One of my favorite winter dishes! And Julius had lots of fun with it, too!
SO much fun stuff going on today .. hardly anytime to catch up with blogging .. but at least one collage:
and a rundown of what went on today (more of a reminder for me what I should post later)
- Taking Julius to an aquarium in Shingawa, first a sea-lion show, then penguin feeding, then a spectacular dolphin show, I have 30 mins of video of that, which I have to edit.
- Lunch at a very nice tempura place.
- Some shopping on the way home, lots of fun at the 100Y store.
- Meeting a very friendly cat along the way,
- Fantastic sukiyaki dinner at home with o-bachan and o-jichan. ✔
- Later, after Julius and o-bachan were already in bed, we went to the local shrine (around midnight). ✔
From today’s raid at Muji
Kiddo was a good boy and stayed with o-bachan and o-jichan, which was a good idea after we had seen the masses at Tsukiji. Seems he had a great time, but was also happy to see us again.
And he loves his new pajama!
Today we met Utako again, last time has been 2 years ago.
Back then we did a double lunch at the food stalls of the Tsukiji fish market .. I don’t know it was because of the date AFTER new years or of the rain back then, but today it was crazy crowded. By 10:40 there were masses of people piled up to get into the lunch restaurants and the market spaces were just crazy (by now, they don’t even let tourists into the main auction halls anymore)
It is tricky to shot video and not getting run down by one of those funky transport vehicles I have never encountered anywhere else. Last time it was easy to notice them, by their loud diesel engine … but nowadays many of them run on electricity and all you hear are their wheels …
Afterwards we ventured a bit further, but still had to wait for a table for 40 minutes, but into return got some fantastic Sushi. Ritsu and I went for the quintuple sampler of tuna, plus some extra bits and pieces.
For some further shopping we moved on to Ginza, where we raided Bic Camera and Muji.
Seen at Ginza Station / Tokyo today … click for bigger and full poster.
Funny!
Last night …
 |
Although all the signs of utter sleepiness were visible around 4 PM and I had reminded Julius repeatedly, he would not take a nap … so, of course, he was already tired and moody when we went to a nice, nearby, Okinawa style isakaya for dinner. |
 |
By the time our first food arrived, some delicious noodles, he had finally made up his mind that he rather wants to have rice … so, we asked him which rice he wanted and if he wants to try some of the noodles … his response was …. |
 |
So, we had to continue our tasty dinner with the kid slipping part time on mama, part time on the bench … which was ok .. but getting him up later to go home .. this is when his tantrum terror started. |
After fantastic breakfast and with sunshine and 11C outside, we walked 15 minutes to a really neat playground and Julius got to explore for about 2.5 hours.
While papa got to explore his latest super-fantastic gift from Ritsu, a new digital video camera. My photo cam does ok video (actually, that was known as DV standard 8 years ago) .. but the new one does 720p HD and has probably a bunch of more tricks under the hood, but the onscreen menu is all in Japanese … will take some time.
It was more crucial for me to figure out how to best display the videos here … and after uploading it to youtube and not being very happy with the end result I moved on over to vimeo … much better there … feel free to check out the fullscreen version (ha, and compare with youtube’s chop & block)
| In youtube’s defense, I just found out that there is a little blue text link to an HQ version of the video (but this link does not show up in firefox, thus it was news to me) |  |
After our last nightmare regarding jet-lag when we traveled east to Japan, we followed one of the advices we got from our good friend Dr. Dave and used melatonin.
And it worked like a charm. Julius was in bed by 11:30PM (3:30PM on his internal clock) and slept all night through until 9AM (1AM internal clock), same similar for me and Ritsu … now let’s see how it continues!
Julius helped making the breakfast and ate his broccoli with kewpie.
And then it was time to goof around, trying o-bachan’s glasses and creating a pirate outfit from paper.
Now we are leaving for a nearby playground to get some sun and fresh air.
What a long trip this has been: Leaving for the airport at 18:00, arrive, check in without any problems, then chasing along the looong corridors of Frankfurt airport and waiting for boarding to start (20:15). We notice quite a bunch of mixed couples with mixed kids, Julius plays with a 3 year old Spanish / Japanese boy.
The seats are a bit disappointing: Usually I expect from Lufthansa the bit more generous of 32″ seat pitch in economy, but this flight is operated by All Nippon Airways and that was 30″ at best. The service is all around very nice, but no toys for the boy. We also happen to sit 2 rows behind the only baby which keeps screaming all through the night.
Don’t want to say anything bad about the parents, but I vividly recall those flights with Julius and how many miles I walked around the plane with him to keep him quiet so that other people can sleep.
We try to sleep, Julius ends up finding his favorite position on the floor, which gives Ritsu some extra space, too. Gladly none of the FAs tries to get him off the floor, they probably don’t even see him there.
Landing is on time and besides that the walk from the gate, through immigration and customs to the train station is rather a hike, we make good time and catch the next Narita express to Shinjuku. There another hike with all luggage through masses of people to change lines. While waiting for the next train, Julius has a complete meltdown and physically tries to not get on the train and once we have dragged him in, he tries to get out at each stop, crying all the time in between. Good fun is had by all.
Around 19:00 (19 h after our journey started) we arrive at o-bachan’s place and Julius’ mood clears up rather quickly. Mine too as I see the big sashimi platter.
After dinner it is time for Julius to take a bath, first with o-bachan, then with mama and now, at 23:30 his grandma is trying to sing him to sleep (I helped a bit with a kid’s dose of Melatonin) .. let’s see how the whole jet-lag thing will work out this time around.
Today we are off to Japan. With a long flight ahead, we all tried to get some rest beforehand. We had to leave at 6PM and Julius really tried to take a nap from 4PM onwards, with no success. But when he was finally dressed and we were about to hop in the car, I found him at my dad’s desk like this:
Set to become another xmas tradition .. this nice little somewhat fast-foodish thai express in Bad Homburg … very generous portions of duck in all kind of sauces. And one of the few places open for the holidays.
As we had done before, we did fantastic Turkish lamb cutlets on the outside BBQ accompanied by many nice Turkish salads for dinner (well, actually very late lunch) .. it was fun, though it was colder and windier compared to last time, but everything was very tasty and Julius tried his best to join the multilingual conversation.
A whole day of presents!
This xmas, Julius is very aware about how things go, though he is a bit lenient about the ‘being a good boy’ part …
But since were were traveling we skipped ahead and had the first gift giving (‘Bescherung’ in German) this morning, and among the presents were many things from uncle Tim and grandma Renate that were meant for his last birthday. He had a field day and just loved everything …
Then we flew to Germany, and sure enough, opa Kurt and Merih had some more presents (and a much nicer xmas tree) and also a paket from Julius’ uncle Kai had arrived. With play-doh and a my brother’s favourite soccer team’s shirt (with Julius’ name on it)
I had kept play-doh out of the house as I know Julius has it at school and I remember very well what kind of mess I made with it when I was a kid. But after establishing some rules (e.g. do NOT mix the colors / don’t droü it on the floor / don’t EAT it) Julius had great fun with it and got very creative.
Many thanks to everyone and again, best of wishes! Have a great holiday season!
All the best to you, dear readers (both of you) and your families.
We are off for the holidays tomorrow and I am not sure how our connection will be .. so .. worst case, you see updates here again mid-January
Have a great 2009!
Julius got a new toothbrush today .. and we had never seen anything like this (while the idea is so simple) .. press the button on the back of the brush and it keep blinking for 3 minutes … so .. when it stops, you are done brushing …
The tricky part was to explain Julius that it is not a toy (otherwise he’d be running around with it all day and the battery [rated for 3 times brushing for 3 months] would be out in 2 days.
The first test ran pretty well … now let’s see when he can do it unsupervised.
(On an different note .. at 1.79€ this happened to be the cheapest kids’ toothbrush in the store!!!)
This weekend Julius and I finally got around to do some pre-xmas cooky baking … and he loved it … for him it was like playing with play-doh.
The result were not the world best vanille kipferl, but the flavor was spot on.
Finally! Some performance! Some participation! 
I picked up Ritsu from work and we barely made it in time (parking around Julius’ school is a mess, especially when everyone is invited) and we popped in when there was already nearly no space and the show had just started.
On previous occasions Julius was not very much into the whole performance thing (last year xmas he just cried and clung to us as soon as he saw us) but this year he enjoyed it very much, albeit being a bit distracted with searching for mamma and papà,
I have some video of the whole thing, but, it was a fight against 20 other raised arms with cameras, iphones and blackberries, a bad position and very very bad lighting .. so .. if anyone really wants to see it .. i will put up the unedited footage, there are some cute ‘ah, there is mamma, i shall wave’ moments …
Overall it was very nice, but again too crowded.
Today I gave my 3rd performance as St. Nikolaus at Julius school and I was very worried if this time he would uncover me … since last year already he looked at me very suspiciously … but it was actually more his pals that were sizing me up …
Since I showed up again 20 minutes later as Papà and Julius told me all about that strange man that just showed up earlier (the pic above is a test of the wig the school got for me, but it did not work with the hat, I hope I get some pictures of the actual event from the school soon) I am pretty certain that my cover has not been blown yet.
But of course, he had to draw everything right away.
The second time this winter that we woke up to a winter wonderland (well … more like crappy snow sludge) and sure enough, Julius’ school bus showed up way too late.
But on my way to school I got to take some shots of the snow covered statues and Piazza Castello (weird that they keep the fountains on, don’t they fear the plumbing could freeze up?)
 |
  |
Today is a holiday here in Italy (Immaculate Conception) and while Ritsu had to go to work, she stayed home sick.
In the evening we even called our pediatrician (saying the Julius also has a bad cough, which was true, but not that severe that we would have called the doctor) but we wanted him to take a look at Ritsu as well. He had said he would come around lunch time and finally showed up at 7:30 PM .. thus the whole day was one long and lazy waiting game.
Recent Comments