Tag Archive for 'shopping'

Home Sweet Home

Published on January 31, 2011 in Family, Japan, Parenting and weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Family

Finally, after nearly a month, our family is whole again. Julia and Tamie moved back to Ebina on Saturday afternoon and I couldn’t be happier. Or tireder.

It’s been a pretty tame weekend, as we spent most of it moving and hanging out in Ebina, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. We braved going out to a restaurant for dinner last night, and Julia slept on me the whole time we ate. We ventured out today for a day of shopping and eating and again she slept through the meal. 2 for 2 so far in attempts at eating out with the new kid. I like her already. =)

Layla, ever helpful, even pushed the stroller when we were out today. She got downright angry when Tamie pushed it instead of her. She was absolutely livid when we chose a different blanket than the one she wanted for Julia. Yep, big sister was sure happy little sister was around this weekend… it was her parents she wasn’t too happy about.

One of the things we picked up for Julia was a pacifier. There were two kinds – silicone or latex. What’s the difference? Who knows… The silicone package had 2 in it and the latex only had 1 for the same price. That must mean the latex one is twice as good, right? Luckily, I had my google phone and it told me. Apparently silicone is easier to maintain and keep clean. SOLD. The fact that there were two meant Layla could have one… apparently. When we got home later that day, she took over the one that Julia didn’t use. Having said that, she’s been eying the blue one for a while now…

Tonight, I got to work on the applications for the kids’ passports and Julia’s Canadian citizenship. I’ve gotten pretty good at writing my name, address and phone number. Next time, we’re having the kid in Canada.

Anyways, that’s a random rambling of our weekend. I’ve posted some pictures in the gallery, take a gander.

Long Weekend, Short Week

Published on September 20, 2010 in Family, Japan and weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

This weekend was a long weekend, due to today being “Respect for the Aged Day”. Not sure why it’s an actual holiday, but I’ll take it. Thursday this week is also a holiday (Autumn equinox) making this week a pretty short week. Gotta love it when that happens!

This weekend wasn’t especially busy, but we did manage to get out to do a couple things. Saturday we went shopping, looking for a new mattress for Layla for her new big bed. Tamie got it in her head that she wanted bunk beds in preparation of number 2, assuming we could just put the two kids together in one room from the get-go. I thought it best to wait until the second was old enough to sleep through the night before we considered that… Layla, however, loved the idea. Luckily, this time, I won out. We got a single mattress for her (although, I’m sure it fits into the bunk bed frame if need be)

That night Tamie wanted to have some meat for supper and who was I to argue? Barbecued beef sounds good to me anytime. We tried a local yakiniku shop, which from the outside looked like a hole, but inside turned out to be pretty decent. The old lady owner really took a shine to Layla, equally impressed that she spoke Japanese and was very polite. I knew she spoke Japanese, but I’m always impressed with how polite our kid is. I guess she gets that from Tamie.

Sunday we headed down to Hon Atsugi for what I thought was a small food festival, celebrating different foods from all across Japan. I think all of Tokyo showed up for it, as there were only about two million people milling about. Lineups ranged anywhere from 45 minutes to up to two hours! People were waiting 2 hours for 400 yen yakisoba, a food you can get at any festival in Japan. Thankfully, Tamie thought better of lining up and instead we bought some at the grocery store and she made it at home. Personally, I think her yakisoba is much better than the festival variety… and even if this particular festival’s yakisoba was supposed to be the best in all of Japan, I still think hers is better because I didn’t have to die in a two hour line to get it!

Layla, too, was anxious to have some food at the festival. When she hears the word festival now she associates it with the flavoured shaved ice she gets when we go. She was looking forward to it so much that she even agreed to walk all the way to get it, fighting the urge to ask me to carry her. And much to her credit, she did walk. Through two different festival sites. Only to find that there was no shaved ice booth. D’oh! We ended up at a cafe that sold the stuff, only at a 600% markup, but they added some frozen strawberries and a scoop of ice cream for the trouble. It was actually pretty good, and the price of admission paid for the air conditioning we enjoyed. After leaving the cafe, we found a booth selling the festival variety shaved ice, but by then Layla was satiated. And we were broke.

Today was the final day of our extended weekend and we didn’t really have any plans. Tamie had a dentist appointment at 10 and we were going to meet after that. She called me at 10:10 and said she was finished. Layla and I had just finished eating breakfast and were nowhere near ready to head out to meet her so she came back home. We ended up spending the day spoiling Layla (as opposed to every other weekend, eh?). We took her to the indoor kids’ fantasy land, the park for kids where most parents zone out in massage chairs, sit at slot machines or just read a book while their kids go wild. She loved it. After that, we went for lunch and she took her Mom on a train ride around the shopping centre. Finally, we ended up at an outdoor concert that broke out, as they often do, at the same shopping centre.

That’s about it. Check the gallery for more pics. Sorry for blurry, dark, or overexposed pictures. I’m still practicing with my new camera and I’m too lazy to filter out the bad pictures.

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Little Biker

Published on August 3, 2010 in Family and weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Layla has been really getting into the biking scene, enjoying the red bike her grandparents have at their home. Her Chinni gave her the idea that she’d also have a bike in Ottawa, so for the last little while all we ever hear about is how she’s going shopping with Chinni to buy a green bike in Canada. With all the love bikes have been getting recently, I asked her if she wanted a bike fro Ebina too. The answer, unsurprisingly enough, was an emphatic yes.

On Saturday, after a long day of shopping, we headed to one shop on our way home to check out the bikes they had. Layla picked out the first bike she saw. It was blue. That was enough. She didn’t even need to try it out for size. I told her that we’d come back the next day after checking out a few other shops in the neighbourhood and she was, thankfully, satisfied with that.

Sunday came and we eventually headed out to a second shop. Layla immediately grabbed a bike and said it was the one she wanted. I asked her if she was sure she could ride it and she nodded. I chuckled as I took the bike off the shelf and put it on the floor, asking her to ride it around the small area we were in. She sat on the 14″ bike and finally realized there was no pedals. We got a sales guy to get some and she rode it around the store for a bit only to find it was a bit small for her.

She tried the 16″ bike and it was too heavy – try as she might she couldn’t move it. It wasn’t that big of a deal, though, because I don’t think the baby blue colour was her first (or second) choice. The 18″ bike the guy recommended was orange with Winnie The Pooh all over it. Surprisingly, she not only could move it but got around pretty good. I asked if she liked it and she said yes. I then asked if she wanted it and she said no. So off to a third store we went.

This time, we found a couple bikes of acceptable colours and sizes, but before our hero even tried the first one she saw something more interesting. Bike helmets! Who needs a bike when you can buy a spiffy blue bike helmet? Layla wanted to try on every helmet there, and I think she did, before finally settling on a sporty blue helmet that anyone would be proud to wear. Luckily, we also found a bike – an 18″ black one with a basket and a hand-brakes! What more could a kid ask for?

The store is about a 20 minute walk from our home and I wasn’t sure how well Layla could ride, especially after seeing her shakily get around the store. As we paid for the bike and helmet, I couldn’t help but imagine a tired, hungry Layla asking to be carried while I had to push this bike all the way home… luckily, my imagination runs wild sometimes. Once we were outside, Layla was off like a rocket. She handled that bike like a pro, flying around corners and down sidewalks – I had to run to keep up. We made it home in record time! I was impressed!

This morning she was so eager, I let her ride the bike to daycare. Even after getting off the bike she refused to take the helmet off, wanting to show everyone her cool new hat. I’m sure if I didn’t take it back home with me, she’d have worn it home when Tamie picked her up (even without the bike!).

What a kid, eh?

Long Weekend, At Least For Some…

Published on March 22, 2010 in weekend. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

This weekend was (still is =) a long weekend here in Japan. At least, for those of us not working on a very busy project for a car company that shall remain nameless… Tamie had to work on Saturday and she has to work again tomorrow (Monday), so while the rest of the country gets a special 3 day weekend, the employees in her group get a special 1 day weekend. Nice!

So Saturday, I got the opportunity to take care of Layla for the day. I took her to the park because she wanted to go on a big slide, but she never actually went on it. Instead she discovered that she is able to jump across the tires that are set up that she’d been, up until Saturday, afraid to attempt. She was so proud that she made it across that she did it four or five times in a row. On the fifth time, she fell and cried something fierce, but eventually got up and played again… on another part of the playground.

Eventually, the kid got hungry and we were off to grab something to eat. I offered everything from rice to burgers to waffles to pasta but she wanted Starbucks. I’m beginning to think we go there far too often. Regardless, I took her there and we sat and watched people walk by as I took about a million pictures of her eating and sucking back her frappuccino.

When the music started playing from the band downstairs, we bailed on the chilling and went to take a look. It was a band who’d played Ebina before, but for good reason – the crowd seemed to really get into it, singing along, waving towels and dancing! A much livelier crowd than I usually see at the free concerts every weekend.

We met Tamie for dinner later that evening, yakiniku was the meal of choice (ladies’ choice, and a good one at that!). We bbq’d up chowed down on a lot of meat that night. We even a bit of vegetables too — to satisfy Tamie’s momly instincts.

After dinner, we headed home. Climbing a set of stairs, Layla nearly passed out. I don’t know what they put into her orange juice, but the poor kid collapsed as Tamie caught her. It wasn’t until I asked he if she wanted some chocolate and to be carried that she came to and promptly climbed up into her mom’s arms.

Sunday was a day for the family, albeit a lazy one. It wasn’t until the afternoon that we even got mobile and headed out to do some shopping. As Layla is getting older, she is getting into the more advanced stages of daycare — the strict requirements are getting even stricter. We need to get a bunch of supplies, things such as bags of various sizes, play-doe with associated tools, and SIXTEEN different colour crayons. Why sixteen? Because it seems like they only get sold her in packs of 12.

With the daycare shopping out of the way, we let Layla check out the kid’s arcade that houses rides and games for young kids. They must make a killing there as it’s always busy and the games and rides are a minimum of 100 yen and last about a minute. I see some parents in there with there kids for a lot longer than a couple minutes (ie. they are there when we get there and still there when we leave). Luckily Layla isn’t the type of kid to make a fuss after only one ride… at least, not yet. After riding the Thomas the Tank Engine ride for 45 seconds, Layla was happy to go. She was even happier when one of the employees gave her a snack on the way out.

We ended up at Vina Walk shortly after shopping. There were kids playing in the small water pools there, despite the strong, cold winds blowing that day. Of course, seeing those kids, Layla wanted to take a turn. We sat by the pool as she debated whether or not she really wanted to go in. She slowly took off her jacket and socks and rolled up her pants. By the time she got down to the water and touched it, 15 minutes must have passed. Once she was in, though, she had a blast!

Check out the pictures here:


Saturday Pictures
Saturday Pictures
Sunday Pictures
Sunday Pictures

This video was taken Sunday night, after we got a diaper delivery. Layla loves playing in the box and I love playing with her. I got a kick out of the video, I hope you do too. Click on it to go to youtube to see it larger/higher def.



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