i like

the river that runs through this concrete island

flowers blooming in fall

hibiscus remind me of grammy

I feel her smiling on me

I think she would say its ok

the way things are right now

the way things have been

I want to return to the sun-filled place

baking imaginary muffins with her

so safe

so loved

a good feeling.

dance-a-long

tonight we danced to papa's new album. you can download it for free, we'll have an international dance party. http://soundcloud.com/gejius/sets/free

FREE (yeah, it's actually free) by Gejius

This album features our raddest friends from America and Japan. Hearing their voices is like hugging them, or better yet, fist pumping with them in my living room. I love it. I hear the bridges of Portland and the concrete of Tokyo, fir trees and city rivers, hours of train rides with a keyboard on his back, a Glass Moustache, a Botanist, a HondaLady, everything we left behind and the beat of right now. Bobei is a definite fan. She is an electronic kid. How many 4 year olds do you know who sing Julie?

morning

This is just a practice for this weekend. And yes, that's a real starter's pistol.

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?