January and February 2015

January and February are my least favorite months.  Even though we live further south, giving us much milder winters than we are used to in Ohio, I still do not like it.  It makes me want to hibernate.  So I often do.  So there's not a lot of exciting things to share from these months, but we did do several fun things still. 

Left:  We had dinner at Tenryu, a local yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant near our house.  This shelf is by the door and you can purchase a bottle of sake or other liquor, write your name on it, and keep it there if you're a regular customer.  Top right:  Which one of these is not like the others??  Bottom right:  Rice vending machines:  For all those times that you run out of rice, but can't make it to the grocery store.  Actually, this is a realistic problem because most grocery stores don't open until 10:00am here.

Always love Cooking Club day, especially when it's a Japanese food day.  For January we made osechi, New Years food.  On the right, I'm learning how to make the tamago (egg) sushi.  They eventually gave me a flipper instead of chopsticks and she helped me lots.  She made it look so easy!

5 Months!  Here's what I wrote on Facebook:  She has changed more in the past few weeks than I think she has the previous 5 months combined! She's rolling everywhere, enjoying oatmeal, squash, and sweet potatoes, loving the Jumparoo, playing with friends, squealing with joy and jibber-jabbering away, and so much more. She's brought so much more love to our lives.

I found the Cabbage Patch Doll hat at the thrift shop on base.  What an awesome find!  Emi loves playing with her Minnie and Daisy crinkle book.  She took to eating really well!  6.240 kg = 13.75 pounds.  So at 6 months, Emi allllmost doubled her birth weight.  My skinny-minny is truckin' right along!

Where did half of a year go??   Love all of her expressions.  So much personality already.  I think she's going to be a pretty independent little lady.  She plays well by herself while I get work done around the house.  Oh, and another huge blessing: She has the ability to sleep through the jet noise!  Wooo!  That's a very lucky thing around here!

The Japanese spouse group on base brought their beautiful kimonos and let us try them on. There is much more to the kimono than you can see. It took 2-3 ladies 10-15 minutes to dress each of us. It's nothing like slipping into an evening gown! You have to put on a top and bottom slip and then the kimono. Those need to be tied and adjusted to your size.  The obi (wide belt) is super long (often around 15 feet or more) and is wrapped around and tied in a fancy way, often in a drum or bow.  Mine is the barrel drum but Jess got a fancy bow!  Once that is all done, they add some fancy little flowers and hair flair.

Me, Jess, and Kristin, feeling fancy.

I'm very lucky that my two favorite Japan ladies both had babies right around the same time I did.  It was sooo nice to have good friend to go to to discuss pregnancy stuff with and now baby stuff!  We'd like to think the kids like each other too.  Holden is 3 weeks older and since Emi was a bit early, Julia is 3 weeks younger.  It's fun to watch them all together.  The picture on the right is my favorite though.  Looks like Julia is telling Emi a really juicy secret.  Adorable!!

Yokohama Ya has my favorite ramen.  This is probably because a lot of ramen shops are in Japanese only and in intimidating tiny little spaces, so I actually haven't been to a ton of different places. (Maybe 6 or 7??)  Yokohama Ya is a giant restaurant by Japan standards and has an English menu.  They also serve super rich pork broth ramen.  In case it wasn't heavy enough, I get the one with 4 half eggs.  They're only boiled part way, so the yolk is a thick custard-like texture.  OMG, it's amazing!!!    Middle:  Karen had a dinner party murder mystery game from long ago that she had never played.  So she hosted an Italian themed evening.  We all dressed up like our character, ate delicious food, and had a good time.  I was a fortune-teller and Bryan was a French guy who turned out to be the murderer!   Right:  I bought a step tonsu!  It's Korean, not Japanese, but they sell them at the bazaars that the bases all host full of Asian things.  So many drawers!! I can hide all kinda of things!! Love it.

Emily is a model!  Funny, huh?? 

Here in Japan, a lot of advertisements use foreign children. (I guess because they stand out??)  The bases all host modeling fairs, where a bunch of agencies around Tokyo come to see our kiddos.  A lot of people from base do it, so I thought we'd give it a try too.  If it didn't go well, we wouldn't do any more, if it did, then cool, I have a few professional pictures of her and many years down the road when she is playing a game like 2 Truths, 1 Lie, she can say "I was a model in Japan."   Turns out Emily enjoyed both modeling opportunities we had because all she had to do was lay there and smile while 5 people gave her their full attention.  She did two advertisements.  This one is for Nishikawa bedding. 

I wish I could have taken some pictures of the actual photo shoots, but I was told I wasn't allowed. 

The model with her is Eri Ebihara.  Her twin sister is Yuri Ebihara, a famous model here in Japan.  Yuri is famous for being the face of the ebi burger (shrimp burger) when McDonalds introduced it here. Get it, Ebihara in the ebi burger commercials??  Hahaha!   Anyway, apparently Eri does pretty okay too!  She was super sweet with Emily, so honestly, that's all I care about.

We only did one other photoshoot.  It was with Miki House, a popular (and expensive!) kids apparel brand.  Her picture wasn't in the catalog, so I hear they are using it for advertisements in magazines.  I still haven't seen it yet.  

I took Emily to 2 other auditions.  One was for the Jumparoo, which at the time, was her favorite toy.  We were very sad to not get that job, because 1. How cool would it be to say my kid is the face of the Jumparoo in Japan?? and 2. It paid a lot!  Womp! Womp! 

Most people just do a couple jobs, but some kids do a lot. While some jobs do pay a lot, not all do.  It is also time consuming because you have to go on an hour or so train ride for auditions, which of course don't pay and may not lead to anything, and the actual job.  It can be exhausting, especially if you have to travel during rush hour, but sometimes worth it.  It was a fun only-in-Japan experience for us. :-)

Emi and Eri with the ladies who worked the photo shoot.  The modeling agency that I worked with for this shoot sent me this picture.  They said that Eri put it on her blog.  In case you're reading this, hi Eri!!

We made it through February!!  Yay, now for spring time in Japan, the most beautiful season of them all!!