My sister was hoping we wouldn’t have to spend all day with the relatives, but I knew that’s what we were in store for. It’s not that bad, especially since the oldest cousin, Kyoko, is such a crack-up. From the left, there’s Kimikazu, the oldest male cousin (Kyoko’s younger brother), Kyoko, Miyaka and her kid (Kimikazu’s daughter), and Ikuko (Kimikazu’s wife).

Kimikazu is the cousin I was avoiding for all those years because I knew he’d have something to say about my lack of job, or not being married, or something else only a cousin can give you grief about. But like I said, he’s a bit of a drinker and his grandkids keep arriving less than 9 months after his kids’ marriages, so I’m not so worried about what he has to say any more. He’s a good guy, really, but does give me more grief than most of my relatives.

Here’s a picture of my mom, my aunt, and my uncle. My uncle is the oldest of the three, and there seems to be a lot more Tamuras around. No more Fujitas (my aunt only had a daughter) and no more Fujinakas thanks to me and my sister. This next picture doesn’t prove any of that since Miyaka is no longer a Tamura (and while she looks twelve she’s in her mid-twenties) and Yasuko (Kyoko’s daughter-in-law) is a Hashimoto. I can’t remember what the kids names are. I’m not even sure that Yasuko is really Kyoko’s daughter-in-law’s name.

Well, enough of the family. More pictures of food. I forgot to take pictures at lunch. We went to a shopping center I never knew existed, since the last time I was in Nishinomiya Kitaguchi there was a baseball stadium there. It’s pretty fancy and I wondered where all the rich people came from and I found out they were all from further north towards Takarazuka or towards Ashiya, not near the station. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that we went to a pretty darn nice mall and had a great Japanese lunch today.

After doing the family thing, we came back to Umeda and went to an even nicer mall (I keep thinking they’re going to kick my ass out for being so darn poor) with a Gucci store, a Swarovski store, etc, so we could find the shop that had mugs designed by my sister’s old high school friend Chico Hayasaki. We made it in and out without getting thrown out.

Dinner was in the Acty Building (Daimaru Umeda, I think) where there used to be two floors of restaurants including Chico’s and Charlie’s where we had the only Mexican food we could find in Japan. The floor with C&C is now missing and the lower floor is quite different. I voted to have dinner in a place that mainly had cakes and waffles and I made the right choice. The beef stew (in a set with coffee and cake plus sandwiches) was tasty and my sister and I both had it.

My mom and my aunt split an omurice gratin (omlette with fried rice inside, covered with cheese and baked) which was tasty as well.

On the way home I decided to try the ¥1000 haircut place (haircuts here usually cost twice as much and include a post-haircut shampoo and a straight razor shave). ¥1000 and 10min/haircut is what they say. It took me a while to make it through the line, but it wasn’t so bad. But really, I just get it cut the same length all over, so how bad could it be? I just was a little off in my conversion from US measure to the metric measure they use for hair length.

Cheers!

Today we went to see a couple of bunraku plays. It’s traditional Japanese puppetry and I figured it was time for me to be more adult and see some more cultural things. Actually, I thought it might be fun, and it was thought it was pretty long. There were two plays with an intermission in between and both plays were in two acts. There really only was time to get up during the intermission, and most people broke out traditional Japanese bentos and ate in their seats. What I’m trying to get to is that I had to sit in a short Japanese theatre seat for four and a half hours listening to shamisen music and a single narrator chanting and my ass got pretty tired. But it was pretty interesting.

Afterwards we met my not-really-my-aunt for a snack and continued on to dinner with her. Here’s the snack, a Japanese parfait at the same store we went to yesterday.

I had a steak, pork, and chicken dinner and I figured that the steak would be tough and the chicken pretty tender. Surprisingly, the beef was the most tender and the chicken was pretty tough. It was all tasty.

Here’s my sister and my not-really-my-aunt.

And my mom (on the left) and her older sister.

My aunt doesn’t eat much, so she and my mom split dinner and I still ended up with some of their food.

We made it back to the hotel at 7PM and I’ve been sitting around watching Japanese TV because I’m beat. Something that’s often on Japanese TV is reruns of Columbo and guess who is hooked on Columbo?

Today was a random adventure in Kobe, started mainly because my sister wanted to go shopping at some random and small fabric store. After that we went wandering around Sannomiya, where I had odd flashbacks of a place I hadn’t been for 20 years. When I was in Japan I had a recurring dream about going to Powell’s Books in Portland and never quite making it. After moving back to the U.S., I’ve had a recurring dream of going to Sannomiya but never making it. So it was all a bit surreal.

This is what a $6.20 cup of coffee looks like:

I even bought a new man-purse at a bag shop I went to probably 25 years ago. I can’t remember what bag I bought back then.

We got back and I had enough time to see my aunt before I left for dinner with an old friend from my old Mitsubishi Electric days. We now see each other once every year. It’s weird how much things have changed for him lately: a long 3-year divorce proceeding and then he’s engaged to be married again already, building a new house for his combined family (2 of her kids and one of his). I wonder if I should have taken pictures of the okonomiyaki we had tonight, but I think the pictures from Day 1 are enough.

Today was another travel day, but the travel from Toyama to Osaka isn’t that bad. And traveling on a train is a lot more relaxing than traveling on an airplane, especially if the train isn’t that crowded. You just kind of roll your bags onto the train and then sit around without worrying about seatbelts or being stuck in your seat. It’s harder to go to the bathroom because it seems to sway more, but other than that it’s a lot easier. Often the scenery is better, too, unless you’re taking the Shinkansen and you’re stuck in tunnels. The train ride is only about three hours as well. The worst part of it all was having my mom obsess about taking the elevator in the train stations. At some point I gave up and took two heavy suitcases as I abandoned my mother and sister and told them I’d meet them at the hotel. I actually beat them there but I used to live here.

Once we got to Osaka we did a bit of shopping. I wish I could say my sister did a lot more than I, but I bought twice as many t-shirts and almost as many cameras (1 vs 2). It was a compromise of sorts: I told my mom what I really wanted was a Grand Seiko Kinetic Spring Drive watch, but I was going to wait until I was rich and famous to do that because those watches are $4000 – $6000. At least the ones I like are that expensive. The Seiko I bought a couple of years ago for a couple hundred bucks is fine, really, but a guy can dream can’t he? The only jewelry an average guy wears is his watch and (possibly) his wedding ring.

I think I’ve said this before but I think I’m getting old because I’m developing a taste for Japanese desserts. My mom’s wasn’t nearly as sweet as mine.

Matcha with mochi balls.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how the new cameras work once they’re charged and operational. My sister and I have almost exactly the same Panasonic Lumix GF1. Hers is silver, though, and mine is dark red. See ya.

Yesterday we went to another hot spring, up in the hills, and it was pretty deserted. I was told it wasn’t that popular, but I think I liked it just as much as the other one. The view from the outdoor pool wasn’t as good, but the soaking pools were better. I was told it’s cleaner because they get more traffic. My mom ended up with a slight fever and we were worried she was getting sick, but she seems fine today.

And I finished two more books on my Kindle. That’s three during the trip, I think, Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan, Crashers by Dana Haynes, and 61 Hours by Lee Child. That still doesn’t put a big dent in my pile but at least I’m making my way through them.

Lessee, Day 3 we had more people at the Kawasaki household (their daughter Sho and granddaughter Yuu) and we all went to the hot springs. I was the one who wanted to go and they all indulged me. I don’t have any pictures because people who want pictures of old Asian dudes have their own web sites and I don’t want to be one of them. Anyway, afterwards I think we made several trips to the shopping center and I had ice cream more than once. Until Nov 1, there are Hallowe’en presents you can win at Baskin & Robbins (or 31 as it’s known here) and I want more than the black cat pen I got.

We did score some odd Pepsi Mont Blanc and some chocolate.

We also saw some weird jellybeans.

Today was more shopping and stuffing some more ice cream down my gullet. So far we only got another pen (which we gave to Yuu). So much for that. I bought a Japanino in a “Otonanokagaku” mook (magazine book) and I’m busy screwing around with that. Geek city. Time to reboot.

Well, the lack of sleep finally caught up to me and I slept for about 9 1/2 hours last night, after passing out after dinner for a while. 6 hours in two nights is a little short. I didn’t get to sleep until 1AM yesterday and then my mom woke me up at 7AM. We had until 10AM before our friend came to get us, but that’s just the way my mom is.

Yesterday was another travel day, but in a car. 10AM – 12PM was travel to the apple orchard owned by some relative of my mom’s friend who was driving us in her Prius.

Japanese apples are incredibly sweet and giant. Not the kind of thing you just pick up and eat.

12PM – 5PM was on the Japanese highways, through the Japan alps I think, and then along the Japan sea coast. Beats working. I could have taken more pictures, but the weather wasn’t great. And pictures out the car window aren’t much to look at.

Now we’re in Toyama and there’s a big sale at Uniqlo. Time to go!

OK, so it’s not a full day, and it’s 1AM here. 11 1/2 hours of flying, three and a half hours on a bus, and then it was off to dinner at 10PM here. Monjyayaki, just like last year.

I’m just uploading a couple of pictures before I really crash. It’s 9AM and a day and a half after I left the US now. I feel safe because my room is by the fire exit.

In case you can’t read it:

I remember what I was thinking of before. I got an email telling me that my LA Fitness membership was expiring and that I should renew my membership. I think that means it’s now three years since LA Fitness took over my old gym, and three years since I’ve been to LA Fitness. Yeah, it was a waste of money, but whatever.

I’m not sure how people come up with the stuff we do at the gym, but they’re always coming up with new things. Sometimes it does get a little stale, but that’s mainly because there are exercises that I hate to do. Ever thought about doing broad jumps while wearing a giant rubber band?

Yeah, I’m funny looking. Deal with it.

There was something else I was going to mention, but I can’t remember quite what it was. Heck, there was something I was going to look up on the intarweb and I can’t remember what that was, either. I’m coveting the same digital camera my sister is (the Panasonic Lumix GF1) but really I hardly take that many pictures. And I just bought a new camera last year, didn’t I? Or was it two years ago? Either way, I have a silly little digital camera that I can’t really sell on ebay because all the menus are in Japanese. Ah, well.

So there you have it. I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I am leaving for Japan in two days!

It was a horrible day outside. We’re finally heading into winter, so that means rain until we get a nice week in February or something. That’s not quite true, but at least it mostly keeps the Californians out. In any case, it was a good day to hole up and finish watching last weeks TV and some football games. The only responsible things I did were to pay bills and take my ballot down to the library. If nothing else, it should reduce the number of annoying phone calls I get.

Unfortunately, I think it might reduce the my total number of phone calls to NOTHING, but I suppose it’s better than having to listen to people try to influence my vote. Too late, I’m a yellow dog democrat.

So, I switched to Comcast about a week-and-a-half ago, and in a week I’d downloaded 79G which is 31% of my download limit. Wow. And I’m not even sure that’s as much as I could be doing. I haven’t signed up for Netflix streaming or done any external backups of my computers. I’m just guessing that a 250G cap is not enough for geeks.

I’m still in the middle of catching up with last week’s TV shows even though there were a lot of shows missing because of baseball. My DVR locked up and I had to try watching the shows online so that added even more to the amount I downloaded. I should probably take it easy since I went to see Fred the massage guy and he found all sorts of weirdness, like my mid-back muscles being locked up as well as my calf muscles. Not exactly where I was expecting it, but that’s where we found it. Oh, well.

Three more days before I leave for Japan!