I took the customer to a baseball game the other week – Hawks versus Nippon Ham. It was quite a good game – Hawks squeaked past to win another, this time it’s 5 in a row for them! It was quite good – the customer had a good time (I think) and a once-in-a-lifetime event happened:
I gave the ball to Evan and he was so chuffed. I had a quick look on the internet for the game to see if I was on TV at all, but couldn’t find it.
Well we watched a giant robot spider invade Yokohama today, together with Nagano-san and families. It was really quite interesting – slowly moving, lots of people operating it and very spider-like. The thing was really very huge – maybe 3 stories high! People seemed to be hanging everywhere from the limbs and it shot water and some sort of chewed-up paper out! Very interesting. Following it was some sort of orchestra, raised in the air as well. Quite interesting art I’d say.
Here’s a photo of it:
We went with Ani and Hideo and family to 子ども自然公園 (children’s nature park) in Futamatagawa for ohanami today and it was great fun! The trees were in fun bloom and it was great hanging out and talking and eating. The kids had a great time looking for sticks and various other earthy things and the time seemed to zip by. Here are some cute pictures.
Evan in front of our house:
Lauren-chan and Julia-chan:
What is that hanging out of your mouth? (Cheese)
Dragging the kids around:
We had an excellent trip to Thailand 2 weeks ago. It was quite remarkable that we got everything together to be able to go, but somehow it all worked out! The trip really was about Nicole’s birthday this May, so I’m happy it all worked out.
We had investigated earlier about going to Bali or somewhere beachy, but we found out that Lauren’s passport would be just 2 days short of the 6 months validity needed to go overseas. So we rushed an application to the NZ passport department and hoped it would come in time. Within 10 days the passport did arrive, so we just had enough time to make arrangements through some travel agents and somehow it all worked out! We bought a flight to Bangkok on Saturday afternoon around 3 and at 7:30am the next morning we were on the flight out. Lauren also got chickenpox just the weekend before, so we weren’t sure if she would be non-contageous, but the doctor checked it out all ok! Nicole was also doing a 書道 (shodou – calligraphy) exhibit at landmark towers, so were a bit busy.
We landed on time in Bangkok and took a taxi to the hotel. It was far fancier than we’re used to, but given the short amount of time to arrange accomodation (1 day!) we were pretty happy to get something.
The Marriott Bangkok was a very swish hotel right on the river. They offered free water shuttles over to the other side, where we went on the first day (Sunday) for dinner and shopping. The hotel is so beautiful and very tropical looking. The kids loved the pool.
Waiting at the dock for the water shuttle.
Unfortunately, Evan didn’t take to the heat very well and he suffered a bit from heat exhaustion or something like that – always very tired and the first night he said he was super cold at dinner and didn’t eat anything. In fact, the whole trip, he didn’t eat a lot. Nicole and I ate on his behalf though!
The first night we had dinner at a restaurant in the shopping centre, only because we were all so very hungry and couldn’t find anything authentic Thai. It was awesome food though and the waiters/waitresses were very bored it seems and they made funny balloon things for the kids – a sword for Evan, a funky hat for Lauren! The kids loved it and got so much attention from people in the mall!
The next day we went into town to see the golden palace and see some of the sights. We met a Tuktuk driver who spoke english and he convinced us to go with him for 50 baht (125 yen!) around for a few hours. Of course he took us to places to buy things, which we did of course (Nicole bought some silver bracelet from a transvestite salesperson in a jewlery store – it was a bit expensive but that’s ok) but he also hooned us around Bangkok to see various things such as the standing buddah. All this around noon, so we were happy to get out of the noon sun.
The kids loved the tuktuk ride of course and we all thought it was quite envigorating!
Finally we made it to the palace and we met an english-speaking tourguide, who showed us around. The palace was terrific and the info on the building etc was great.
I took the kids back to the hotel because Evan was feeling particularly bad, while Nicole did some shopping in town.
The next day we took a taxi to the floating market and bought some little trinket-type things. We also had some great fried bananas, which were so cheap!
After the markets, we went to an elephant ride which I thought the kids would be more excited about, but it was a bit subdued.
We also went to a show place, kinda like the rose garden, where they had an elephant show, a magic show and a crocodile show! The kids were very scared with the crocodiles, but everything else was good.
We saw an elephant who had a 3 month old baby, which was good fun. We took photos with the elephant and when it came to Lauren, the elephant wrapped Lauren in her trunk and lifted her up into the air! Lauren loved it!
We went into town again in the evening to go to the night market, however it turned out that the market was rather seedy and full of nightclubs and girly bars. It felt strange walking around with the kids on our backs trying to get away from that area. Yuck. There was even a street where pretty well only Japanese was used. Strange.
The next morning we took a minivan to Hua Hin, or more precisely 40km south of there. Hua Hin is around 3 hours drive south of Bangkok and a rather bigger city. The place we stayed at was called the dolphin bay resort and was recommended by my brother as a family-type place. It turned out to be perfect for the kids because they had games like chess and ping-pong and 2 great salt-water pools which the kids loved. They spent so much time in the pool. Lauren turned into a fish during those 4 days there and she could do incredible things in the water. We’ve never seen her swim so much at at 4 years old, she did amazing swimming across the pool by herself. She certainly had no fear!
One day we rented scooters from the place (very cheap – 800 yen for the day!) and drove around the area, which included a national park. The scenery was terrific!
We drove to a neat fishing village where they were drying the fish and we bought some water. We then went on to a cave, which was a boat trip, then a walk up the mountain and then into the cave. In the middle of the cave was a temple, or perhaps more of a monument to the discoverers of the cave. The kids didn’t complain at all and we had a great time! We then relaxed at a restaurant over a coconut drink!
During our time there, Evan had his birthday and they gave him a cake for his birthday. Hard to believe Evan is already 7 years old! He’s sure growing quickly. We sang to him, but also all the others in the restaurant sang to him as well! There was another boy there, also 7, Hunter, who was a splitting image of Evan. Here are a few photos:
Because we couldn’t bring any presents for Evan along, we bought a floating matress thing for the pool, which Evan really loved.
We took another trip into the park and saw lots of monkeys and other wildlife (mudskippers were so cool!) and went to a very nice temple and put gold leaves on the buddha! We also went to an island where wild monkeys lived and brought them bananas. They seemed to like the peanuts better though, carefully brushing the salt off the peanuts!
The trip back home was uneventful and we arrived home around 6am ahead of schedule. The rest of the day we relaxed and Evan opened his birthday presents. He particularly liked the inline skates and the star wars light sabre!
We found out the next day that the day after flying out of Narita, all flights were stopped because of a plane crash! Scary! However, lucky that we were able to get away before that happened.
What a terrific trip. It was a bit expensive overall, but a lot of fun!
A few weeks ago we did our mandatory health checks at a clinic here in Yokohama. It was a very interesting experience. We managed to find babysitters for the kids, so Nicole and I went to the health clinic to get it done. It’s a mandatory check for all employees in Japan and is very thorough. They have a dedicated centre just for the healthcheck, so the usual checks are done there.
They did all sorts of tests on us, from hearing and sight, to hear, bloodpressure, breath strength, and then some internals. The internal scan was very interesting – they asked us to drink some drink which had barium (varium?) in it and then they put us on this machine that moved us around in various positions, almost so that we were standing on our hands/head! It was very neat. In the end, we saw the shots our insides and they could see so much. The 3d pictures of our insides were so cool! I wish I could have had a copy of it!
I found out that I have a kidney stone, but in general, Nicole’s and my diagnostics were all normal. They also gave us all the stats on our body like blood pressure, iron level, different nutrients in blood and stool etc. It was so interesting. I took copies of all the info from the web, but it’s in Japanese, so it’s a bit difficult to read (for us). Nevertheless, a very cool experience!
We had an awesome Mito trip this past weekend.
We made it up to Mito in around 1.5 hours, which seemed to go by really quickly. I really like the landscape around Ibaraki prefecture, so it was a fun trip and the kids were well behaved.
When we got to Mito we went to Kairakuen koen right away. It was beautiful weather out, so we had a small picnic. The grounds around Kairakuen are beautiful and we had a nice time.
Here are some pictures of the kids and the grounds.
At the end of our lunch, we went around the lake, took a swan ride, bought some food and headed up the hill where it seemed most of the people were or were going.
On the way up, we wondered whether we’d see Mr. Okada-san, who was volunteering at the park and would be busy. Sure enough, as soon as we got into the park, we saw him in one of the stands, handing out papers and other information. It was great to see him again, since we hadn’t seen him in almost 2 years. The kids were really happy to see him.
It turns out there was a tour guide who could speak english, so they took us on a 1/2 hour tour. We found out that Kairakuen koen is the 2nd largest city park in the world – after Central Park! Who’d’ve thunk?
After checking out the park for a bit, we checked into the hotel and met up with Mrs Okada-san and Momoka, who treated us to dinner (thank-you!) in the hotel. It was really great! We had Ibaraki beef and pork, which was delicious.
Then we headed out to the park again to see the fireworks. They were great and it was terrific seeing the blossoms all lit up at night.
The next day we headed out to Kasama to check out the pottery shops. On the way we stopped off at a park/science centre where they had fun rides for the kids to play on as well as sheep, goats, rabbits etc. The kids had a good time there. Then we went to Kasama, which was Nicole’s target for the trip. She bought some nice pottery and we treated the girls to some pottery making, which was a lot of fun. We met Momoka’s friend Tomoko who also happens to be a math teacher for the same grade kids. Seems like the two of them are twins!
While the girls were doing pottery, I was out in the grounds playing with the kids – we played hide-and-seek and various other games and the kids came up with a game called “tentacle” or something, where they “grew” two extra arms and they would have to tag each other with a “hand”. Very funny.
We headed home around 4:30 or so and got home around 6, just in time to get some last-minute groceries and get dinner ready for everybody. It was a whirlwind trip, but it was great to see the Okada-sans and Mito again!
We went to visit Fumiko in Nakano in Tokyo on the weekend to see the new baby. Baby Nanami was born about 3 weeks ago and is so tiny! She’s beautiful! Here’s a picture of the baby:
Evan and Lauren loved to hold the baby. Lauren loves to play with dolls, so having a real baby this time was out of this world for her!
And here are the proud parents:
Toki also showed us the bokudo he used when he was a child. Our kids loved to use it. Lauren would do these jump things in the air while hitting on the small sword – it was very cool!
I took Friday off work and we made a small trip to Yamaguchiko to do some skiing. It was 14 degrees and raining cats and dogs on Friday morning when we took off for Yamaguchiko for our ski trip. We were wondering whether there would be any snow left on the mountain, since it was so warm and raining. However when we got there around 1pm on Friday, it turned out to be beautiful sun! The place we went to was called Fujiten and we knew quite a few friends who have been there before. We rented clothes and Evan rented skis and we went into the kiddie area, which had a moving sidewalk and a gentle slope. Lauren and Mummy went on the sleds and Evan and I worked on Evan’s skiing ability. The place was very empty, particularly for a Friday!
Evan learned so quickly and by the end of the day, he was able to do a slalom of a sort. His slowing down wasn’t so good, but his turning ability was pretty good! By the end of the day, he was pretty tired, but I felt he made great progress towards skiing!
We made our way to the ryokan that I arranged and were really impressed with the ryokan. Very new and very tidy. We went for an onsen before dinner and were nice and relaxed for the dinner.
The onsen had an open-air part where one could look over the entire Yamaguchi-ko. It was so beautiful!
The dinner was as expected, huge! Very big dinner. The kids didn’t eat much of their dinner, so Nicole and I had dinner for 2. The kids knocked off very quickly, but were up in the night and in general, quite restless.
The next morning we were up not so early and we checked out and made our way to the ski resort again. This time the ski resort was packed with people! The queues were huge and we had to wait a long time for things like the ski wear, ski equipment and tickets. On the way there we saw Akiyo waiting in line! We also met up with Marta and Olivier and then Margareth as well. All the kids were really keen to ski. This time we also got skis for Lauren and myself, and Evan got skis as usual. Evan was keen to try the harder hills and he fell quite a bit at the beginning, but by the end of the day he was doing so well. He rarely fell, and was able to actively slow-down and stop using snow-plow and sometimes by falling down. He’s so amazing. We skied with Lucas and Agetha. Agetha was really very good and was very co-ordinated.
Evan’s skiing improved so much just in the 1.5 days we went. He really enjoyed it and I took Lauren for a ski once, which she really enjoyed. She’s very good at balancing on the skiis, as well as going straight, but she can’t slow down and doesn’t know how to turn. But Evan did an excellent job! We also met Akiya and Makoto on the hills and once were able to ski with them. Akira and Mamoru were both very good skiiers!
In all, it was an excellent day. The kids did so well and they’re asking when they can go skiing again!
I got my results back from my JLPT #3 and I passed! Yah!
I got 78% which was much better than I expected! I was expecting to fail, but I’m glad I passed.
This is the breakdown of my markes:
88% on the Kanji/Vocabulary
74% on the listening (I was expecting 0% for that one!)
75% on the Reading/Grammar
I’m very chuffed!
The JLPT#2 is far harder than the first 2, and my former teacher told me it would be around a 2 year process for getting JLPT#2, so I don’t think it’s too realistic to try for it. Anyways, we’ll keep going and see how far I can get!
I went to Korea for a business trip the other day just for the day. It was an interesting experience. The flight out there was very quick – only 2 hours on the way there, 1.5 on the way back. It’s almost as if one could go there just for the day. I had planned on being there just 1 day, but the flights etc were cheaper if I stayed 2, so I was there for 2. It was a busy time, meeting up with the customer and planning the next steps once finished.
I didn’t get to see anything of the city (apart from the taxi rides between customer visits) but that’s ok. It reminded me a bit of Japan. One thing that struck me as interesting was that on the way from the airport at midnight, there were lots of neon Christian crosses lighting up the night. I didn’t associate Korea with a strong Christian religion. Either that or the Korean Christians are more outspoken than the others (which could also be the case).
The day of the meetings was torrential downpour of rain and it was massively windy (more than Wellington even!) and I even saw the flags from the tops of the masts go flying away!
I did manage to get out to the stores before they closed at 9pm to get some souvenirs for the family. But the trip was a functional one, rather than a relaxing one!