love is a rice ball made just for you

my tokyo

*an image posted each week of the tokyo we experience

NHK studio park

Today me and the girl went to NHK Studio Park where many of her favorite television shows are filmed in Shibuya. It is a Tokyo Public Holiday today and NHK offered free admission. The pictures above are from a summer trip to NHK including Papa which was the result of a failed picnic excursion to Yoyogi Park. We got to Yoyogi just fine but Papa forgot many things needed for the picnic (*ahem* food *ahem*) and it was so hot at one point I almost threw up. Not. Joking.

Both that day and today the above, who doesn't look as hilarious in person as he does in this picture, came out for the children to take pictures with him. His name is "Wanwan." Wan wan is the sound dogs make in Japan, like "woof woof". The guy who does this character is incredible. Its always the same guy, the real actor, and he is live in there. As in, we've seen him sing while dancing in the suit and talking to specific children he's shaking hands with in the audience. We've also seen him do a cartwheel in this suit. Live! And at free events! He is the man.

My favorite thing to do at NHK is the dubbing booth. They let you go in and choose from a few different scenes from different famous Japanese cartoons. You get to practice once, record and it plays it back for you. Hilarious fun and really quite educational. I laughed so hard today at my own dubbing. Bobei wasn't as into it, of course. The other cool thing is that there are viewing stations where you can view a live set from above and from a few screens in the building. We've seen the actors taping one of bobei's favorite shows and today we watched a few takes of an adult samurai drama, Ryomaden, that's really popular right now. For a kid who loves television its a great way to sneak in some knowledge of how that all works. On another note: Today my daughter said I should be on tv and that made me smile. Really big. Kid's television entertainer big.

little library project

I picked up this little freebie booklet at our local library. It has 100 tiny pictures of new children's book covers. It was the weekend, we were bored...so we did this...even Papa joined in.

I love children's literature. The illustrations for Japanese children's literature is especially phenomenal. A lot of the titles here are books or characters whose books we have read and that just makes it even more fun.

Step 1: Help tiny hands cut out tiny square book covers. These will be used as the tiny library book covers and book pages. We didn't cut out all 100. The pages were printed on both sides so we had to choose which book "pages" we wanted to use, although I have more than 1 of these little booklets.

Step 2: Measure and draw rectangles onto construction paper. I think ours were about 2 inches x 4 inches. And each book used 3 rectangles.

Step 3: Help tiny hands cut out rectangles. (Step 3.5: Finish cutting them out when child gets lazy.)

Step 4: Assemble tiny books by lining up rectangles and stapling down the center.

Step 5: Choose book cover pictures and glue to the front of little books. This may be important or not. If you will make up stories to write inside or tell verbally, the cover may or may not determine the characters involved or the topic of the book. Have fun with this! Our covers ended up being either favorite book characters or random. Papa had the idea of making books of different subjects. In that case sort the images you have into categories and choose an appropriate cover. Or draw one!

Step 6: Glue in your page images! This can be done however you want. After covers were glued we each worked on the pages for different books. Each of us had a different way of choosing our pages and we all had fun.

Step 7: Write your story! Creative reign here.

Step 8: Invite doll friends and animals to their new library! Have a storytime! (The above book is a funny character, its called "Daruma-san ga")

bobei's doll Rose is the current owner of this library but it is often shared with the Carebears and Minnie. I still need to fashion a little cardboard bookcase to hold them. Oh! Papa also wrote a copyright on the back and had bobei sign some of them. You could also create a library card for the back page where little hands could stamp them in or out of circulation. Oh! I should have done that!!

why?

Did I cut my hair? We came back from Florida, my hair was below my shoulder blades, Japan was a furnace and I chopped my hair off. I took this picture the day after the initial cut. Really, it was all a mistake. The guy was cutting layers into my hair that were too short, already the length you see above and the shoulder length hair I was going for was looking pretty yuck. I have hence decided, with the approval of husband, that I will no longer do this. Its another pattern of repeated behavior that always ends with the same result...WHY?

I got a little adventurous this summer and started cutting up shirts and sewing different things. This shirt I cut right down the middle. For some reason this shirt has not stopped shrinking and continues to shrink every time I wash it. I liked wearing it this way, but unfortunately it continued to shrink and I don't think will fit around my arms anymore. More why?

funny

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

repeat

I wish this didn't always happen. Why is it always the bad habits that stick and not the good ones? Like, why can I watch unprecedented amounts of television, stay up later than is healthy, and drink enough tea to feel slightly intoxicated every night but not keep up a blog? The day to day of it may not be enjoyable, in fact to me anything that relies on internet and technology usually doesn't go well, but I love looking back at my daughter. I think her cheeks were chubbier 3 months ago. I can tell she's taller. I've been to the store for bigger undies, indoor yochien shoes, and tomorrow I'll buy her a new swimsuit. It won't be long before she's too big for me to carry and I'm starting to say to myself what other people say because she's starting to look too big to be my daughter. And that's when looking at a blog post with accompanying picture from a few months ago is a gem. A sparkling sad little gem that I can revisit to see a little face and busy little hands while the girl in front of me is more than half my height at 4 years old and moving so fast with new navy blue patent leather Primigi mary janes to accomodate her ever growing feet. So how can I let so much time go by and not say anything, to myself even, here? Damn. If this blog were something physical to hold I could add it to the stack, or let's say "stacks" of diaries, journals, notebooks, sketchbooks, etc. that I've tried to keep since age 5. Eghhh. It feels yucky.

Well, for my own benefit and in hopes that I'll post about some of these happenings already missed, here me:

Florida trip

Hiraizumi weekend

natsu matsuri

iron beads

natsu yasumi

heartcatch precure at sunshine city

tokorozawa aviation museum

koukukoen

jidoukan

NHK studios

crossstitch exhibit

kuma no pooh san exhibit

ueno zoo

New habit(for better or worse, slow connection or fast, in late evening or early morning): this blog

whoops

Ok, still here.

Just reassuring myself.