日本！ About to touch down in Tōkyō.
Obligatory shinkansen pic. This means i'll be in Fukuyama in less than an hour.
Emily in the morning.
Showing off her green tongue after eating something with matcha in it.
3 years old. Already knows how to duck face.
I sometimes complain about the lack of central heat in Japanese homes, which makes otherwise mild winters seem a lot worse than they really are. This is what the propane heaters look like. It burns fuel but produces almost no odor and is designed to be very safe--if a kid bumps it or an earthquake rattles it, it shuts off very quickly.
Some rooms have an alternate type of heater. It is actually a heat pump that can either heat or cool.
For adults who think chopsticks are hard, i submit that a 3 year-old can use them. Her form is not perfect, but most kids at that age don't use a fork perfectly either. Mastery of chopsticks requires a similar level of practice as Western silverware.
First picture with Yuri in it. Both kids on the swing.
Goodness... the duck face really is a thing.
Emily wants to do my job.
Yuri in a play. She's the pirate second from the left.
These appeared in February.
This made for quite a good hot toddy. The fruits are yuzu.
Waiting at the train platform to go to Kurashiki so i can see Emily before her surgery.
Emily after surgery. She had an umbilical hernia repaired and tubes put in her ears. She handled the discomfort really well.
Typical vending machine in Japan. Lots of tea, some sport drinks, fruit juice, and coffee. This one was in the hospital.
The neighboring machine actually has some pop in the top row, but again most of the options are healthier than that. Remember a few years ago when Coca-Cola used CGI polar bears in their ad campaign? The bear lives on in Japan.
A rare sight in Japan: a completely empty corridor in a large regional hospital. On a Sunday such things are possible.
Outside of Kurashiki station there used to be a Danish theme park. A clock tower and some statues are all that remain of it. On the hour, dancing figures come out of the clock.
Happy to be home from the hospital!
Emily didn't waste much time to get started playing with her Duplo blocks.
Trying on new school uniform.
Yuri got a new dress for a piano concert. Actually, it was used; Noriko is good at finding deals online. (This name-brand outfit would have been obscenely expensive new.)
Yuri plays competently for her age and number of years of lessons.
Yuri with 2 of her friends and their piano instructor.
The inspirational sayings on these amuse me. The English and Japanese don't *quite* match either, which is even more amusing to me. The Japanese on the blue one is "together, good dream" and the red "you are my hero". The yellow one is a bit too idiomatic for me to understand, but it is something like "surely skillfully go, you know". Most likely the translator did a fine job, and the limits of my own understanding are showing through.
