Today was Tamie’s mom’s birthday and we celebrated in style. We all went out to lunch at one of her favourite restaurants… the restaurant is up in the mountains and hamster and papa-san took the second car (the GPS-less Celica) while the rest of us all crammed into the Prius. Along the way, we saw the Celica drive past us going in the opposite direction – turns out they stopped to pick up a dozen roses. The birthday girl’s eyes lit up when she saw the flowers – mission accomplished!
Lunch was good and beefy with a bit of wine and a bit more beer. Even the birthday girl went with a glass of wine after debating which kind of juice to drink.
For whatever reason, Layla decided she wanted to sit on my lap for most of the lunch, helping to eat the good parts of my meal. She’s really learning the word ‘share’ these days… she uses it a lot, although the definition is a bit off in her mind. To her, sharing means “you have something I want”. To be honest, it was initially a one-way street, but these days she is getting better at actual sharing too, not just asking to share.
After lunch, Jiji wanted to buy Layla a piano. At least, that was my uneducated interpretation of what I heard is. We headed to Toys R Us of all places, where Layla ran up and down the aisles taking it all in. In the end, she picked out some books and a kid karaoke machine with a bunch of Japanese kids’ songs. There was a 7.1 megapixel camera there for 2500 yen that I almost bought for her, but thought better of it… she plays with my camera enough – if she breaks it, I’ll just have to buy a new one… something I wouldn’t be loathe to do.
We headed back to the grandparents’ house for some karaoke fun. Multiple renditions of several of the 32 songs were sung by at least Tamie and Layla, with the occasional vocal backings of the aunt and/or grandparents. Seems like that little machine is a good investment so far! We’ll see how much they like those 32 songs in a year.
We came back home after doing a bit of grocery shopping, Tamie prepared supper while I played with Layla. We ended up watching the princess and the frog… Tamie nearly burst into tears at the end because of the … well, I won’t ruin the ending for anyone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures from the lunch, the shopping, the karaoke, or the movie… but I did snap a few of running in the rain.
This weekend was like any other weekend with the exception of an early(ish) checking of the status of a server at work. Everything looked okay, thank goodness, or this weekend would not have been nearly as good as it was!
Saturday we called my folks, who just returned from a trip to Calgary, and they seemed quite happy. It was a rare Friday night that they were home and not out gambling (or something). Auntie Gina was there so we got a chance to talk with her as well. Layla impressed all by folding laundry for the webcam — you got to start them young!
Tamie had a dentist appointment so I chilled with Layla while she headed off to get her teeth checked. We met up afterward at the train station and headed off to the park for a day of letting Layla play, and play she did. Hours passed before we finally headed off for “lunch”, which ended up being an early dinner at the Outback — hamburgers all around! Even Layla had a Joey burger and ate almost most of it, earning a balloon out of the deal.
Sunday, we Tamie’s sister came to pick us up and head in to Tokyo to see an aquarium. The plan was to leave at 8:30~9:00, but as is often the case, we didn’t get away until 10ish. After a long drive but a quick nap in the car later were arrived at Tokyo Sea Life Park! The nearly full parking lot was a bit intimidating, but thankfully, it wasn’t so bad inside the aquarium.
Overall, I’d say the aquarium did provide some entertainment but it was a bit lacking compared to the Enoshima aquarium we frequent. After being impressed with the shark tank that greets you, the main tank (judging by size) was nearly void of fish. There were a lot of smaller tanks with interesting creatures to see, but none of them really interested Layla — she got it in her head she wanted to see penguins… so off we went to see the penguins! The poor penguins… as we approached the penguin pen, the smell was a bit off. We quickly realized it was because they were doing some kind of maintenance on their pool so they didn’t have anywhere to swim! 10 days without a pool! They should have dumped them into the main pool.
We spent a lot of time around the touching pools where Layla tried hard to be brave. She did make progress though – she touched the water on more than one occasion. Her penultimate achievement for the day was after a presentation about star fish, they offered to let kids touch them and she actually got in line, went right up to the front and poked one! Once! It was a crowning achievement and one she looked so proud of.
Right before we left, I saw the fish in the shark tank were swimming about, all over the place. When we first arrived all the fish were at the top of the tank while the sharks were at the bottom… I was hoping to see some feeding but the sharks seemed to be on a diet or something. As I was busy taking bad pictures, Layla got mad because I wouldn’t let her play with my camera… I told her to wait a minute – her response? “Time to go!” before grabbing her Mom’s hand and heading for the exit. She’s soooo cute, eh?
On the way back to the car, we stopped to catch a show by a street juggler, Sobuki. He put on a good show for the large crowd and had my camera batteries not died I’d have a picture of him juggling knived while balancing on multiple boards/blocks on top of a cylinder on a trunk. Hard to explain, but there are pictures from right before the batteries died so take a look. =)
Back in the car, it was another long drive/short nap before we were home putting together the 108 piece puzzle Layla insisted she wanted from the gift shop.
On Friday, Tamie called me while I was going to work to ask if I had any idea why the carbon monoxide detector in our place would be going off. Surprisingly, I had no idea. The building maintenance guy had heard it going off and called Tamie to come and check it out. By the time she got back to the apartment, the alarm was silent and everything seemed normal. As a precaution, she called the gas company and they set up an appointment on the following day to come and investigate. We spent the night at home and Tamie even cooked with our gas stove, so I suspected it was just a false alarm.
Saturday morning, pre-8am, Tamie’s dad came over to wake us up bright and mostly early. He was going to stick around our place for the gas people coming over while we took Layla to her daycare event. Tamie’s mom joined us for the fun, and what fun it turned out to be. We were scrambling to get ready and made it with seconds to spare. As such, we got stuck in the back of the room, hidden behind the two hundred other parents, and the hundred or so tripods set up. I ended up standing so I could actually see, and record, the action.
Layla did a great job in her performance, obviously not shy to be on stage. Luckily she didn’t end up headbutting anyone with her performance, although I think she did whip herself in the face once or twice. At the end of the event, she was pretty excited and clearly quite pleased with how things turned out. Tamie, as is becoming usual, was so proud she cried.
After the event, we took Layla to a local waffle shop for a fruit covered waffle. She, instead, went after the yogurt that came with Tamie’s soup and sandwich. It wasn’t until after the yogurt was done that she looked at the blueberries, strawberries and bananas that covered the ice-cream topped waffle. I tried to eat my lunch quickly so I might get a sniff of that fruit, but alas, I was too late.
Once lunch was finished, we headed to Isehara to meet up with Tamie’s dad again. Layla seemed tired, probably from going to bed late, getting up early and dancing up a storm. She tried to sleep on me as I held her on the train… unfortunately for her, it was only a ten minute ride and we were in the car with grandpa in no time. He drove us up into the mountains to meet the rest of the family for a day of picking oranges. We cleaned one of the two trees assigned to the family, Layla proudly picking (and eating) several oranges herself. Tamie scooted up the tree to pick oranges off the central top and I, being the tallest, got the dubious honour of picking the oranges that she couldn’t reach around the edges. Teamwork – it’s a wonderful thing.
We were invited for sukiyaki at the grandparents’ house, and never one to turn down a good meal, I quickly said yes. We went back to the house to drop off the oranges and take a bit of a rest. Poor Layla fell asleep in the car, just before we pulled into the driveway. We were planning on going shopping and debated just leaving her in the car to sleep but thought better of it. As soon as I unbuckled her seatbelt, though, her eyes popped open and she was wide awake again. We went inside for some tea and potato chips that Layla found. While eating them, the poor kid told me to come with her and nap on the couch. It was pretty funny… “Take a nap! Take a nap! Please! On the couch!” she pleaded.
I put the exhausted kid down on her futon, the place she usually naps, and she almost fell asleep. When baa-baa suggested buying some cake, she popped up like a jack-in-the-box. She tried to get us all to go for cake, but we told her we were taking the car and going shopping. I could see the wheels turning in her head as she weighed the options. Cake or shopping. Tough choices at such a young age. In the end, she decided to come with us as we headed out to try to do some Christmas/clothes shopping.
We headed to the shopping centre with the biggest baby store to try and find some clothes for Layla. On the way, the poor kid fought the urge to fall asleep, losing the battle just as we pulled up to the store. We sat in the parking lot for a couple minutes as she sawed logs in the back seat. After ten minutes, I picked her up and carried her into the store. When she saw we were shopping, she immediately woke up and got her second (or, more precisely, fourteenth) wind.
As we entered the baby store, Layla wanted to head to the toy department right away but we cut her off and told her after the clothes shopping. It wasn’t until recently that we noticed that all of her pants seem to end just under her knee and her gut sticks out from under her shirt. She’s already a big kid, but wearing clothes that are too small just emphasize the fact that she’s a might bit bigger than the other kids in her age group. We ended up buying her a couple different pairs of pants and shirts, as there was a good sale on. We only lost track of her once in the store, when she disappeared to find the toy section she’d been pleading with us to see.
After buying a completely new wardrobe for the little princess, we went next door to Toys R Us to see if there was anything interesting for Christmas presents. It was no surprise that Layla didn’t just find one thing interesting – she found everything interesting. From the stuffed animals in the first corner of the store to the cars and trucks in the middle and the candies and drinks at the cash register. If it were up to her, she’d have every toy in the place. Luckily, it’s not up to her and we left with cash in our wallets and room in the car.
Before heading back home for dinner, we stopped to get groceries and, more importantly, meat. At the meat store, Layla found a package with Thomas the Tank Engine on it – she had no idea what was inside but knew that she wanted it. It turned out to be a package of sausages, which she was more than happy to chow down on.
Back in Isehara, we had a nice meal with the family, and I think everyone ate too much. I know I did. After supper, Hamster and Baa-baa wanted to take Layla to see the Christmas lights on one particular house in the neighbourhood. I went along, camera in hand, to see the sight. It was quite a sight, indeed. Even in Canada, it would stick out. Layla loved it.
This weekend we headed out to a small, desolate location up in the mountains… Kawaguchi Lake was our destination… not for a romantic getaway, although Tamie was exhausted by the end of the trip and sore in places she didn’t even know existed. Yep – you guessed it. She ran a marathon. Tamie and her sister/hamster ran early Sunday morning while I took care of the kid. I’m proud of both her and her sister for finishing the thing. I got winded exploring the lake with Layla for a couple of hours.
As an aside, I wanted to mention another reason I’ve discovered why Japan is so awesome. We went to Burger King for lunch on Saturday (a good pre-race lunch if ever there was one) and I found that they sold Heineken. At Burger King.
I also wanted to give a shout out, as it were, to my old man who severely kicked my… er… who quite handily beat me in the Sportsnet hockey pool we’re both in. He nearly doubled the number of points my team got and just about won the weekly prize. Nicely done!
