Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Heron Baby,

Hello sweetheart! I’m sorry that I missed writing your letters for the past three months. And my, how you’ve changed in that time! We went to the doctor when you were three months and you weighed 14 pounds and were 24 inches long. Healthy! You also got your first shots ad did just fine with those. You have such a big personality and are certainly becoming your own little person now. Daddy likes to call you Bipolar Baby because your moods are so extreme. You are known to scream and scream for hours on end, leaving me baffled about how to soothe you. Then you may suddenly switch and flash me a humongous grin! You are giggling now, too — not hearty belly laughs yet, but happy little chuckles. Usually your brother gets your laughs. You are usually very friendly with everyone and will grin at anyone that looks at you. Sometimes though, all it takes is a look and you’ll burst in to more screams. You definitely keep us guessing!

I assume part of your moodiness is due to all your recent changes. We believe you have been starting to teethe this past month, though I don’t see any budding pearly whites yet. Your fingers are constantly in your mouth and you will chomp down on anything that gets too close. You are drooly and have had some minor fever, so I expect to see some chompers any day now. In the meantime, you get very angry, usually when I’m just ready for bed.

At about two months you rolled over from your back to your tummy. I had thought it was a fluke and you were only able to when you were on a cushy couch or soft bed. We saw a little bit of this for about a month, but you never did it when you were on the hard floor … until 3 months. You did both sides — front to back and back to front — at pretty much the same time. Now when I set you on the floor for anything, you flip right over to your front. It is difficult to keep you down for diaper changes too – you always want to roll!

You’ve taken some trips around the area this autumn. Your Grammy and Uncle Ron came to visit and we meet them down in Tokyo. You were snuggled in a baby carrier against me the whole week, but you got to ride on trains and subways, go to temples and shrines, go shopping and to Japanese restaurants, and had your first night in a hotel room! Grammy brought you some toys and books that you like to stare at and your brother likes to take from you. We have also gone to Hachinohe, Towada, Shimoda, and Aomori with you. You used to sleep the whole time on outings, but you’re starting to be more alert. You generally hate the car and often cry a good portion of our trips. You’re happy once you get in a baby carrier or a stroller, though. I think you just get tired of looking at the back of the seat and want to actually view the scenery.

You’ve settled in really nicely into our family. You and Rhino amuse each other, you smile at Daddy, and you coo at our friends at church. My favorite times with you are snuggling and nursing on the sofa and looking through books with you. You get such wide eyes whenever you see words or music notes and try to reach out and grab them! We all love you so much and are thrilled that you are a part of our family! I can’t wait to see what changes in you over the next month!

I love you,
Mommy

So I’ve been kind of bummed out since the new camera I received last month broke after a few days and now my trusty old camera won’t power up at all. I found out that it would cost about $250 to repair and for little more I could just get a different one. I haven’t taken any photos in way too long! And trust me, there have been great moments I wish I could have captured! I’ve been constantly bidding on eBay for Nikon D40x factory demos, but because of the time zone difference I can never get a bid in within the last few hours even before the auction closes. So I’ve been out-bid a dozen times. There is a “Buy it Now” up for a refurbished D40x that I decided to go ahead and finally order. Hooray! A brand new camera is way too expensive for us right now and I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t regret going with a refurbished one. I’m so excited, though! I’ve been reading through the manual, other photography books, and have a couple of lenses and accessories I can’t wait to use! Being where we are, it will probably take a couple of weeks to show up. That’s all right, though — at least I know it’s on the way!!

Matt and I had wanted to get down to see Tokyo sometime before Mama’s trip this fall. We had only just traveled through and not really spent any time there. Liz & Drew and Nicole & Mike were also wanting to visit one last time before everyone moves to Texas, so we thought a big group trip would be fun! It turns out that Mike couldn’t get leave and Drew was deployed, so it ended up pretty much being a girl’s trip with Matt. He didn’t mind too much, though! We were meaning to rent a van through MWR — a cheap daily rate and we don’t have to pay gas or tolls (tolls are about $300 to Tokyo and back.) We were too late reserving a van for our dates though, so we ended up taking our little van. It’s a good thing the other husbands couldn’t make it, otherwise we wouldn’t have had any room at all!

Sunday:

We left by 7 in the morning, had to pick up Liz & Nicole and a few things on our way out of town, got a little lost finding the right toll road in Hachinohe, and then were finally on our way by around 9! The four of us took turns driving, so it wasn’t all that tiring. We made a handful of rest stops along the way to stretch, do diaper changes, and get lunch. Getting into Tokyo was a little confusing with all the different highways, but we made it to the New Sanno (military hotel in downtown Tokyo) by 6 without too many problems! We had dinner at the American restaurant in the hotel and promptly fell asleep.

Monday morning we had a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant before heading out. We decided to do Tokyo Tower, which is in Roppongi and very close to the New Sanno. We took the subway a couple of blocks and then had a nice walk up to the Tower.

We got some great views of the whole city from the observation deck. It’s not at the top of the tower, just a little ways up. Rhino enjoyed looking out (and down) the windows and got some practice walking around. Liz and Nicole went up to the next deck to see what was up there. Liz got brought one of her Blythe dolls to take photos of around Tokyo and got some shots of her on the tower.

There are other attractions in Tokyo Tower, including a wax museum, trick art gallery, and “space wax” museum (which was sort of just a small gallery of old anime.) We had fun taking photos in the trick art gallery, and the wax museum was full of rock and roll musicians, Alice in Wonderland, Jesus, historical Japanese figures, etc. There was plenty more to do in Tokyo tower: an aquarium, a playground, lots of little shops and restaurants, but the museums and view had taken up most of our morning and this pregnant lady was hungry and tired!

We went for a walk to find the Outback Steakhouse (I know, American food in Japan, but it will be a while until I have it and I can have Japanese food any time!) Matt carried Rhino around and he really seemed to enjoy the trip, then got comfy for a short nap.

Lunch was good and Rhino had a blast playing with everything at the table! It was only about 1, but I was pretty exhausted from lots of walking and Matt was ready to go back to the hotel. Liz and Nicole had doll-related shopping planned in Akihabara and Nokono, which neither of us were really too interested in anyway. They got back after dinner, so Matt and I went for a walk around Shibuya to check out the district and find something to eat. I feel like we didn’t get a whole lot accomplished on Monday, but it sure felt like a very full day!!

Today we went out on the town to take care of some errands. Tomorrow is a friend’s daughter’s first birthday party, so we went to the bunny store to pick up a gift. I love the store so much! We also went to Sanwado (sort of like a Walmart) to look for lawn chairs, but came home with dishes instead). At the bunny store we got Rhino a cute little stuffed Anpanman because he’s always really interested in all the Anpanman things (a character in a kids’ anime.)

We went to try a new restaurant and saw some new place with vegetable monsters on the sign. It’s a conveyor belt sushi place where you sit in a booth and pick up plates as they pass you by. There is also a computer screen where you can order things specifically and your plates will come zipping to you. It’s so much fun! We haven’t had sushi since we’ve been in Japan, so it was time we tried some. We had raw salmon, which Matt didn’t like at all, and raw tuna, which he did a lot. We also had steamed egg hotchpotch and shrimp tempura sushi. Then we grabbed some fried chicken dumplings and some really pretty octopus dumplings (which Rhino was interested in, but we ended up not liking too much.) We had melon and orange ice cream also. The place was pretty cheap – we spent about $10 total.

There are two conveyor belts — the bottom one is for the food that rotates around the restaurant that you can grab, and the top one is for your order (it comes straight to your table). I love watching the food on the top (faster) belt zip by! Here is our orange ice cream arriving!

We went for a walk to our favorite little cake shop after lunch, Le Monde. Their cakes are so cute, gorgeous, and delicious!

While Matt was paying for the cakes, I looked at the pretty little Kimono shop across the street. They have all sorts of beautiful things — not just kimonos — yukatas, geta and zōri sandals, purses, and other pretty trinkets. Rhino fell asleep on the walk in our awesome new Beco Butterfly (soft-structured carrier — in “Sara”). It is so gorgeous and seems to be the one he likes the most (and it’s so comfortable and trim).

Here is Rhino in a wonderful green tank top from the Bunny Store.

It’s athletic-style and on the front it has 92 and “WHAT A KID”. The back is the best. In the circle up top it says “Vigor”, then “Freely As You Please” and then the vertical words are FACE, NAIVE, and MIND.

And here are a few videos of Rhino today. Nothing too spectacular, just his cuteness.

About a month ago we ordered a few things for Rhino (mainly, an awesome new car seat — in black, not in purple flowers! — because he has about 1 pound to go before he won’t be able to use his infant seat) and they finally arrived today! I’m a little intimidated thinking about installing the car seat, but it will be great when it’s in!

Anyhow, he also got these beautiful bamboo coveralls by Kicky Pants that I think are my favorite thing ever. First of all, they are just adorable. Look!

And they are the most amazingly soft things I’ve ever felt! I’m so jealous and want a pair of my own! He has bamboo pants, also. I never want to put any other material against his sweet skin! And, oh my, there is the cutest little drop-down behind window! Haha. Well, they’re bamboo and that’s really cool. We are pretty much just a cotton family, but I think we might branch out.

Bamboo is an eco-friendly, sustainable crop that grows wild without the aid of fertilizers or pesticides.

Naturally soft, light and silky with no spurs or rough patches, so it does not require synthetic or chemical processing.

Bamboo fabric is naturally antibacterial, antifungal and antistatic.

Has a natural wicking ability that will help keep baby warm, dry and odor free.

Bamboo absorbs water 3-4 times better than cotton, keeping skin comfortable, rather than sticky, in summer weather.

Bamboo stays 2-3 degrees cooler in hot weather & warmer in cold.

Very gentle and soothing next to baby’s skin.

Rhino’s been growing so quickly, he’s now completely finished with all his 3-6 month outfits. It’s such a shame because there are quite a few things that arrived with our household goods that he never even got to wear because he outgrew them in those 2 months! Well, we have so many clothes for under 6 months, and a decent amount of outfits through 24 months, but just not enough. He has a handful of 6-12 month clothes, but some of them aren’t very appropriate for the warm weather we’re having (sweats and other cozy, long-sleeved things that, if he would match the age on the tags, would be just fine!) So we stopped by The Bunny Store to look at clothes. Last time we got him a few cute, more traditional Japanese outfits. He has two and they still fit and are very cute wrap-and-tie pieces. The store has so many western-style clothes with such funny English sayings on them, I just couldn’t resist getting a few! Some of them are pretty crazy and I didn’t want him to be completely ridiculous, but we did get some good ones! He’ll model them in the days to come, so you’ll just have to wait and see what treasures we found! In the meantime, here is comfy outfit #1, which is not quite as silly as some other others, but Matt really liked it! It’s a snazzy tank-top with matching pants. The pants have a small version of the image on the shirt. Here is “Fight it out! I am a stag beetle” :

As you can see, Rhino isn’t so confident in our choice of fashion for him. There were so many stag beetle outfits (I had no idea that the stag beetle is such a big deal here), it was a hard choice. My favorite was similar, but said STAG BEETLE across the top, then had a drawing of a beetle with a speech bubble: “I am strong!”

We went exploring around Misawa just a little bit today. We stopped by a baby store, “The Bunny Store” (not its real name, but theres’ a big bunny on it), which is like a Japanese Babies ‘R Us. They had so many cute things (and most were very fairly priced!) and tons of clothes! One thing Matt and I have found pretty amusing is all the English on clothing. Little of it makes much sense and we are sure that the people wearing it has no idea what it says. There were a whole bunch of kiddy t-shirts with really funny “Engrish” on it. We found some cute Japanese-style baby clothing and picked up two little outfits for Rhino as well as an adorable one-piece monkey pajama thing (with a tail and a hood with a monkey face!) I know, he’ll probably hate us when he’s older, but it’s just too adorable (but he needs to grow into it still.) We went to lunch at Coco’s, which is an “Italian” restaurant here in town. It was nice, but not really all that Italian. ;-p Matt had some pork, rice, and curry dish. I had what seemed like a bun-less cheeseburger covered in tomato sauce. Pretty tasty. We had a delicious citrus parfait with clear gelatin, all sorts of fruit, and some crunchy thing and ice cream in it. I’d go back just for the dessert! A lot of the restaurants we’ve been in are upstairs, above another store or a parking lot. Matt likes sitting in all the upstairs restaurants, looking out over the streets.

And here’s a video of Rhino in his cute new outfit!

EDIT: I was looking around for the actual name of the bunny store (apparently, “Nishimatsuya”) and found another Misawa mommy’s blog. She has a post here about the store and “Engrish” and even a photo of some of the shirts found at Ni-shi.

On Monday morning we took the shuttle back to Narita and, from there, caught the bus to Haneda. We picked up some drinks from a vending machine at the airport, drove into Tokyo, passed Tokyo Disney, some giant ferris wheels, saw the water and a lot of buildings, and wound up at the airport where we waited for a few hours for our flight.

We relaxed for a while and watched Japanese TV in massaging chairs, then got a bite of ramen at a cafe. Nobody we talked to spoke any English at all, so we sort of picked something to eat at random. So we had our first Japanese meal. Rhino had a snazzy airport stroller in which we carted him and our bags around.

The flight to Misawa was pretty quick. We flew over some snowy mountains and the water, but it was dark by the time we landed, so we didn’t get to see too much else. When we landed there were three guys from Matt’s work waiting for us. Matt’s sponsor, Pete, took all our luggage in his van and we rode with Andre to the base. They took us to billeting, where we were told we may be staying for about a month. They took a list of groceries and ran to the store to get us a few things to eat for the next few days.

Misawa Inn from Melissa on Vimeo.

Tuesday morning Pete picked Matt up to go to work and take care of some paperwork. They showed back up at billeting to pick up me and Rhino to go have lunch at the BX food court. Then Matt went to housing to sign up for a house. They came back and got me when he was given keys to look at our new place. They pick one house as a first choice. If we decline that one, they give us a second choice. If we decline the second one, then we can no longer stay in billeting on the Air Force’s tab and need to find a place off base. We checked out our first choice. It’s on the bottom floor of a quadplex. It’s two bedrooms and has a washer and drier and a yard. It’s bigger than our old apartment and I like it quite a bit. So Matt got an appointment for Friday to accept the place and set a move-in date. Apparently we have to wait for FMO to move in some temporary furniture while we wait the 3 months for ours to arrive.

Wednesday Matt took care of a few more appointments and briefings, he and I both attended a driving class (to learn how to read the traffic signs and drive on the left) and received our Japanese driving licenses, I got a new ID, and then we had dinner over at Pete’s house. We met his wife and three kids, took a walk to the beach, and had some steaks and squash. It was a nice time and I think we’re going back over there for a barbecue this weekend.

Today we went out to dinner at Sukiya for some beef and rice bowls off-base. I think it’s a Japanese fast food place. They had about 500 menu choices and what we had was pretty good.

Then we went car shopping. We had looked at a few of the cars at the base lemon lot. They tend to be a little cheaper when sold by other military members moving on. Japan has this insurance called JCI that is good for 2 years and transferable with the vehicle. It gets to be about $1000 when you have to buy it. So, when car shopping on base, we were looking for cars that still had plenty of time left for JCI. There were some nice ones, but we heard that the lots off-base had full JCI and warranties and 0% interest. We also wanted a car that we wouldn’t have to worry about too much. You can get cars for extremely cheap or free here, but we didn’t want to have to deal with lots of repairs and issues. So we chose a ’97 Honda off a lot off base. It’s a bit pricier than on base (but still much cheaper than in the US), but we have the warranty and the 2 years JCI, which makes a difference to us. Japan is having a bunch of holidays this week (Shōwa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day & Children’s Day) so the title won’t be transferred until they’re over, on the 7th. So they loaned us a little car in the meantime. It’s nice to have our own car than to rely on Matt’s sponsor.

There are more photos here!

Ohh …. I wish someone had told us earlier.