentucky to eat baby back ribs at a popular restaurant? Did you travel to a number of different cities sampling Roll Cake from the many local restaurants? Chance are if you are in North America you said no. But it is actually quite a popular travel activity for some people in Japan. I think this speaks of one of the charms of the Japanese culture, to be perfectly honest- each region has a unique culture point or a food specialty that has grown and improved as time passes. While I get annoyed with the TV for always showing people eating- it is a great way to keep people informed of some of the unique tastes and spots around Japan. So if it is the food motivating to travel around, at least they are happy with doing it. After all, I'm sure they do end up doing some sight seeing between all the eating.... right...?

Again gleaned from a google search HERE

3. Pub - Are you new in Japan and want to settle in for a pint at a local pub? Be careful what you choose. Most likely what you would expect in a pub, here is called an Izakaya. That's a place to sit down for a laugh with your friends, eat some (surprisingly) good food and of course have some drinks. If you end up heading into a Pub- you will find a very different kind of establishment. A Pub here is usually a hostess bar, where you pay an incredibly high price for drinks and you (maybe) get flirted with by the hostesses at the bar. Similarly, Snacks have a very similar scheme and the best I can figure out the big difference is that an older clientèle frequent Snacks.

Yep, you can order this here.

4. Loli-Goth - One of the great fashion statements you will run across when walking around (more so in a bigger city than Hamamatsu though) is the Loligoth trend. Yes they have taken all the best elements of Lolitas (yes that is the sick love of younger girls?!) and the remarkably beautiful voice of the Goth underground and made just a... well... creepy image. Actually the image is cuter and cleaner than some of the other trends- but there is just some sort of odd undertones to the whole thing- I can't really put my finger on it, but it gives me the shivers.
5. Traffic Signals- I haven't been able to figure it out in almost 4 years living in this country. They call the green light on the traffic signal- the Ao Shingo- meaning the Blue signal. The light looks green to me and most of my students agree with me it is an odd thing, why blue? Well I formed a theory. Maybe the first guy that brought the traffic light over to Japan was colour blind and called it the Blue light. Maybe he was so revered and respected that all those around him just kind of went along with him and agreed that it was indeed blue. They probably took pity on him that he did not see his error and continued the tradition in his honour after he passed on... Well, it's a working theory, anyway.

Well that's my blog for today, and that's Japan for a lifetime!