Tag Archive for 'ice cream'

Happy Father’s Day!

Published on June 19, 2011 in Family, Gallery Update, Japan and Parenting. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

ice cream day

This weekend was Father’s Day, and I got a treat – home made pizza! Hope all the other father’s out there were treated so well! And a Happy Father’s Day to my Chinni and Jiji – two men that are, in a roundabout way, responsible for the existence of this very blog.

For us, it was a pretty quiet weekend overall. The rainy weather had a lot to do with that.

On Saturday, we headed out for an adventure in Ebina – I wanted ice cream and Tamie found a place about an hour’s walk that was supposed to be popular. About half-way there, in the middle of nothing but rice fields, it started to rain. What choice did we have? We pressed on – there was ice cream to be eaten!

rain day

We found a convenience store where I picked up an umbrella and things got a bit easier… but we weren’t out of the woods yet. About five minutes from the ice cream shop, Layla started to buckle. “I don’t have any more energy! I’m sooooo tired!” she lamented. I told her we’d be happy to pick her up on the way back if she wanted to wait for us there. Luckily we were close enough that she didn’t need convincing more than twice – once she saw the ice cream shop, she ran like the wind.

Inside the store was a grumpy old man behind a counter. His ice cream was good, and his shop was busy, but he seemed put off by the whole thing. Luckily for us, the crowd was there for the ice cream and not the atmosphere. It was good. Between the 4 of us, we tried 6 different kinds of ice cream – banana, blueberry, green tea, chocolate, caramel and chocolate chip. We even walked out with another 500ml to go.

That night, after the long walk back, we ended up at our local kushiyage place. The staff there are always friendly to us and the food is always good.

All in all, despite the rain, it turned out to be a very good day.

Sunday, aka Father’s Day, turned out to be a bit of a lazy day (it is my day after all). I took Layla for a bike ride and then we hung out at home for most of the day. Tamie made a great pizza dinner and we followed it up with an evening stroll. Sounds like the perfect Sunday to me.

Tamie’s Home

Published on April 4, 2010 in Family, Japan and weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Tamie got back from India on Saturday. After cleaning our apartment, I headed down to the airport to pick her up. As I waited, she walked right past me not even noticing me after I whistled at her. I understand it’s hard to pick me out of a crowd of short Japanese people so I wasn’t too upset.

We headed back to Tamie’s folks’ house where Layla was waiting. She was pretty excited to see her Mom – she ran outside to greet Tamie as we drove up the driveway. After seeing that reaction, I’m thinking of taking a business trip of my own for a week.

Sunday was our planned day to head to Kamakura to do the annual sakura (cherry blossom) thing. The weather was not very co-operative, although I guess I should be grateful it didn’t rain much. It seemed we were a couple days late as the a lot of the trees had already shed most of their blossoms, but it was still a nice trip. We visited a couple different temples, explored some back roads, and had a nice meal before coming home.

One stop we did make was at Tamie’s chopstick shop — I call it that because it’s where Tamie brought me to buy chopsticks when I first came here, and it’s where we go every time we need new chopsticks. This time, it was Layla we were getting chopsticks for! She picked out a small pair of chopsticks and we all ended up getting some. Even at the tender age of 2 (almost 3), Layla’s skill with chopsticks has already surpassed mine. Must be genetic.

Pictures can be seen here:

gallery link
Click here

Retired = Tired Again?

Published on March 8, 2010 in weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Tamie has a professor from her university days that she still keeps in contact with – we’ve visited him once and she always brings him and his wife ice wine from Canada when we go. Saturday was his last lecture, given to a room full of people he’d taught or worked with. The turnout was impressive – there must have been at least 200 people who showed up to celebrate his 44 years of service.

I didn’t understand a word of the lecture, but from what I gathered it was a brief 2+ hour presentation of the prof’s works and achievements over his career. The occasional laughter from the crowd hinted that he was dropping humour into his lecture, making me wish I understood the language a little bit better. Instead, I was busy holding Layla as she snored loud enough to embarrass Tamie, but not loud enough for anyone else to hear (thankfully).

The day was not without it’s humourous moments. As the speech was getting started, Layla was getting fidgety so I said I’d go get a drink from a vending machine… Layla wanted to come so we snuck out the back door to find a couple guys sitting in suits holding flowers waiting outside. The politely held the door and closed it quietly as we ventured forth on our quest for juice.

It was raining outside but we didn’t have any umbrella, so we dashed into and around buildings looking for a vending machine. In this country, you can pretty much hit a vending machine with a rock in any direction you decide to throw it. In this school campus, with the intention of finding one, it was next to impossible. I exaggerate, but it did take more time than I thought and by the time we actually found one I realized I didn’t have any change or bills small enough to actually use them! The card reader wouldn’t read my card or phone either (not that I was actually expecting it to).

With no way to work the vending machines, what could we do? Instead of going back to get change from Tamie, we headed over to the cafeteria that Tamie pointed out on our way in. The place was abandoned. There was one lady mopping the floor but no one available to break a large bill… so we ended up going to get change. And umbrellas. Our wet, squeaky shoes sure impressed the flower boys who held the door for us and the silent lecture hall that we tried to sneak through. Layla yelling ‘Mom!’ when she entered was fun too.

After we got some drinks and settled into a spot beside Tamie, things seemed to settle down. Layla tried to get comfortable on me and seemed ready to fall asleep… but not before she wanted to play a game on my phone. So I discretely pulled out my phone, ensured that the volume was turned down all the way and fired up her favourite Poke-A-Mole game. They say you learn something new every day, and that day I learned that my phone has two volumes — one volume for the ringer, which I had shut off, and one for media, which was at full blast. It only took a second to turn it down, but a second of poke-a-mole music in a silent lecture hall is definitely a second too much. The best part – Layla only played one game before she curled up and fell asleep.

As I watched the lecture, I couldn’t help but think about where I’m going to be after 44 years of working for the man. Dead, most likely, but if I’m still around I hope I’m sitting on the deck of my boat with a beer in one hand and a fishing rod in the other. I certainly don’t see myself working at the same place for 44 years… Heck – in the 7 years since I graduated I’ve worked at 3 different companies in 3 different cities across 2 countries. Including co-ops, it’s 6 companies in 10 years! At that rate, I’ll be on to company 32 or 33 in another 44 years!

When the lecture was complete, a few other people stood up and gave speeches to or about the professor. One guy even made another presentation with slides and everything. When it was almost over, the back doors opened and I expected to see the two guys who’d been waiting with the bouquets… The bouquets came, but carried by two girls who brought them up and presented them to the prof and his wife. I’m not sure who they were, but in a country of booth babes, hostesses, etc, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were hired just to present the flowers. Before wrapping up completely, there was a group photo taken — the big group required a big camera!

There was a small lunch buffet served where the prof got to mingle with everyone and enjoy the photo opportunities, shaking hands and kissing babies. As Layla was the only kid there, and one not totally happy being picked up by most people, not a lot of baby-kissing took place that day. But there were photos and handshakes aplenty.

We ended up going to Machida after we left the lunch to get Layla a much-deserved ice cream parfait. Green tea ice cream at least sounds healthy, doesn’t it? =)

2010-03-06 Gallery Link
Click here for the gallery

Shopaholics Anonymous

Published on November 8, 2009 in weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

To say that this weekend was a bit lazy would be an understatement. In fact, to say that this weekend was a lot lazy would still be an understatement.

Saturday we woke up around 1… in the afternoon. Layla was up until 11 the previous night, but she’d never slept in this late. I would have gladly slept in another hour if I wasn’t worried the poor kid was dead, or worse. Luckily she was still sawing logs, sweating up a storm in the process. I think she might have had a bit of a fever early in the morning and had sweat it out by mid afternoon. It’s why we kept her up late the previous night — score one for forward thinking parenting!

Our plan for the day was to go out and get some shoes. Big plans, to be sure, but we were already behind schedule. After getting cleaned up and having breakfast we were off to Machida for some shopping fun. If there’s one thing I love, it’s shoe shopping. Especially with my two favourite girls…

Surprisingly, we found Tamie’s shoes at the first place we hit. It was amazing, like nothing I’d ever seen before. She didn’t even need to try on more than three pairs of shoes before deciding. Twas’ a sign of things to come, or so I’d hoped, as we headed off to find my shoes…

The last pair of shoes I got here, they didn’t have my size so I had to get it delivered through the mail. I had tried some on for size, and they fit pretty well, so thought the ones coming in the mail would be as comfortable. After a couple days of wearing them, trying to break them in properly, I found they still were a bit small. To this day, they are still one of the most uncomfortable pair of shoes I’ve ever bought. With that in mind, I was determined to find a pair of shoes, in stock, that we could try on and buy… no matter how long it took.

I found a pair that seemed decent, and we asked the salesguy for a size 27, the sizes here being the size of your foot in cm… I’m still not exactly sure what the size 10 I wore in Canada actually represented, as my foot is neither 10 centimeters or 10 inches. He brought them and they were a bit snug, to say the least. We tried a 27.5 and again they were a bit small. Finally the guy looked at my current shoes, which were supposedly size 10 and said that should be a 28… I tried on a 28… and voila – a much better fit. Especially compared to the torturous shoes I’d been wearing. We walked out of that, the first store we hit for my shoes, successful in our search for shoes. Two for two!

To celebrate, we headed off for some ice cream. Layla told me she didn’t want a big ice cream, but she wanted me to have a big ice cream. How could I say no to that? She ended up taking all the parts of my parfait that she wanted, leaving me with her leftovers. Regardless, it was a decent snack and turned out to be most of our dinner. It turned out to be later than we thought and we were a bit stuffed, even after looking around for a while after the ice cream. We ended up at the outback for some steak salad… and some ice cream (for the kid) for dessert.

Today, we headed off for another trip to the park. Layla seems to love it there, and we love to take her. It’s the only grass field for miles, so it’s kind of a special place here… making it kind of a busy place too. One interesting thing about the grass park is the hill, where kids use cardboard as toboggans and slide down it. It sure looks ghetto, but I guess when there’s no snow you have to make do with what you got. One lady even tricked out her cardboard by putting plastic handles on it. Very impressive, indeed.

At the park, we kicked a ball around before heading off to the playground for some slide fun, only to close out with a terrifying steam spray. The same steam spray Layla used to love to run through as a young(er) kid, she’s now deathly afraid of. I ended up carrying her through it, which is more than she let me do last time, so progress is being made, albeit slowly. Maybe someday she’ll be as brave as she was when she was a year old. Maybe.

As we were leaving the park, the chipper youngster chirped up with her suggestion of what to do next. “Starbucks!” The call for the green tea frappuccino was message enough that we go there far too often. Regardless, we went. Some parents mark lines on a wall to watch how their kids grow up — we take pictures at Starbucks. I figure in five years, I’ll send the pictures in to the marketing department and see if I can’t make a few bucks on all the money we spent there. It’s really more of an investment, in that respect.

While we were sucking back our drinks, Layla pointed out that we dress her like a bum. The knee of her pants, already sewn up once, had another hole from her skinning her knee one of any number of times. She was adamant that we buy her new pants, and we were more than happy to oblige. We went to the Gap where a nice saleslady got to practice her English with us. She showed us a great deal on a new line of pants — buy 2 pairs and get 20% off the purchase. Sounded good. The only problem — there’s no way I am going to shell out 9200 yen (100 bucks!) on pants for my kid that she’s either going to outgrow or rip in two months. Even with a 20% discount.

I checked a few other places while Layla played, but I couldn’t find anything decent for a decent price. Tamie took a look and found a couple options (I’ll admit, she’s a much better shopper than I am). Layla picked a pair, tried them on, and was so happy with them that she ended up wearing them moments after we bought them.

Not having spent enough money yet, we headed off to buy a new vacuum cleaner. It wasn’t exactly a spur of the moment thing, as every time I vacuumed Tamie would complain about the quality of my work, and I would complain about the quality of the tools I was equipped with. The fact that she complained about the tool whenever she vacuumed too was a clear indicator it was less the blame of the operator as it was the fault of the machine. One new vacuum cleaner later, and I have a happy wife and a cleaner apartment. How’s that for win-win?

The last thing we wanted to buy, a Google phone for Tamie, had to be put on hold because by the time we actually got around to it, the store had closed. It wasn’t a total loss, though, as it will give us something to do next week, if we don’t find something else to do first.

Pictures from the weekend are here:

Saturday
Sunday