All fine in the Kenyon 日本 (Japan) household

可笑しい　　　"okashii" which means "funny, ridiculous or amusing!"

We are back in Tsuwano and doing great. Hanano is back to regular almost (she did awake at 5AM this morning), and life is going pretty good.

This morning some guys from our mobile phone company came out to install the signal amplifier on the house. It was quite exciting to have a cell phone work in the house. I was just making a test call to Shiho's phone, when the guy unplugged the power to the newly installed device. Puzzled and a little dazed by this, I finally got by going through many pages of the Japanese dictionary with the main guy and my mother-in-law that there is a Japanese law that states that you have to wait 30 days after installation of a device to turn it on and enjoy using it. It took a bit of the conversation to get if it was a company or Japanese regulation.
I suppose this is to prevent the instant gratification that one might be able to receive from such an event.

I will be honest here on why I have not posted that much in the past weeks. I think I have been a bit depressed by being in Japan. Shiho told me it would happen, and I told her I was different, but she was correct (just this time though (^^)!) I was having a great time the first month, but the isolation and lack of people to communicate with/ lack of understanding the television-radio-neighbors-sales people at stores/anywhere and everywhere, as well as not being able to check my cell phone messages myself, read the manuals for anything we have here, was getting to me. WAS THAT A RUN ON SENTENCE??? I started to get in a funk about it all.
Going to Osaka and getting some exercise helped a bit. Shiho's uncle lives in a 16 story complex, and his neighbors must have thought I was really lost. One night there I walked up 106 and down 16 flights of stairs. The next I went for a 3 1/2 hour walk while Shiho and the kids were with some family, then walked up 75 or so, and down 29 flights of stairs. Thank goodness for the elevator for my knees, but the neighbors really must have wondered about the sweaty white guy coming down in the lift. It was kind of fun seeing their looks... But this really helped me to get things back in the right perspective. I think I may have forgotten to keep that sense of humor that is needed while in a foreign country. I know most of you are saying, "what, Steve having a sense of humor... what is he talking about?"
Anyways, here is the insight on Steve's little bit of personal growth. I am sure there will be more of these instances ahead. Poor ME... As Joe has started to say some evening, "this is my worst day ever." (*8 I think reflection is good.

Yesterday I found a spider in the yard that is larger than the last. This guy is huge, maybe bigger than my finger, and he looks mean. I took some pics of him yesterday and was shaking his web and he ran off getting into a defensive/offensive posture. This morning I was checking on him, and he and his web were gone. I actually found him a few meters away on his web. I guess he actually took it down and respun it there. Interesting!


We do not have an oven here, so it is hard to make bread ,pizza or any of those cakes and goodies that we like so much. (Shiho:Well, we do have an oven. It's just very small as other Japanese stuff :) So I am thinking of building a little wood fired pizza oven in the backyard. I am doing research on it now, and will post pics when and if I ever start working on it.

Hanano started eating at the table, while sitting in a chair by herself. I think that Hanano is happy about it, but Shiho is just ecstatic. Her is her take on these events...

As you know, this is one of the biggest milestones in the baby's first year. When we put Hanano in her chair for the first time, she gave us a BIG smile and she seemed to be very proud of herself sitting in the chair! Sure she is a member of our family, Hanano eats a lot... I mean, A LOT! She uses both hands to shovel food in her mouth. We have to be careful because she choked herself yesterday putting too much food in her mouth! Now she can drink water with a straw pretty well. I have to admit that baby sippy cups in Japan really suck! We can't carry the cup around with water in it, because it will leak. The instructions actually say that! What kind of sippy cup is that? Plus, it was very expensive!!! Oh well...
Anyway, Hanano loves to eat at the table with us and she is very happy! THAT makes her mommy very happy as well :)

Well as some of you may know, I am going to take a class in Thailand for a few weeks. This class starts next week and should keep me pretty busy during the week. On the weekend I think that the diving probably will keep me pretty busy. I bought an underwater housing for the G7, so if I get some worthy pics underwater, I will post them on Picasa.

Shiho: We have never been apart this long, so I am a little bit worried about the kids. Joe keeps telling us that he doesn't want his daddy to go anywhere. Seems like Miyabi has no clue though. Poor Steve, probably he will miss Hanano starts walking!

Will try to post from Thailand, but will see how time permits. Hope all is well with you all.

PS: Thanks to Ching for pointing me to a great website for my listening pleasure. Driving in the car is a lot more fun now!

PSS: A lot more pics uploaded from the G7 on Picasa. Boy that 4Gb SDHC card holds a lot of pics and video.

7/21/07

It has been an interesting few days... earthquakes in the North and a Typhoon coming up from the South. Exciting stuff, but neither of these really affected us. We did not even know that there was an earthquake, until I read it in a post on a list I am on that evening... No one we know was affected, although many others were. The typhoon brought very heavy rain for a whole day, but no big deal really, since it missed us by 100 miles or so. Although on the East Coast of Japan that the Typhoon went up, received 400-500 mm of rain.
I bought a Canon G7 from Amazon Japan. Seems like it is what I wanted, and I will post some shots from the camera when we get home from Osaka. All is great, except the Japanese manuals, which was easily resolved by downloading from the US Canon website.
Oh yeah, we are on a small trip to see some more of Shiho's relatives. It seemed like a good idea when we left home, but the first night was horrible. Hanano did not really sleep, hence the fact that neither did any of us. Long story short, we are cutting the trip short and only staying in Osaka, instead of going further North to another aunt's house. In any case we are now all doing fine, and Hanano has more teeth.
Take Care All,
Steve and Family