Get Out!

OK, I'm officially a wimp. At least for the time being. I did a little personal analyzing and noticed that I've been here for 6 months and couldn't even find my way up to Yokohama if I wanted to. This morning I decided I was going to prove myself wrong and venture out into the wilds by myself with Josh. I decided on a fairly easy destination. The Yokohama Toys R Us. After looking at the maps trying to follow them to Toys R Us, I couldn't figure out the train route......WIMP! I called Mike in a desperate attempt for him to give me directions. That failed miserably just because we didn't have the same map/directions in front of us to compare. By the time we could get directions that were easy enough for my wimpy butt, it was to late in the morning to try to travel up there. I was so disappointed in myself. So, I just did a minnie trip up to Yokosuka-Chuo to check out the play area at one of the department stores. I ran into a fellow mom at the train station who was headed out to Tokyo for a modeling gig. After she left on the train I kicked myself for not tagging along. I should have gone darn-it. Boy, the department store play area was pretty much a waste. All they had were little 200 yen ride-ons and games. Josh did one ride and exclaimed he was all done. Thank goodness because I could've easily gone bankrupt letting him play there. We checked out the rest of the little department stores near Yokosuka and then came home. I stopped at the local bakery and porked out on loaf of croissant type bread and called it a day. By Friday, I promise you I WILL have an adventure. If Japanese mothers can do it, so can I!

A Little of This and a Little of That

It's yet another Bento night at the Corry household. I always look forward to Bento night. That's the night that I just get to go shopping for dinner instead of making it. Got some Sashimi, Fried pork and rice....I know what some of you may be thinking, HELLO buying pre-made rice?! My motto is if I'm going to be lazy for dinner, I might as well go all the way! Anyway, I just finished up hosting a very fun playgroup at my home for the first time. So, I'm just a tad pooped. It was a fairly small group but it was great to chat with Moms. I absolutely love hosting parties and having folks over. It's just something about opening up my home to friends that I just really enjoy. This group of Moms I've been really excited about. We all live in this neighborhood and we all have children in and around the same age. It's been nice to finally find a bunch of moms to maybe start touring the zoo and aquariums with. Something about being in a group while having adventures makes it a little less intimidating. Don't get me wrong, if it were just me I'd be fine jumping on a train and going anywhere. It's the fact that my boss, AKA Joshua is a very high maintenance traveling partner. We always have to make sure that there is somewhere to eat, freedom to romp around and we have to make sure to make it home by naptime which is about 12:30. Taking it into account that most places don't open until 10:00AM, it's not so easy to have an adventure solo.

Also at the grocery store I spent my money on yet another new Kit Kat flavor! This one is Le Patissier Takagi. Supposedly, it's wine flavor and made with Bretagne Milk from northwestern France. One of the top Japanese patissier, Yasumato Takagi, created this flavor and is also famous for being on Iron Chef. Oh, how fancy! After taking a look at other pictures of them though, I'm not so sure this is a new flavor but maybe just new packaging? After going to the Japanese website for Kit Kat it looks as though the newest and greatest flavor hitting the shelves is Fruit Parfet....interesting, I haven't seen that one yet.

The weather might finally be starting to warm up. Supposedly this is an unusually cold spring we've been having here so far on the Kanto plane. With the threat of rain today, I was thankful to see Sunny skies. Pretty soon we can really start exploring. Infact, I just got my walking sandals in recently and have been so excited to test them out. They are Chaco's brand sport Sandal. My girlfriend Maggie introduced me to them and swore they were the best on the market. After testing them out I have to concur. The arch support in phenomenal. I think I'm going to pressure my mom into investing in a pair of these. Seeing all the Japanese Moms on bikes has motivated me to maybe invest in a bike while I'm here. We are really only about 5 miles from base and it would be great exercise. With all of the baskets and accessories that they have here, I can easily get groceries and Josh on at the same time.

I've also been on a bit of a Loretta Lynn kick lately. A friend of mine that I meet at Starbucks, Joe burned a whole bunch of country music on an MP3 disc. There are over 200 songs on the thing so, lately I've just popped in the disc and set it to shuffle. I just heard this Loretta Lynn song that made me smile. If you're not into country.....I'm truly sorry. If you know anything about Mrs. Lynn you would definitely respect and admire her. Her lyrics are very much about her life. I had to listen to this song a couple times. It's called "The Pill" and yes ladies, she's referring to the Thee Pill. Loretta was a big star right around the time that the pill became very main stream. Anyway, don't loose hope in me all you country haters out there. I love all kinds of music. Punk, rock, country, classical, reggae, kids songs. There is just to much creativity in the music world why stick to just one kind?!

Tomorrow is a big day....Sesame Street Live is coming to Yokosuka Navy Base!! Elmo and all his pals will be visiting us to entertain all the military kids. I bought Josh's tickets to the show and coincidentally we will be sitting in the Elmo isle. I think I'm more excited about it than he is! Along with it being Easter weekend, it's also The month of the military child on the Navy Base. Along with having Sesame street live, there will also be bands and fun activities for young kids to do. Nothing to crazy planned for Easter. We have Josh's basket of eggs for an egg hunt in the backyard and we will probably take him on base where they'll have all kinds of egg hunts going on.

As you can see this is why I so properly named this blog at A Little of This and a Little of That. Nothing too new and exciting to report. Just life! Thank goodness. It's been nice to just sit back for a little while!

Mike's Turn...

Nicki and I have a relatively unspoken rule about "hijacking" each other's posts. Basically, we consider a post hijacked when one of us writes something (like Nicki's beautiful post above) and then the other one writes another one within 24-48 hours after the previous post, leaving little time for viewers to actually read, enjoy and comment on the first post. Since I didn't want to hijack her "Little of this, Little of that" post, I figured that (with her concurrence) I could add to the bottom of hers and hope that you, the reader, actually reads this far down anyway. Here goes:

Pictures of My Boss's Wife

As many of you know, I work for SushiJeff, who runs a little blog we like to refer to as Sushicam. Over the weekend, when Jeff was shooting pictures of primates, the Corry family (Nicki, Josh, and I) were at Yokosuka's naval base attending the 2006 Sakura (Cherry Blossom) Festival. This annual event is one of just a few that is open to the general public, so the local Japanese can come onboard base and take pictures and enjoy all that is American in Japan. The most popular draw, without a doubt, is the pizza. Japanese pizza is not much like American pizza when considering size, ingredients, and whatnot. But the biggest difference is the price. A Japanese pizza of any decent size tends to run about $25 or more. On base, you can get a good sized pizza for about half the cost. So Japanese people tend to buy as much pizza as they can carry, then they eat some on the spot and take the rest back home, put it in the freezer, and save it for later.

Anyway, aside from the pizza, the Sakura Festival is also an opportunity for the American and Japanese cultures to blend together for a few hours, while people from both nations perform dances and other rituals for everyone to watch and learn about. We stuck around long enough to see several Japanese children's groups do cheering and dancing. We also stopped to get a picture of a group of Yokosuka's residents wearing kimono. Since my vision isn't too good, I got up close to the kimono clad women to get a good shot, when one of them said, "Hey Mike". I thought to myself, "how on earth does the woman in the kimono know my name?". Once I lowered my camera away from my eye, I realized that one of the kimono women was SushiJeff's wife, Junko. Junko-san had been practicing with several other ladies on base for several months for the performance. They did a great job and I was lucky to get some good pictures to share. Also, Junko was kind enough to round up the group for a picture, too (Junko's the one on the left in the pink kimono). Arigatou gozaimasu, Junko-san!

I've posted pictures from the 2006 Yokosuka Sakura Festival in our Gallery, dated 04/14/2006.

Aargh, matey!!! A Pirate Turns Three

Joshua was invited to his friend, Lang's, third birthday party. So on Saturday, we joined in on the most happenin' pirate party this side of the Pacific. Lang's parents (Gretchen and big Lang) were quite the party planners. The kids participated in a scavenger hunt for a pinata shaped like a treasure chest. Afterwards, the kids each had a turn at trying to crack open the chest with a bat. Once it was finally torn into, with the help of Lang's dad, the kids all went crazy collecting as many goodies as possible from the spoils.

Afterwards, we feasted on some burgers, hot dogs, and bratwurst that were grilled to perfection, along with a fruit medley and chips. After blowing out some candles and eating some ice cream cake, Lang opened up his presents to close out the festivities. Fun was had by all, as our pictures will show you. The full assortment of photos are in our Gallery, dated 04/09/2006.

Kamakura 10K

As Nicki alluded to in her previous post, I went on a mission on Saturday, March 25, to see the cherry blossoms (or sakura) blooming in Kamakura. Actually, I had been stewing over plans to see more of Kamakura for a while, since most of my time in the fine town has been spent walking from the JR Kamakura Station to Hachimangu Shrine. Don't get me wrong, Hachimangu is a beautiful shrine, but Kamakura is arguably the most "traditional Japanese" place this side of Kyoto and we had barely scratched the surface since moving here nearly 6 months ago. There are countless other temples and shrines within the bounds of Kamakura, so I decided to see as many as I could between 8AM - 2PM. For this trip, my goal was "Quantity over Quality"... basically, I wanted to see as much as I could in a short timeframe. Since I was basically speed-touring Kamakura and ended up walking just under 7 miles from start to finish, I dubbed the day my "Kamakura 10K day". Photos are up in the Gallery, dated 04/05/2006.

As it turns out, I got to Kamakura about three days too soon for the peak of sakura season, but I was not at all disappointed with what I saw.

I started the day by taking a ride up to JR Kita-Kamakura Station, where I exited the station just in time to realize that I left my guide map at home. Fortunately, my excellent ESP skills (a compass and signs in English) helped guide me around fairly well. With my compass pointing south, I walked through Engaku-ji Temple, Meigetsu-in Temple, and Kencho-ji Temple along my way towards friendly Tsurugaoka-Hachimangu Shrine. As I mentioned, the cherry blossoms weren't in full bloom at most of these places, but they were looking pretty good in and around Hachimangu.

I ate some yakitori for lunch at Hachimangu, then power slammed a quick bottle of water to keep myself hydrated. Afterwards, I continued east towards my final target, Hokoku-ji Temple, which was recommended to me by SushiJeff for having a really stellar bamboo garden. Along the way, I stopped off at Hokai-ji Temple, Egara-Tenjin Shrine, Kamakura-gu Shrine, and Sugimoto-dera Temple. I also saw the gravesite of Minamoto Yoritomo, who was the founder of the Kamakura Shogunate in 1192, but then died seven years later in 1199.

When I got to Hokoku-ji, it was a slight letdown. I was expecting to see a phenominal show, but it seemed at that point to be "just another temple", though that's an understatement because each of them seem to be unique in one way or another, but I was getting tired, hungry, and thirsty... and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why SushiJeff raved about the place.

Then I saw it, on the far side of one of the main temple buildings... a ticket window. Ticket windows always lead to great places in Japan. It said 200 Yen for admission and an additional 500 Yen for being served green tea. I wasn't quite in the mood for tea at the time, plus, I was getting really grungy looking from walking all that way, so I skipped the tea, paid my 200 Yen and went inside the garden area.

Unbelievable.

I've never seen that much bamboo in my life. The garden was actually fairly small, but it was incredible. There was a small stone path leading the way through the garden. Even though it was about 1pm when I arrived and the sun was overhead, I was completely shaded by the bamboo coverage. Very awesome. That's a place that I'll take Nicki and Josh one day so that we can spend the afternoon sipping green tea and letting Josh explore the giant sea of bamboo.

After leaving Hokoku-ji, I headed back towards the JR Kamakura station and made my way back home... limping but happy.

Supermom

Some of you all might be hungry for some more pictures, especially since the cherry blossoms have decided us to grace us with their presence. How nice it has been! I assure you, as soon as Mike gets all 500+ photos organized, our blog will be the 1st to display them. (just the best out of that 500+ group not all of them!)

Back to the title though. Today was beautiful. The wind has really kicked up this afternoon but this morning I could actually go out in short sleeves. Since Josh has been under the weather, we were hermits for most of the weekend. I ran some errands today. Since the CDC (Child development Center AKA Daycare) couldn't take Josh this week, I will miss out on my workouts but I do have more "time" to just hang with him. We don't really have a tight schedule to follow. I did my big commissary run today. Most of the time, we go on Sundays. It's a good time to go because Mike can help me carry the laundry into the laundry mat and we can work as a team when we navigate our way through the commissary. The down side is that Sundays are a busy day. As soon as everyone gets out of Church, they all go to the commissary to get their big shopping run done for the week.

Even though today (Monday) I didn't have the help from Mike, it went really well. Josh usually HATES going shopping. Mainly, I think, because it's boring. The commissary for the most part is the same, except that I can make it more exciting for him at the commissary when I have time. (Which I can't do on other errands, say, maybe looking for new underwear?!) I try to discuss EVERYTHING with him while I'm shopping. I talk to him about what's on the list, I ask him to tell me what kind of fruit he wants for the week, I ask him to point out certain types of fruits and veggies, I ask him what number aisle we are in, etc. It keeps him patient and talkative the whole time. The talking part is important because, really, he's the only person I talk to during the day for the most part & it's much better than hearing him whine and cry. People usually give me some confused look when I'm talking until they see Josh toddling behind me. Today was different. As I was cruising down the produce aisle with Josh, a tough looking man (gold chains, rings, and sunglasses on) came up to me and said, "Ma'am, I just wanted to say that it's been a long time since I've seen a mother doing what your doing with your son."

Boy that made my day. It really made me feel for the moment that I was supermom. I almost hugged that gentlemen but I regained my composure. Almost tearing up, I explained myself. "Josh, we thought, had a speech problem when he was very little. We went to a speech therapist who encouraged me to talk to him more and encourage him to talk more by giving him choices and asking him questions." Then I said, "thank you".

The idea that the therapist gave us stuck even after we found out Josh was perfectly normal. Once he started getting older and more perceptive, I've expanded on the idea and started asking him about colors, numbers, letters, etc. I rarely brag, but he knows most of his colors (unless you ask him about fuschia or periwinkle!), most of his numbers up to ten (he can count up to 10 in English and 5 in Japanese), and all of his letters. He's an absolute genius if I ever met one! :) OK, I've taken it to far. I was so flattered my the gentleman's complement that I actually went all out and made a super healthy lunch for Josh when I got home. After all, why stop at talking to my son when I can cook for him too! (can you sense the sarcasm?)

If you think a stranger or anyone is doing something great....let them know, especially if it's a mom! Compliments really do work wonders.