I Love Kyoto in the Springtime

I don't think that the true wonder and beauty of Kyoto can be expressed in just a few words. Suffice it to say that we had an amazing trip. In just three nights, we attempted to experience the city dubbed as the "Paris of Japan." Our first night we walked to a park that was a mile or so away from our hotel (Hotel Alpha Kyoto) to see a famous lit up cherry blossom tree. It was quite fantastic to behold hundreds of Japanese people all gathered beneath the cherry trees eating their picnics by lantern-light. Everyone from teenagers to families to groups of businessmen in their three piece suits. Magical, really. Thursday was packed full with tour activities. We began the day at the Diatokuji Temple, which was very quiet and serene with beautiful gardens and an interesting tomb area outside that included the grave of a Christian woman (separate from the rest of the graves). Next we went to the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji). While it did not quite seem to match the picture in its respective brochure, the structure was still quite beautiful to behold. Third, we visited a textile center where we were able to take in a short kimono fashion show. In the afternoon, the skies finally unleashed the rain they had been holding back thus far. We braved the weather to explore the Kiyomizu Temple, arguably one of the most photographed places in Kyoto (Lori, you have a magnet of this on your fridge!). This is where Hyatt drank from some special spring - apparently the water is supposed to give you health, wealth, good studies, or some such things. Truthfully, the water did taste pretty delicious (he brought us some in the 200Y cup he bought as a memento). That evening we ate with the rest of the tour at a Japanese restaurant and were able to meet an apprentice geisha.

Friday was our free day. We began the day with a trip on the subway to the Nijojo Castle. This was a trip highlight, as we had the opportunity to walk on beautiful wood floors that were built in such a way that they sang like nightingales when you walked on them. Truly a marvel. Apparently they were built that way as a security measure however many hundred years ago. The grounds around that castle were incredible, with cherry blossom trees, moats, ornate gates, and a pond with beautifully arranged rocks. Early that afternoon, after lunch at McDonald's, Hyatt walked all the way to a little store near the park we went to the first night with me. I really wanted a special hair thing from there, but I hadn't realized how far away it was until we arrived there:) That afternoon we took the subway to the 10,000 Torii gates. I think Abi and Chris would probably agree with us that this was the highlight of our time in Kyoto. Perhaps because it was so unexpected. I knew that there were 10,000 Torii gates there, of course, but it is quite another thing to see them stretching in front of my eyes as far as I could see, and to walk through them down one path and then up one staircase after another, never to find the end of them. The view from up near the top was incredible - we had all of Kyoto at our feet.

That evening we found a jewel in the midst of the city. We were looking for the perfect place to eat dinner (but were really quite ready to settle for a fast food pizza joint or the chain hamburger steak place, because we just needed something in our stomachs), when we came across a sign and a little staircase going down to the area beside the canal. Tucked in there was a modern-chic little Italian restaurant (called Cafe Cento Cento). There were a couple of unoccupied tables set out on the patio (perhaps because it was still a little chilly... but we're from northern Japan, so it wasn't TOO chilly to enjoy the atmosphere of a canal bathed in candlelight, running underneath the cherry blossoms and willow trees. And the food was something not just to be tasted, but to really be experienced. Maybe one of the best dinners we've ever had. The perfect ending to the perfect trip.

And so, there you have an attempt at putting our days in Kyoto into words. Now I will put it into pictures... imagine these pictures plus the other 400 or so that we took:) What can I say? It was beautiful!

Photo Journal of Hawaii

We made it back to Japan! An 8.5 hour flight and 6 hours of trains and train stations later... :) At the moment I am madly trying to both unpack and repack so we can make it for our afternoon flight to Kyoto (slightly different climate than our last trip), but thought I should at least post pictures from our Hawaii trip so they don't get overlooked with our next pictures from Kyoto. As you will see in the pictures, we had a wonderful, full couple of weeks on Oahu. When Hyatt wasn't working, we spent most of our time at the beach, whether Barbers Point, the Lagoons, Pipeline, Sunset, or Mauna Pu'u. Brian and Hyatt got in some great bodyboarding, Chris learned to surf, Hyatt and I got to brush up on our surfing skills, and Kaiya adapted to life on the beach. We also made a trip out to Sea Life Park, in memory of our day trip there almost exactly 4 years ago (our first married Easter together). Sadly, the pirate ship was no longer there, so our pictures were not quite the same, but the dolphin show was fun and the penguins were adorable. The newest update on Kaiya's growing progess is that she is very much loving the new freedom she's found with her ability to stand. She pulls herself up on whatever she can find that is at the right height and is able to stand up holding on for quite a while. Kaiya really enjoyed standing on her seat on the train ride yesterday and watching Tokyo out the window!

Now here are the pictures... probably not in the correct order...

























And here is us in 2004 at Sea Life Park, back when the pirate ship was still there, and my hair was orange.

Fun in the Sun... and the Sand

Today was another beautiful day in the sun here on Oahu. This afternoon we were able to venture over to the east side of the island so Hyatt and Brian could check out the bodysurfing at a beach there. I had Kaiya watching duty, and she made it a little more exciting than normal. Just last week she became quite upset when she accidentally got sand on her hand and wasn't able to get it off. She would hold up her hand and start to whine. Somehow she has become more used to it in the last few days and has progressed from her first response, to tolerance and curiosity, to what you can see now in this little video clip. What a joy she is! Each day she seems more and more ready to conquer the world:) Kaiya's exploring everything in reasonable proximity, from under the bed in the hotel room, to inside my suitcase, to the sand surrounding her "safe" towel area at the beach.

Well, I will leave you to be amused at today's antics...

Next Top Model

Once again, it's been awhile... will it ever be less than "awhile?" I wonder. Well, a lot has happened in the last month or so. For instance, we have made the first addition to our home arcade. Yes, it's true. We now have a full sized arcade game (Raiden II) in our spare bedroom, so, if you come stay with us we will not only provide you with a free bed to sleep in, but free arcade time until the wee hours of the night! Hyatt's working on a project to hopefully get the machine hooked up to another hard drive so we can play al sorts of old school arcade games all on the one machine. He's somewhat of a genius when it comes to stuff like that, so it is only a matter of actually having some time at home to work on it.

Our second addition to our home this last month was a cat. It's not a very long story. I went out to a friend's house for a girls thing on a Saturday evening, and when I came home there was a white, very skinny, mangy looking cat in our front entrance. Of course, I immediately called out to Hyatt, who was in the living room, telling him we had a cat in the house. To which he replied, "Yeah, I tried to call you at Kamee's house to warn you before you got here, but you had already left........." I'm so thankful that I married such a compassionate man. And it has definitely made our last few weeks extra interesting, as the cat just never left. It's not allowed in the house, though, so it sleeps (and eats, and hangs out) on our front porch. Through the course of the last while it has fattened up quite a bit and has proven to be quite a people cat. Hyatt took it to the vet off base (we aren't allowed to take it to PAWS, which is kind of an SPCA on base because we live off base and found the stray off base), and all they did was ask if it seemed sick, then said it was ok. Apparently, on base they do blood tests, but you have to sign your name to the cat first and take full responsibility for it. All this to say that we are in Hawaii at the moment (another long story, but suffice it to say that it was a very last minute work trip for Hyatt - and Kaiya and I came along to be with him... the beach and the sun are just bonuses), and we will see if Stuart (some of you might have heard of the book "If you give a mouse a cookie"... we thought a mouse name was appropriate given the circumstances) is still at our house when we return. If he is, that means that he's low maintenance enough for us to claim responsibility for him:)

Lastly, I have gone ahead and entered Kaiya in a modeling contest! Not that this was something that I was looking to do, but I have had a fair number of comments from strangers saying that she should model (to hear this from relatives or close friends is one thing, because I understand that they are biased and know how adorable her personality is, too, but from a stranger I take it a little more seriously). So.... when an e-mail came out from poshbaby saying that they're looking for new baby models, I thought I might as well put her name in the hat. Plus, it would allow us the chance to visit family. Anyways, if you happen to want to vote for her, you can go to http://www.poshbabyllc.com/posh/index.php?main_page=modelsearch_choose and then you just need to enter in Kaiya M to vote. Don't feel like you have to vote or anything, but I at least wanted you to know that the option was there:)

Anyways, I suppose I should enjoy some of this Hawaiian sun while I can... I will post some cute beach pictures soon. Maybe by then Kaiya won't mind going in the water:)

We Love Cheerios

You would think that we would have known in advance how much our daughter would take a liking to Cheerios, with the love that her dad has for cereal. Her eyes light up when she sees the box, she starts rocking in her chair and making noises... all in eager anticipation of the little morsels being sprinkled onto her tray for a tasty treat. The fun really begins, though, when she starts working at transferring them from her tray to her mouth. As time goes by, more and more make it to her mouth, and less are finding their way onto the floor or her lap. So, enjoy a glimpse into breakfast at the Moore's house:)

Several Christmases

This Christmas was a special one for us - each time we celebrated! The Christmas season began with Hyatt's work party, then we celebrated it just the three of us on the 15th, followed by The Gang on the 16th, the "real" one with the Moore family on the 25th, and lastly a get together with my parents on the 27th. Actually, I'd like to think that we're still celebrating as we're over here in the States and Canada visiting with friends and family. One of the things that we are going to remember this Christmas the most for, however, is the fact that this was the miracle Christmas that my passport arrived just in time. For those of you who haven't already heard the story (which is probably very few of you, as I think the whole rest of the world was praying along with us), allow me to fill you in...

March 2008 has been one of the key days in my mind for the last few years, because I have always wondered how I was going to get my passport renewed before it expired when I tend to need it fairly often. This past summer I filled out my renewal application, but had a question about what form to fill out, as our situation was rather unique. As I have my US Green Card and an American mailing address, I could qualify as a Canadian living in the US, but my physical location was Japan, so I could fit in the Canadian Living Abroad category as well. After asking around last summer, I just went ahead and picked one and figured that even if it wasn't the right one, that the situation was special enough to warrant extra grace with a new passport regardless of whether I had submitted the form they needed. This long story is becoming longer than it needs to be, but let me just say that we ended up waiting at the last minute hoping that my passport would arrive in time for me to go back to California for Christmas. The passport actually arrived in Japan the afternoon before we were to fly out. It was a new kind of faith for me to be packing my bags and readying to be away from our house for 2 and a half months, not even knowing if we were going to leave the next day. So, the end of the story is that it did arrive, but God is definitely a just in time God.

Hyatt and I were very thankful for Kaiya this Christmas - somehow she made everything more festive and fun as we got to see everything through her eyes and cheer her on as she tore the wrapping paper on her gifts. Now I will share a few pictures from our Christmas celebrations... (the family photo at the top and the one of Kaiya were taken by Hyatt's sister, Acacia, when we were in California - she's an incredible photographer... www.acaciaphotos.com)

We're Thankful

It is hard to believe that American Thanksgiving is already past and Christmas is well on its way, eh? Well, this thanksgiving, we are thankful for friends...including friends who can cook:) We had a great time at Chris and Abi's house, although we did have to trek through the snow to get there. Thank goodness we only live a few minutes away! Yes, it is true - it is still November, and we have already had a couple of feet of snow! Kaiya celebrated this Thanksgiving by having her first taste of non-rice cereal solid food in the form of carrots. Since then she has also been introduced to sweet potatoes and apple sauce. Surprisingly enough, apple sauce is not her favourite. We only know this because she makes some creative faces as we are trying to shove it through her tightly pursed lips. She only resists for a short time, though, because food is food. And she likes food:)

Last weekend we had a ceremony at our church called the Hanging of the Green. Hyatt and I had a very important role to play, as we were the ones who read about the significance and meaning of poinsettias at Christmas time. For those of you who do not know what the Hanging of the Green is, which I am assuming is most of you, it is when the church decorates for Christmas and prepares for the advent season. I had never heard of it, either, until a couple of weeks ago, but I think that it is a great idea. It was so special to start this season off in the right way - keeping our minds on Jesus from the start. We're hoping to do advent as a family, too, although that means that we still need to find a wreath for the table, and a book to guide us through. Perhaps this year we will just be a little creative, and maybe we will come up with some traditions of our own. Anyways, at the end of the Hanging of the Green ceremony, they had everyone in the church come up and hang an ornament on the tree, and Kaiya was more than happy to participate (truthfully, she was in the nursery, so she had to hang her ornament after the ceremony was done).

I've also included a picture of Kaiya sitting up, although it is a little misleading. Yes, she can sit, but she cannot sit for very long on her own, and someone has to be right ready to catch her as soon as she takes a dive. So, she's getting there! You will also notice a classic picture of Kaiya spending quality Halo time with her dad on a Saturday morning:)

Kaiya's Not Crawling

Yes, rather anticlimatic... Kaiya is not crawling yet... but she IS beginning to make slight attempts at it. So, here is a video so you can watch her wiggle around on her tummy and make noise. This noise has become her new favourite thing to do for the past few days. She most frequently lets me hear it when I am feeding her rice cereal. I get to listen to it in between most bites. At least her mouth has to be open to do it, which assists me as I am trying to get another spoonful in there:) Oh, and I should mention that she had drooled on the plastic piece on her playmat, so that's what she's trying to reach out and smear around:)

Lady Liberty in Japan

I'll keep this short, but Ellie and I (along with the girls, of course) took a little trip today to see the Japanese version of the Statue of Liberty... just a short 20-25 minute drive away from my door! How convenient. I suppose since Lady Liberty knew that I couldn't see her in person for a while yet, she decided to come see me instead... in Japan:) The park was beautiful, as all of the parks here seem to be. What I can't quite figure out is where the money comes from to create and upkeep all of the parks here. There are so many, and they are all on the grand scale. Yet another question to add to my list. Right now it is still a mental list, but at the rate that I'm adding questions these days, I will need to start actually writing them all down (especially at the rate that I'm forgetting them all these days).

Our Little Bunny

Today I took our little bunny to the doctor's office for a weigh-in. For those of you who I haven't spoken to in the last few weeks, Kaiya weighed in at 10.5 lbs 4 weeks ago, which is really small for a 4 month old baby... as in off the charts small. So, she has been getting formula in addition to her regular milk, and that has done the trick! As of today our not-so-little-anymore daughter weighs 13 lbs 4 oz (which is around the 10th percentile) and her head is 39.9 cm (also the 10th percentile), while her height is in the 25th percentile (I can't remember if she was 24 or 24.5 inches). So, we have no more worries about her weight gain, and I'll have to determine how much to keep supplementing with formula.

This evening we went to church for the harvest festival there, which was fun. Our friend, Brian, and Kaiya won a cake at the cake walk... and now Kaiya's mommy has to eat the whole thing herself. What a shame. :)

Fall Colours

On Saturday we finally reunited our whole "gang" for a trip to Oriase Gorge to take in the fall colours. We also managed to procure a group photo, compliments of a kind Japanese gentleman (we made sure to ask one who was carrying a really high tech looking camera himself, as we figured that this would give us a better chance of a good photograph even though it would be with our camera). The day was quite delightful, with the drive up to the gorge (it takes a good hour and a half or so, not including really slow Japanese Bongo-type trucks in front of us), some walking around and lots of picture taking, and a stop at the foot onsen on the way back. For those of you not familiar with onsens (while I may technically fall in that category myself as I have never been to an onsen, I do live in Japan, which means that I know about them), an onsen is a place where there are hot springs and people usually enjoy them without any clothing. Some of said onsens separate genders, while others are open to all who are free enough to visit them. When we first moved here, I was pregnant, so the onsen was out of the question. Now I no longer have that alibi, but I do have a baby and a postpartum body, both are minor obstacles to overcome in my new goal to at least do as the Japanese do... once.

That long rabbit trail following the onsens really was leading to a point. The point being that we went to a foot onsen. Even with my knowledge of onsens, I had never heard of a foot onsen until Saturday when we visited one. Essentially, it was a sunken table under a covering that was in the middle of a parking lot, which was in the middle of a park. Under the sunken table was water that was naturally heated. So, we seized the day, removed our socks and shoes (despite the rather frigid weather), rolled up our pants, and sat down at the table for a nice foot soak. It really was a bonding moment... as was the moment several moments later when we had to put our socks and shoes on our wet feet in order to get back to the vehicles. The lesson that I learned from this experience is that one must always be prepared with a towel in the vehicle for just such occasions.

Our day ended at a new restaurant called RamTei. I don't know the name for this kind of restaurant, but I think that you'll at least understand the terms "all you can eat" and "cook your own food". Although they always have salad offered at these places, meat just seems like you're getting more for your money. I don't know that that is really the case, especially with the high prices of produce here in Japan, but the perception was there nonetheless. So, plates of meat it was. And Hyatt has said, once again, that he will never eat at one of those places again. I really think that they should have a cheaper fee for women than men at those places, because we women don't have a hope of achieving the stomach capacity of men.

And such was our last Saturday. Just another wonderful day in Japan.

But what would a blog post be without a new adorable picture of Kaiya... she looks pretty proud of herself for figuring out how to get her foot through the opening in her sleep sack.



And a new family photo...