Feeling Berried

So I've been bad about finishing my Japan posts, I know. My excuse was that I was too busy having fun with M's sister R all week. We had so much fun! Serendipitously, Claire's preschool was at a house a few blocks from the local outlet mall. So while Claire was at preschool, there was much acquisition of clothing and accessories. I just think it's so much more fun to shop with a friend! There was also much eating while she was here. Eating in, eating out, eating when we weren't hungry anymore, inviting more friends over as an excuse to eat grilled Costco steaks. OH, the eating! On the last day she was here, we drove a great distance to do yet another food related activity:


We got pink fingers:


Except for Scott, who got brown fingers (and hands and feet):

He found the only mud puddle in the whole strawberry field.

When he was done getting muddy, Scott tried to make a break for it. Thank goodness for the fabulous Aunt R. She did the running while I did the picture taking.

Then Scott found the wagon. In case you were wondering, prying his little fingers off that and dragging him home was not fun.

Then we got home and made more food:

The darker ones on the left are regular strawberry jam and the lighter ones on the right are no sugar added ones made with Splenda for M.
Who knew leaving my beloved sugar out would be prettier?

The End of Scott's Incarceration?

The unthinkable has happened. It may be time for Scott to graduate from a crib to a "big boy bed."

I've been lucky so far. Claire never tried to climb out of her crib. We switched her to a "big girl bed" when she was about two because Scott came along and needed the crib. Scott has been the kind of kid that you put in his crib and he stays there noiselessly until you decide you want to go get him. No funny business.

Until tonight.

Tonight Scott climbed into his crib by himself. That's right, I said INTO. Granted, the crib rail was down, but still. He was all ready for bed so he climbed up and vaulted on in, then laid himself down on his pillow. His only requests were that I turn out the lights and sing to him. Then he told me, "Good night!" and blew me a kiss as I shut the door.

I'm not sure what to think. Mainly I'm worried that this portends further crib-hopping antics, possibly of the escaping variety. I mean, I will really miss the baby jail that gives me so much peace of mind. On the other hand, even if he continues not to try and get out of the crib, maybe it's still time. Maybe he's not a baby anymore. Maybe he's ready for the developmental milestone of a real bed. Maybe I'll have an excuse to redecorate his room!!!

Thanks for Clarifying, Scott

Scott does not keep his emotions a secret.

When he feels affectionate, he gives spontaneous hugs and kisses. He prefers to initiate hugs at a full run. After crashing into you, he pats your back when he hugs you. This is coupled with lots of big, slobbery kisses. Thankfully he has finally learned to keep his mouth at least 80% closed now, most of the time. Also, he doesn't impact teeth first anymore. I think I heard that before he reformed a little, "Scott kisses" were slated to be the next event added to the X Games.

When he's displeased, he SCREAMS AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS. Screeching, blood-curdling screams. Like a girl.

When he's really mad, he throws himself to the ground for a tantrum. Face-first. It doesn't matter where he is: in the middle of the lawn, crowded pedestrian thoroughfares, asphalt, sand volleyball courts. You name it, he'll throw his face on it. Yesterday at church, he threw himself down without warning in the middle of a crowded church hallway. He nearly got stepped on three times by passing adults, who, for some reason, didn't think to check the floor in their peripheral vision for prostrate toddlers. Oh yah, and just like his kisses, his tantrums are open-mouthed too. I guess they aren't "face-first" so much as "mouth-first." So the other day at the park when decided to throw a tantrum in the sand volleyball court, he came up for air with a mouth full of sand. [Cringe]

But when Scott is happy, he makes up for all of it. He runs around flapping his arms and repeatedly exclaiming, "HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY!" (Of course, it sounds a little more like, "Ah-py, ah-py, ah-py!") As if he needed to tell us - his face says it all. Nonetheless, he announces it to the world. Over and over and over. Try watching him sometime and see if you're not grinning like a fool after about 10 seconds.

Japan II - The Return

More Japan trip, comin' at cha!

DAY 3

We took a bus tour of Tokyo.

First stop: Tokyo Tower

It was nearly impossible to get a good photo of the whole thing given the crowded surroundings. This might have been aggravated by the fact that I was on a bus.

There were windows through the floor of Tokyo Tower's main observation deck.

A view of the Tokyo skyline from Tokyo Tower's main observation deck.

Tokyo is so densely populated that really the view looked about the same in every direction, adding a little bay here and there. So to visualize the 360° view, just do the following:

1. View this image on a laptop or other portable device.
2. Look at this photo, then close your eyes and rotate your body 90°.
3. Open your eyes and look at this photo again.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have rotated the full 360°.

There. I just saved you the exorbitant $8 tower admission fee.

Next stop: The Imperial Palace

We got to walk around the perimeter of the Imperial Palace. This was the place to go for moat aficionados. Big, thick, imposing stone walls? Check.

Let me take a moment to mention our fabulous luck. The sakura gods smiled on us and we got to be in Tokyo for its cherry blossom season. This only lasts a few weeks at most, and the timing varies from year to year depending on weather conditions, so really we were lucky. Day 2 of our trip was considered the "peak" viewing day. The Japanese really take their sakura seriously; the peak blooming was front page news in Japan's English newspaper. We got to stumble and trip over all kinds of people sitting on blankets having their cherry blossom viewing parties in the parks and gardens. From the blossoms' first opening to peak is usually about week and then from peak until the blossoms fall off is about a week, give or take. So as our week in Japan drew to a close, we saw more and more falling blossoms. Even the falling blossoms made every step feel like a fanciful romp through a fairy tale. Or something. Maybe something less embarassingly cheesy. My point is, it was unequivocally gorgeous. Observe:

New and improved Imperial Palace photo - now with cherry blossoms!


Imperial Palace photo v3.0 - even MORE cherry blossoms

I can neither confirm nor deny reports that a certain group of four very tall female American tourists got separated from their tour group in this area by walking past the poorly described and demarcated crosswalk where they were supposed to cross the street and get back on their bus. Reports suggest that a very short-legged and very sweet (but nonetheless very negligent) tour guide may have had to literally run to catch up with this renegade group that was speed walking away because they thought they had gotten VERY far behind everyone else. [insert sheepish grin here]

Last stop: Asakusa, mostly to see Senso-ji

These blossoms had fallen off in earlier wind and rain and landed in a puddle.

After a long train ride home (hello rush hour!), we ate some fabulous yakitori for dinner. I gotta mention the food because it's the most efficient form of tourism there is if you ask me.

Stay tuned for more!

You Can Stop Bugging Me Now

So I know you've all been waiting with bated breath to hear more about my trip to Japan. I am finally awake enough to write about it. Also, I have finally narrowed down the candidates for photos to post. (Don't start giving me any grief about the large number of pictures I'm going to post about this trip because seriously, I could have just made you look through all 488 photos I took. And that number doesn't include 2 videos and the even larger number of photos the other people there with me took. Sheesh! Consider yourself lucky!)

Without further ado, I give you my trip in installments by day, sort of.

DAY 1

Okay, so depending on how you count it, what with the time difference and all, this part could cover day 1, or maybe day 1 and 2. Whatever. I shall use sleep time greater than 4 hours as my daily delineation for the purposes of this discussion. Day 1 it is. I left my house early Friday morning and caught a flight to DFW. From there I met up with my sister J who flew in from SLC, and my dad's two sisters, my aunt S and my aunt A, who flew in from LAX. (Doesn't everyone think in airport codes?) We all flew from DFW to Tokyo Narita airport. The flight was 13 some odd hours. Due to some error in my physical makeup, I couldn't sleep on the plane. But I sure saw a lot of movies. One or two of them were even pretty good. We arrived at about 1:30 in the afternoon Japan time on Saturday. We met up with my dad (who was traveling to Japan on business like he does almost monthly) in customs. Then we caught a bus to our first hotel. The bus ride took FOREVER because of rush hour traffic, so when it was all said and done I think I'd been "on the road" for almost 24 hours.

The hotel we stayed in for the rest of our trip was full the first night, so we got to stay in one two train stations away from our "real" hotel. This hotel was hilarious. As we walked around looking for dinner, we decided that, best as we could deduce, it was in the middle of a neighborhood full of "gentleman's clubs." But we did find some Korean BBQ that was delicious.

J and I shared a room and it was downstairs from the lobby. The ceiling was super low. As in the door to our room was short enough that the top of my head brushed the door frame. Also, the bathroom was small even by Japanese standards. It made the airplane lavatory seem luxurious. My aunt S had a room with a special 2 foot wide by about 8 foot long strip of room extending off the main part of the room her room so that there wouldn't be a wall splitting the outside window in half. Weird.

DAY 2

We took the train to our "real" hotel and then a business colleague of my dad's picked us up in the company van for a trip to Hakone.

For obvious reasons, I am not in a lot of the photos I took. But here is a shot taken by my aunt S that sums things up nicely. Japan saw a lot of this - G with camera to face:

It was drizzling, so we looked like dorks with our hoods on.

There is a lake there at Hakone that was created by an ancient volcanic eruption. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Fuji in the distance, but the day we went was very cloudy. Along the shore of the lake there is a torii:

Here is my sister looking at the lake. (Again with the dorky hoods.)

At the shinto shrines you can buy a fortune. If it's bad you leave it there so it won't come true. Here are the bad fortunes tied to ropes.


Cool roof line of the shrine.


My sister J assuming the "tourist look" of camera to face (again with the dorky hoods, sorry). I swear never to make fun of the stereotypical Japanese tourist taking pictures of everything again. That was so us. My aunts were taking pictures of vending machines and food in the grocery store.
"Goodbye dignity, we'll miss you."


Hakone also has a lot of hot springs:



They cook eggs in the hot springs. They come out all black. As if boiled eggs don't smell sulfury enough by themselves! Here is a picture of everyone taking a picture of the black eggs. (A meta-photo if you will).

My dad and I peeling eggs. They were actually pretty tasty.

Okay. That's all for now. Stay tuned for Day 3 soon!