Why I heart Taiwan...

Guess who happens to be in town for the 2008 International Beef Noodle Soup Festival in Taipei...they should make me a guest judge. Tomorrow, baby.

Too much fun in Singapore

 

 

Evan had so much fun playing on the playground in the dark that even when he banged his head on a bar he didn't cry and just continued playing.  It wasn't until about 1/2 hour after he came back (he went out with Bev's aunt and his first cousin once removed Ray - I like Uncle Ray better, easier to say - while we ate), we were just on our way out, and for some reason I was playing with his hair when all of the sudden I hit a thick patch of hair stuck together.  Thought it was kind of odd, but just thought maybe Evan had boogers in his hair...until I looked at my fingers and found that they were red.  I did some more digging (visualize monkey picking lice) and found about a 3-4 cm laceration on his head, fairly deep, slightly bleeding. ...?  Did Evan not feel it?  Asked him if it hurt, he said, mmmh (which is yes, I think)...I think he was more interested in playing, of course.  Bev's aunt has four boys who can as a team wear out Evan.  The laceration looked like it could be remedied with Neosporin, but we just wanted to be sure it wasn't infected.  This would be the second gash on his head; the first one was when he jumped off the bed and hit the corner with the back of his head.  Blood was gushing everywhere, Bev said (or at least made it sound like) it was like something out of a horror flick (but I would never know, I don't like those).  Headed over to Juliana's alma mater, Gleneagles Hospital, and the doctors there glued his head together.  We told Evan the doctors were giving him a haircut so he was quite positive throughout the procedure, flashing gang signs at the camera and flapping his legs around.  

I was quite positive until I received the bill.  That's an expensive noggin.  There'd better be something in there.

just had to share

I'm getting myself and Evan, of course, ready for Japanese kindergarten in a couple weeks. I think Evan is totally ready for more activities and such, cause almost daily he'll whine to me, "Mommy, I need something else I can do!" I give him activities, but he's done and wants to move on in 10 mins.
Anyway, I'm worried that the school is going to frown upon me as a mom if I send Evan to school with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As much as he likes them, they are nothing compared to the bento boxes (Japanese lunch boxes) that I've seen in the past. I've been to the store to find a lunch box for Evan and there's a gazillion little gadgets and doodads and thing-a-ma-bobs to make your kid's rice balls look like Hello Kitty or cut a tiny wiener into a crab or making special hole punched seaweed to make Winnie the Pooh's face out of your carrots! Its insane how much time and effort these moms will put into making their kids meals look kawaii. more power to ya.
Although, I'm not about to invest in Doremon cupcake papers, I do want to at least provide Evan with something good to eat for lunch that's somewhat Japanese. Plus, I don't think Evan will care about cute food. Knowing him, he'll probably throw his backpack around enough that he'll find a bento full of garbled funny faces at lunchtime.
So, online I go, and I find this site. JustBento.com. I love how nicely everything is photographed. I haven't tried the recipes yet, but you can be sure I'm going to be trying them out soon!

Happy Bon Odori

bon odori

This is what I've been looking forward to about living in Japan... attending local festivities! Although this wasn't how I imagined it...

The base opened up its gates to the locals to celebrate Bon Odori on it's grounds. Usually they'd have to be sponsored to get on base. Well, there were booths of food and stuff for sale by locals, but then there's a few stalls that were selling pizza and hot dogs and Doritos and Lays and military paraphernalia and even Outback Steakhouse was there. And it wasn't just Americans selling American food. The Japanese were making fusion food. Like falafel dog. Think, hot dog on a stick wrapped in a falafel. I guess it would be good. And there was a stand from another of base restaurant selling Döner kebab. It was very yummy, but what did it have to do with a Japanese festival?

Well, despite the swellering heat and humidity and strange juxtaposition of hot dogs and kimonos, it was fun. We had way too many shaved ice just to keep cool. After a couple hours I was ready to take the kids home to put them to nap so I could nap! We woke up in time to eat dinner and go see the fireworks. There must have been firework shows all around base cause we were hearing them before the show on base would start. But then again it could have been another freak thunderstorm like the Fourth of July had.

I forgot to grab the camera, so you'll have to imagine it was a really good show. They were firing them off from two different locations, syncronized to music, that again wasn't all Japanese music.

It was nice to have the festival come to us on base, but I think I'm gonna have to do a little more research to find the authentic festivals I'm hoping to experience while we're in Japan.

p.s. click on the pic up above to see the rest of the pics.

Hot Hot Hot

It is so stinkin hot and humid here! How did people survive without AC? I always thought Japan was more like Seattle in terms of climate. Boy was I wrong! It's like we never left DC. It rains buckets too. Mark's coworker invited us out to go swimming with them Sat morning. I though it would still be too cool to go swimming. Wrong again. At 11am, you want to be in the pool! Everything on base is family friendly. There's 3 pools of different depths, and one is just 4-6 inches deep! perfect for the kiddies. And they have tons of pool toys too. Just no inflatable things are allowed.

Life on base is slow I think. Things close early and on odd days. Don't bother getting anything done around 1100-1300, its lunch time. At the pool, the last 10 mins (and they are to the dot on this) of every hour the life guards take a break and everyone gets out of the pool. And Mon and Tues they're closed for cleaning. The commissary (grocery store) where we live is open 0900 -1900 everyday except Mon. The commissary at the other base where we get our mail is closed Wed. I'm defiantly not used to a grocery store closing at 7pm. Different offices closes at different hours... I can't keep it all straight in my head. And I'm not used to using 24 hour time either. So I say its slow cause things aren't open when I need them to be.

Our camcorder called it quits the other day. Sad, cause it wasn't that old and it fit our needs. Back in DC, Mark accidentally stepped on it, and we thought it was just a cosmetic thing. The LCD screen was just a little kinked and just needed a little extra push to get it closed. Well, turns out that the touch screen doesn't work anymore. We can still record on it, but there's no way to make it do anything else cause all the buttons are accessed from the screen... I guess Sony made that decision for the sake of clean design. argh. I hate when expensive investments die. Why does Mark have to have big feet?

About the kids...Careese, we can't get enough of her. I think God made babies and little kids cute in their parents eyes so they are hardwired to love and protect their young. And I think we were over wired for Careese. Something about having a little girl makes it different from having a boy too. Those of you with little girls know what we're talking about. Careese's new thing is discovery of her voice box. She screams at such high decibels I'm sure there are times when Lucy our dog is in pain. The funniest is Careese's new thing where she'll growl at us and at her food right before eating it. Lucy doesn't do it, so this is all Careese's. We tried but couldn't get a good video of her growling at her pieces of french toast in her little fists then shoving it in her mouth.

Evan is growing leaps and bounds vocabulary-wise. We signed him up for preschool at a local Japanese preschool, hoping he will learn Japanese. I think he's bored at home now. I don't have enough time and energy to really challenge his mind. And he actually asks to go to school. I'm a little worried that he'll fall behind in English once he goes to Japanese preschool. He'll learn to read and write in Japanese, so I'm going to have to keep him up with his English alphabet and reading at home. I don't want him to struggle when we move back to the states.
A funny thing he says is "Mommy, my tummy is empty, I need to put food in it so I can grow big, like daddy." He comprehends a lot more than we give him credit. A while ago, I gave him two empty plastic bottles to use as bowling pins. And the other day Mark and I had bought drinks and were drinking them in the car. Evan yells from his carseat, what I expected to be him asking for a sip too, "Oh yeay! You finish those drinks and I have 2 more bowling pins! And then I have 4 pins!" Holy cow, he's already doing math?! I was amazed that he understands action and consequence too.
I feel a little unprepared for raising a 3 yr old. Babies and toddler's needs are simple and it doesn't take much to challenge their little minds. But with Evan, I feel like I don't know enough about what goes on in his mind anymore. Stop growing up so fast, Evan!

Happy Birthdays

New House

new house

And we're back! Ok so I've been working on typing a post, but I haven't found the time to finish it. So here's pics to make up for it.
As for how we're doing? We're as settled in as fleas on a turtle's back. hahaha you like that? I just made that up myself. We're just dying waiting for our shipment to get here. I can't justify going out to buy things we need when its coming in our shipment. So we have to keep telling ourselves, and Evan, that our stuff is comeing just hang tight a little longer. I'm tired of only having 4 plates, 4 forks, 4 cups, 4 bowls. And Evan is tired of looking at his same books and toys. He's resorted to using his imagination... which isn't bad, but he's using an empty bottle and a tennis ball to "play" baseball. Poor kid.
I've talked to him about where his toys are. He actually got quiet and sad when I asked him where specific toys were. Almost like he was gonna cry. I pulled out a map that we got in the Westin Kids Club package and showed him where our old house was and where we are now and how all our things are on a ship (conveniantly there's a picture of a ship on the water too) and it has to sail all the way around the world to get here. He perked up right away. And now anytime he remembers something that we're missing he tells me about the ship that's coming really really slowly to bring it here. Wow, I didn't think he'd get it.