This page contains the May 2009 blog entries. The home page is
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Nana just left this Monday ... she was blogging up a storm while she was here, but now she's home and missing her grandchildren. So here are some quick pics.
The "new type influenza" has arrived in Japan, and within 10 days Japan had become the #4 country in terms of cases, and the top one outside North America. Schools in Osaka and Kobe are still closed, and Mirei's school closed as well (although there are no confirmed cases in Kyoto yet).
Many people are wearing masks, although less so where we are. Actually, masks are completely sold out at most outlets. Crazy!
Riku started karate yesterday. The dojo is just a few blocks away from our home. There are quite a few children from his school in his class. And it's a big age (and ability) range ... there is at least one three-year-old, and there are some maybe 8-year-old black belts. And older children (teens) that are mostly there to help out ... I guess their lessons are at some other time. There's one girl in the class ... the same age as Riku.
I sat in on the entire class, and really liked what I saw. Lots of focus on rules and behaviour of course, but the main teacher and assistants appeared very caring and even affectionate. We'll see how Riku enjoys it.
Mirei might start taking a wee aikido class at her school (with her mom). Aikido sounds really cool but the class would be too far for Riku.
... and a video here.
Joshing around in my office (please ignore the not-unpacked boxes in the background).
Riku and I noticed a modest little sushi restaurant on the route home from piano yesterday. It's a true mom-and-pop place. The "mom" was outside getting the place ready for the night. Riku asked her what kind of food they served, and she replied, "sushi, sashimi, tempura, ...", to which Riku replied, "oh, those are my favourite things!".
So, tonight, Saturday night, we decided to go. Akane did the ordering ... she ordered chirashi for her/me, and sushi (unagi, tamago) for Riku and Mirei. Plus an order of karaage (fried chicken) to share. And we ended with an order of expertly-cooked tempura (fish, prawn, many veggies).
I had a draft beer. One thing I love about Japan is that you can order a "beer" ... no need to mention a brand. And when you finish that beer, you can order another, which I did, again without needing to mention a brand.
Riku kept himself busy drawing, and Mirei impressed us by remembering how to spell/write Riku's name. She also did some drawings.
About halfway through the meal, the son of the owners showed up. We got to chatting and it turns out that he was in the first graduating class at Riku's school.
As we left, Riku said, "we'll be back!"
(Mirei's portrait of Riku, and Riku's cat drawing.)
... and a quick video of Mirei eating cartilage.
The sushi place and the walk home ...
The children are both back at school today. Mirei had a little extra break ... four school days off as a result of the flu scare.
We had a pretty mellow weekend. Riku has no outside commitments, so it's just piano and such for him. He and Akane watched a DVD (using our new Netflix-like service) ... a drama starring "Smile" from Ping Pong about (from what I could discern) two competing Korean BBQ restaurants. There were lots of extended, only-in-Japan (?) food sequences with dreamy closeups of food being prepared and consumed.
Immediately afterward, Akane went off on her bike for food shopping, and came home with supplies for our own yakiniku dinner. I took Mirei and Riku off to one of our nearby parks while she did the preparations.
Quite a few children in the park, along with their moms and dads (it being Sunday ... usually nary a daddy in sight). Riku almost immediately started playing baseball with a very convivial older boy. He was amazingly patient with Riku who, admittedly, has never really had "much" ball practice of any sort. Mirei joined in from time to time as well.
This is actually the first time I've been to this park, just a 4-minute walk from our place. It's surprisingly big, with a lower section that's just a big open field (lots of children, boys and girls, practicing their baseball arm). The top section has a nice view east, along with the usual old-school playground items: swings, monkey bars, slide, sandbox.
Riku ended up playing with that boy for 45 minutes before we headed home for a proper feast: beef, onions, carrots, two kinds of potatoes, broccoli, kabocha squash ... all prepped for the tabletop grill. Served with rice and sweet dipping sauce.
Riku and I have been doing daily spelling drills, working our way through an online list I found of frequently-encountered words. There are about 250 words on the list and we're up to 90. I dumped them in a little database and randomly choose 25 from the list, slowly increasing the range:
select * from t_word where id>15 and id<90 order by rand() limit 25;
He used to write the words out, but we've switched to his just spelling them out loud. He's a pretty confident speller ... nice to see.
Riku has also been sleeping in his own bed, by himself (important distinction), and even falling asleep on his own, for the past week, ever since Nana headed home.
I've been asking people for restaurant recommendations. One place that was suggested was 今井食堂 (Imai Shokudou) a famous (and modest) place that specializes in saba (mackerel). It's right across from the Kamigamo Jinja, the (more) famous Shinto shrine down the river just south of our place.
Akane and I took our bikes down ... less than ten minutes on this beautiful warm day. We zigzag willy-nilly through the neighbourhood. I love looking at all the houses ... so much visual variety. Crossed the river and a minute later were at the restaurant. Small lineup outside, and we were seated in five minutes or so.
We ordered オススメ定食 (osusume teishoku ... "recommended set meal") consisting of of a big, generous bowl of miso soup with big daikon radish slices, simple bowl of rice, pickles, and a plate of croquette, skewered chicken, and saba cooked in ginger and soy sauce. The saba is very rich ...
The meal was ¥730, or about $7.50. Lots of photos on the walls of celebrities and their autographs. Super-casual place ...
I took Riku to his second karate class today. Today was lots of sitting and listening to the instructor. But towards the end they had some bouts and Riku was asked by the teacher if he wanted to try. He said yes!
Luckily, I brought my camera (thinking that he'd be getting his outfit today, but it's delayed until next class). So, I got his first bout on tape.
Big surprise to us all ... Riku scored the first point! Bigger surprise to us all ... Riku won the match 6-2! He was so happy ... I was pretty happy too!
If you watch the video, you can see the young boy in the middle keeping score with his fingers, and see some of the boys (and the teacher) signal with their arm who they thought won the point.
In the photo, taken after the video, you can see the current score as 2-5 ... and Riku is in the midst of scoring the winning point.
First, the video ...
And the pic:
I took a half-dozen photos of the walk home from Riku's school this morning. They were taken just after 8:30 ... I had dropped Riku off and was walking home on my own ... about a 10-minute walk.
We are in the city limits of Kyoto but are very much in the north. Walking home from Riku's school goes something like this:
- west along a short path crossing some agricultural plots
- south along a road bordering the Kamogawa river's east side until we reach the bridge
- west across the bridge
- zigzag south and west through our neighbourhood (mostly homes, with some small garden plots)
Here are some quick snaps of the walk:
At Riku's school, looking southwest towards our neighbourhood (houses in distance):
Crossing west across the agricultural plots, looking north over a newly-planted rice crop:
Heading south along the east bank of the river (but looking north) ... you can see the tall fence surrounding Riku's schoolyard at the far right:
From the same spot, but looking more northeast, directly at Riku's school ... in the foreground are the plots we just crossed a bit further up:
On the pedestrian bridge over the river, looking south ... a few miles from here and you are in the very heart of old Kyoto ... you can ride your bike the whole way down:
From the same spot on the bridge, looking north ... there are often great blue herons, egrets, and mallard ducks to be seen:
Finally, a picture of Riku, arriving home on his own six hours later (he actually walks with a group of children and teacher from the school until he's across the river and the two busy roads on either side of it):
(I will soon take and post another set of pictures of the final stretch through our neighbourhood ... which looks decidedly less rural than the above ... do I sound a bit defensive?!)
It's Saturday night and we're in Sakai for the weekend.
As soon as Riku got home from school, we hopped the bus to pick up Mirei, then headed to Kyoto station (another bus) and hopped a jam-packed train for Osaka.
This was rush hour on Friday ... lots of people heading into Osaka. We had a bunch of bags (weekend packing plus some gifts) and two children and no seats. Luckily the children were cooperative. I held Mirei most of the way, which was hard as I needed one hand to hold on to the train.
What really saved us, though, were about a dozen maybe 20-year-old girls heading into the big city, all paying lots of attention to Mirei and Riku. Mirei was taking the spotlight and was being kind of pseudo-shy ("shy for effect"). Riku was more genuinely shy but eventually pulled out a notebook and started drawing and writing and showing his works-in-progress to the girls.
Once in Osaka, maybe 40 minutes from Kyoto station, we hopped off and grabbed a quick dinner at Deli Cafe, a pretty generic place. We have eaten few times at their Tennoji station location, until Akane said once, "why do we eat here?". But this time (we were at Umeda station, the biggest in the city) we got lucky with the ordering. Riku and I shared "omurice" ... rice omelette ... very popular comfort food. Although this was a "fancified" version, with more textured grain rice and some nice Italian seasoning over top.
Mirei and Akane shared a simple pasta with tomato sauce and I think some seafood in there as well. Riku and Mirei each got a "strawberry milk" which they loved. We were all fueled up for the final leg of the trip ... an express commuter train from Umeda to Sakai station ... just under 40 minutes and again no seats! But no complaints ... children were great ... I don't know if we'll be so lucky next time. Total door-to-door time for Riku was almost four hours ... 3 1/2 for Mirei ...
(Transitioning from our extremely spacious and quiet neighbourhood to pretty-busy Kyoto station to crazy-busy Umeda (Osaka) station made me realize that we truly don't live in the city anymore ... the masses of people were a genuine shock to my system. I loooove that big city bustle, although I prefer it without little children in tow ... even though I love having them get a nice taste of it as well.)
Ayako and Masu were both out ... Masu working very late and Ayako helping a coworker with some wedding planning. So we didn't see them until the morning. Masu had to work on Saturday, too, which he was trying hard to get out of (by working late Friday), but no such luck. But the plan happened anyway ... Akane and Ayako took Riku and Mirei to Universal Studios Japan! They were gone from 10am until 5:30pm and the children came home happy and excited. (I worked and relaxed.)
Masu got home and the six of us headed out to the Goda family's favourite yakiniku place in Sakai. We go here often ... it's always crowded (I've been maybe 10 times and we've never not waited in line). Superb eating!
The whole Goda clan was there, so Riku and Mirei got to play with Haruka (a bit older than Mirei) and Kiyohito (getting big ... not quite walking). It was a lively meal for sure. I'm so impressed with Riku's eating habits ... the boy ate everything I gave him. Grilled meats, mushrooms, Japanese eggplant, grilled onions, cold noodles, pickled beansprouts, grilled potato, ...
Here's a quick video of the meal. (Riku is saying, "Mommy, niku oishii ne?" ... "the meat's delicious".)
Quick breakdown of the food pics ... sorry, I don't really know the names. Clockwise from top left:
- Tongue (to be grilled); pickled beansprouts, mountain vegetable, spinach, mystery vegetable; kimchi and other pickled veggies
- Meat salad (with the egg on top) ... to be eaten as-is ...
- Snap of restaurant entrance
- Reimen ... cold noodle soup ... very chewy noodles ... refreshing post-feast dish
And finally, Riku's drawing of the meal ... the letters spell "ya-ki-ni-ku" (repeated four times) ... going from the uncooked meat on the plate to the cooked meat over the flame ...
I'm trying to start a new tradition of afterward stopping for gelato whenever we eat at the yakiniku place.
This is the place that opened when Akane was pregnant either with Riku or with Mirei. The guy who runs it is super-cool, super-friendly, and super-amazing with gelato. Tonight, of his 20+ flavours, 18 were sold out. I'm so happy that the place is thriving, as it's hardly in a busy area.
We had to buy the prepackaged cups ... callebaut chocolate, custard, marscapone something-or-other, etc. He usually has exotic (not just to me) flavours like black sesame, celery, etc.
And a little Wii back at the condo to round off the night ...
I worked Sunday morning ... downstairs at the recently-moved Mister Donut. An older location was across the street, but it closed down last month and a shiny new one has opened in the condo complex (displacing KFC!). I kinda liked the old location, even though I felt guilty patronizing it rather than the indie coffee places. But sometimes you can't beat those free coffee refills. The new location also has a somewhat more isolated/enclosed smoking section. Not hermetically sealed but not bad ...
I was only down there for 90 minutes or so, until my laptop battery drained. Then back to the condo for a bit more work (while Riku and Mirei, mostly Riku, gorged on a Wii target practice game with Masu and Ayako). We tried to go to the cool enclosed park off the 5th floor of the condo, but it was closed off due to bad weather (it was raining earlier in the day). So instead we headed to the massive open area behind the condo. Not the most interesting place (for me), but there are always people congregated there, especially on a Sunday.
Riku and Mirei kept themselves occupied looking for bugs (and finding an old stump way in the back that had been turned into an ant "condo"), playing with/in the fountain, etc.
Here's a quick video.
Then time for a quick lunch with Masu and Ayako ... a "sushi boat" place (as I call them, because in SF the sushi truly comes around in boats). Here, though, they're on conveyor belts. Riku loves sitting "curbside" and taking responsibility for pulling the requested dishes off the belt.
You can grab whatever looks good, but there's also an intercom at each booth, and you can order something specific. In that case, they put them on a special plate so that others know it's not up-for-grabs when it passes by ...
(Riku also likes doing the ordering via the intercom, something that kind of surprises me, as he's pretty shy.)
Then a quick good-bye at Sakai station and time for the longish trip home. Riku and Mirei were both up late the night before, and were definitely ready for a nap ... Japan is heating up and walking through the stations with all our bags isn't much fun with tired children ...
We took a train to Namba (in southwest Osaka), long walk to the subway, then subway to Umeda (north Osaka, main train station), then the (lovely) Hankyu line to Kyoto. Akane's mom had bought us tickets on Hankyu for the return trip, and it's much nicer than JR (Japan Rail) for two reasons: nicer cars (really classy, burgundy w. wood trim interiors) and the line begins at Osaka, meaning we can actually get seats. Mirei was already asleep in my arms before we got on board ... Riku asleep five minutes later, and Akane five minutes after that ...
45 minutes and we were at our stop in Kyoto ... then a transfer to the subway (after picking up some fresh-squeezed juice at the kiosk in the station ... Mirei had a currant-like berry whose name escapes me and Riku had "Tokyo Juice" ... some kind of mix with pineapple) ... then a bus trip and a final little walk ... home! Door-to-door it was about 3 1/2 hours ... crazy.
We had a quiet, mellow evening ... i "made" pizzas (w. prepared pizza crusts, pizza sauce in a squeeze bottle, and pre-shredded cheese advertised as "Natural Cheese from the World" ... phew!), steamed carrots, peas-in-pods, cherry tomatoes) and we ate while watching a Chinese action-comedy (new basketball-themed movie by the Shaolin Soccer director). Riku also had about 15 minutes of homework to do, and we skipped on piano.
The haul to get to Sakai is pretty long ... don't expect we'll do that trip more than 3-4 times a year, even though it's great once we get there. Akane's mom and sister are coming up next weekend ... I think that's the more likely/common/convenient way we'll get together.
Monday mornings are my favourite!
School day of course, so everyone's up early and busy getting ready. Riku and I are out the door before 8am, and Akane and Mirei about 20 minutes later.
Why my favourite? Well, it's still Sunday in San Francisco, so it's not a workday for me ... plus, the children are back at school, so I truly have the day to myself. On top of that, it's a workday here, so the city (the portions I use and care about, that is) is less busy, and everything's open in case I need to run any errands.
Here are some quick snaps of the walk to and from school this morning.
Rice planter ... the field right outside Riku's school is being planted this morning. The principal told me it'll be harvested in October or so.
Riku's art ... four different emotions ... posted in the back of his classroom.
Student art on display.
In the classroom ... a few minutes before the 8:30 morning bell ... Riku (red shorts) and his teacher are up front.
A favourite little street just before reaching home ... a tiny old shrine entrance visible on the right.