An Adventure in Shopping Mall Lunch

So here's a funny story from last Saturday's shopping trip. We went to the mall to look for a dress with sleeves (a rare find in the US), and got there around lunch time. We made our way to the McDonalds and avoided all the Japanese eateries. We got our food and sat down at the nearest table next to a cute little Japanese girl. We noticed this girl was eating Takoyaki (fried Octopus) and sitting seiza style in a wooden high chair like thing for kids. Sitting seiza style is pretty uncomfortable (for a westerner) anyway, but on a wooden chair it looked pretty painful. However she had a perfectly content look on her face and was thouroughly enjoying her octupus lunch. I was thinking that this girl must be from a pretty traditional family, when all of the sudden her father (or possibly grandfather, not really sure) sat down with her and proceeded to scarf down his KFC meal. It was pretty funny, needless to say. I only wish I had taken a picture!

(The pictures are of Takoyaki and a Japanese child sitting seiza style)

A Sparrow's Nest

Kaiya isn't the only baby in the Taylor house these days. We have a nest in our garage that is home to five baby birds. They are just learning to fly now, so they may be gone soon. They do make a mess, but it has been fun having them.

Kaiya is Two Months Old!

Monday was Kaiya's two month mark, so I took a few (okay, a few dozen) pictures to celebrate. She's getting so big already and smiles a ton when she's happy. She's weighing in at about 12 pounds now too and she's growing a pretty good set of eyelashes to bat at all of her admirers. She still gives us a good dose of crying each day, but now the smiles make us forget about it when she's finished.

Leaving So Soon...

So, since we are soon leaving Japan, I thought I would post a few pics of interesting things you can only see here. Okay, you probably can see them elsewhere, just not in the US. And I have to thank Ginger for taking most of these pictures, since these things have all become just normal for us. This first one is of a school that Patrick works at. No, it's not abandoned or condemned, kids actually go to school here. All of the schools look kind of scary like this. They aren't so bad on the inside at least...

This is a picture of our bathroom. Yep, it's just a little room with a toilet. The sink is on the top of the tank. It's a pretty interesting way to do it, but the water always comes out cold, which is not so great in the winter, since the room isn't heated.

This is a picture of our house, which isn't that weird i guess, except that it's located in a parking lot.

This is a great photo. Most of the old women around here are permanently bent over from working in the rice fields all their lives, so they push around these little carts to help them balance. This lady decided to use a baby high chair instead. They all still work outside every day, so she has her hoe stashed in the baby cart in case she needs it. All the Grandmas dress like that too, even though it's like 85 degrees out.

Actually, this one isn't weird, but I though it was a really beautiful picture of the sunset over some traditional rooftops by our house.

This is a picture from the bonsai show at the train station. They had dozens of bonsai and most of them were flowering like this. It was really interesting.

That's it for now, but there may be more installments of interesting things in Japan later.

What a Cutie!!

Here's one of the first smiles caught on camera!

A Family Hike

I rarely have two free hands to type now, so it's going to be mostly pictures for a while. But those are more fun anyway, right? So... this is the same hike we did in the fall, only now it's spring and we have a new little addition. Her first hiking experience!