Breast-feeding... the Right Way and the Wrong Way

I found this picture on a pro-breast-feeding group on facebook and thought it was funny, so here you go.

Wild Thing

I've been wanting to do something wild with my hair for quite some time now, and I finally did. Ta-da!

TV Time, Blue Kit Kat & Tuna Eyeballs

I've been meaning to update more frequently, but Rin is quite the little handful. In fact, He's sitting on my lap as I write this, drinking milk to his little heart's content.

Since I'm pretty much housebound on weekdays, apart from my daily walk with Rosie, I've been watching a metric assload of TV.
As anyone who's watched Japanese TV can tell you there are basically 4 kinds of TV shows: news, variety, drama and cooking. I can take or leave the cooking and drama shows, but I'm starting to get hooked on the variety shows, especially the quiz shows or the shows with cute animals.

My three favorites are:

1) Nep-league: a quiz show where every week a new celebrity team battles the hosts,( a comedy trio called Neptune) in a series of general knowledge and kanji quizzes. It's somwehow comforting to see a Japanese person mess up a kanji I know. I get to yell "Ha! Baka! I'm a gaijin and I knew that one!" (Pic is the hosts of the show, Neptune)

2) Hexagon: another celebrity quiz show. The second stage is great because the teams have to answer questions while jumping rope at the same time. ()I should have guessed but a GIS for the jump-rope quiz produced almost nothing but upskirt pics of the various female contestants... (Pic is the final round ladder-quiz)


3) Waratte ii tomo :the classic variety show, hosted by Tamori-san, it has celebrity interviews, silly Double-dare style physical challenges and my favorite corner: Dancing Queen where regulars on the show choose the prettiest of a selection of 3 transsexuals. (Pic is the host of the show, Tamori)

OK, Rin is sqiggling and hiccoughing so the Blue Kit Kats and eyeballs will have to wait 'til next time. Goog Niter

Now let's turn to page 17... What the?!?!

Our Japanese class was surprised yesterday by the sudden appearance of a window washer. I thought it was kind of funny so I snapped a pic on my camera phone

Tea Time

This past Monday my Japanese class went on a field trip to a tea factory/field in Moushi to pick some tea. There was a reporter from Kobe Shimbun covering the event, and I got in the paper. Yeah!


Here's the original Japanese article:

Kobe Shimbun

And here's the Googlized version:

Japan's scent experience, tea-picking experience foreigners

Sanda International Association of the 26th, Japanese for foreigners living in the classroom, "Salon's Japanese." Extra-curricular activities as the area of maternal and child Sanda, tea-picking tea factory tour and enjoy the experience and lessons Open. Foreign students and volunteer teachers of about 50 people.

To deepen exchanges with Japan and encourage culture, conducted every year. The group is the bus-processing facilities, "a bunch of incense twinkling tea". Harvesting the leaves and steamed cooling, drying machine operator to a series of visits. Process progresses, began to scent floated a cheering people.

Later, moved to a nearby tea plantation. "Is the most tender shoots sweet," he said in response to the challenge of hand-picking. Under the early summer sun, sweat, it looks to choose the kind of shoots.

From the United States in the coming eight years after Kano's Becky (30), "I love to study how to make tea with you.. Tea leaves are picked, the tempura master'll buy it," talked with his smile. (Hideki Yasuda)


The last part is my favorite "Tea leaves are picked, the tempura master'll buy it," I have no idea how they got this. What it actually says is "I'll ask my husband to make the tea-leaves that we picked into tempura."


And here is the tempura master himself!


And some of the Nihongo salon ladies


And a tea-processing machine

Goog niter

There's a Party in My Nose

I had a bit of a cold this week, so I tried this:



Hyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! This is the feeling of the nose-stick delivering a concentrated blast of eucalyptus oil directly to your nasal passages. I'm afraid I've already become a nose-stick addict! (Or, to quote google translation "I'm me, but I have already nose - Stick with addictive!")

Another Pick-up from Yahoo Japan

Yesterday was April 1st, the day when most companies in Japan hold entrance ceremonies to welcome new employees. As you can see here, the entrance ceremony at the Toba Aquarium was a little different than most. (Yes, they really are wearing suits underwater, pretty cool, eh?)

(I'll update on our trip to Bali as soon as we get the pictures on CD, and I recover from whatever I've come down with. At first I was afraid I had got Dengue Fever or Cholera or Bacillary Dysentary, but according to the doctor it's just some garden-variety stomach bug, thank goodness.)

Good Morninger!

David Gets Funky in Singapore

I saw this fascinating photo on Yahoo Japan's front page today and thought I would share it with you all.

I also thought I'd fool around with Google's machine translator and see if it's gotten any better, and it has...
... a little. Enjoy!

Singapore National Museum in towering giant statue. Indonesia is making people. This work was 8.5 meters in height, embroidered fabric surface is covered with June 8 to be released.

(Needs work, but still better than it used to be. That should actually read:'A giant statue of David towers over the scene at the Singapore National Museum. This artwork, created by Indonesians, is 8.5 meters high and its surface is covered in embroidered fabric. It's open to the public until June 8th.')