Jurassic Park 4K on the big screen, and nothing made me a prouder parent than when, upon Nedry’s first appearance, my kid (at their first grown-up movie) drops a perfectly timed and inflected, “Hellloooo, Newman.”
Slept oddly so my neck has been pain for the last two days.
Stocked up on some things from National Azabu since I happened to be out that way. Man, prices went up.
Looked at flight prices to the US. Even 5+ months out, still looking like > 160k per person. Now I have to play the game of “will the prices drop later or go up?”. I’m guessing go up, sadly.
Took a trip out to the Shin-Misato IKEA to pick up a mirror for my wife. The GPS gave me an estimate of 40 ish minutes to drive there. Turned out to take about 2 hours. I learned that aside from the toll road, there is only a single bridge, with single lane traffic in each direction, crossing the Edo River in that area. There’s 1 major intersection leading onto that bridge that is an absolute clusterfuck. We were about 30 cars back from that intersection, sat behind another traffic light. It went through 7 cycles before we moved forward 1 car length.
Following that clusterfuck of an intersection each side road that comes up to the main road leading to the bridge effectively becoming a zipper merge (kudos to the Japanese for actually being capable of doing one, unlike Canadians back home). All in all it makes for an absolute ass of a time moving forward.
To top it all off, coming back home was almost just as bad. Not doing that again anytime soon.
I will never drink again
Daughter’s Entrance Ceremony on Saturday, but the last kicking and screaming of Covid restrictions meant only my wife could go, while I did pick up and babysitting afterward.
My son did get to see the new kid in his class from today there. He said hello, asked if this 100 yen store foam plane that’s been in the park as a lost item since the Showa Era was his (it wasn’t, shock.)
Said hello to the dad and asked if he wanted a few pictures with his boy near the gate/sign/cherry blossoms. He was more than happy to take me up on the offer.
Son and I had a nice talk today about being nice to the new kids, so some good came of it all. And maybe to be continued?
Sunday was usual errands and family stuff.
I went to the Kirby Cafe in Solamachi for an early birthday celebration on Sunday. My husband took me (paid for me, as a present). It was a dream come true as a Kirby fan, I loved everything about it and had a great time.
I stopped procrastinating and hired someone to clean the AC. They showed me pictures of the insides before and after cleaning. Personally I thought the 1man cost was fair considering I didn’t have to take apart the AC and break something on accident.
Was hanging out with an old university pal who came back visiting from Fukuoka when she told me one of her friends just opened up a new bar around where I live and took me along. I thought it was weird her friend was dressed as a nurse but was too focused on catching up and stuff. And then I saw the first tenga, finally noticed the skimpy cosplays hanging on the wall, random dildos laid around, and in big letters 猥談.
I had no idea this was a thing, but since it’s generally pretty difficult to talk about sex-related topics, apparently more and more people are opening up 猥談バー where no topic is off-limits. Not gonna lie, it definitely re-awakened some old demons in me and these places are an absolute goldmine for information.
went out with the intent to buy that hyacinth I fell in love with last week and a shelf for more plants. came back home with a red begonia, because no more hyacinths 🙁 and the plant shelf. it was one of the flatpack kind and I had to lug it up the stairs by myself. a random neighbor who I’ve never met before actually ran after me asking if he should carry it for me, which was sweet of him. I thought I was doing just fine, but I must have looked like I was really struggling…
after building the shelf and setting up my plants, I made pasta for dinner and attempted my first souffle cheesecake. the pasta was eh, the cheesecake seems to be fine, aside from some wrinkling on top. will feed it to my beta testers (my coworkers) later today.
Swing and a miss.
Finally. FINALLY took my motorcycle test on Saturday. The dumbest thing is holding me back. For some reason, my tight first gear left turn (curb hugging) is terrible. I either cannot maintain balance consistently at slow speeds, cannot execute the turn tight enough, or overcorrecting for a follow-up right is where I lose the balance.
The figure 8 has a ludicrously tight left turn entrance. One of the two random testing courses has a left turn crank entrance.
One day it’s just gonna click, but as someone with no previous riding experience, I expect this test to be a 7ish try process. At least we made it.
Had some friends over on Sunday night to watch the nutty MMA card. Great fights.
almost a year since i arrived in Japan, and i finally got a visit from the fable NHK man
and i used the “nihongo wakarimasen” escape card lol
I came back exactly on the weekends from my spring break back home. I spent my weekend just adjusting to the temperature. I could’ve sworn before I left that I recognized the current weather as ‘hot’. A visit back to Philippines had overridden that and I currently find the current weather cold af.
Got Bamiyan delivery. The obvious shrinkflation on the subuta I ordered put a downer on it, but I still managed to eat a lot thanks to also ordering cha han and gyoza. It’s depressing to see dishes shrinking though, and the mom’n’pop Chinese place I’d been going to for years in the neighborhood closed not long ago.
I went mad on the shopping trip this weekend and bought so many things. Please appreciate these lovely earrings
Several Easter miracles in a row: – woke up before my alarm, made it downstairs and had my first coffee in 6 weeks in peace – made it to Easter Mass on time – immediately found a parking spot at the mall where we went for lunch after
…then toddler woke up from his nap after only an hour and the rest of the day was managing competing sugar crashes and meltdowns.
Applying for jobs, one of them gives me some passages from Wikipedia to translate as a test. There are even links to the Wikipedia articles they are from. These Wikipedia pages exist in both languages, and the Japanese pages are basically translations of the English ones. So there are readily available translations of the passages being used as a test… very odd, though I am using them as a useful reference.
All weekend spent learning a new instrument- as a man in his late 20s. I used to do piano in middle school but stopped. This time it’s a completely new instrument I never did before, taking very smol baby steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Wish me luck.
18 comments
Jurassic Park 4K on the big screen, and nothing made me a prouder parent than when, upon Nedry’s first appearance, my kid (at their first grown-up movie) drops a perfectly timed and inflected, “Hellloooo, Newman.”
Slept oddly so my neck has been pain for the last two days.
Stocked up on some things from National Azabu since I happened to be out that way. Man, prices went up.
Looked at flight prices to the US. Even 5+ months out, still looking like > 160k per person. Now I have to play the game of “will the prices drop later or go up?”. I’m guessing go up, sadly.
Took a trip out to the Shin-Misato IKEA to pick up a mirror for my wife. The GPS gave me an estimate of 40 ish minutes to drive there. Turned out to take about 2 hours. I learned that aside from the toll road, there is only a single bridge, with single lane traffic in each direction, crossing the Edo River in that area. There’s 1 major intersection leading onto that bridge that is an absolute clusterfuck. We were about 30 cars back from that intersection, sat behind another traffic light. It went through 7 cycles before we moved forward 1 car length.
Following that clusterfuck of an intersection each side road that comes up to the main road leading to the bridge effectively becoming a zipper merge (kudos to the Japanese for actually being capable of doing one, unlike Canadians back home). All in all it makes for an absolute ass of a time moving forward.
To top it all off, coming back home was almost just as bad. Not doing that again anytime soon.
I will never drink again
Daughter’s Entrance Ceremony on Saturday, but the last kicking and screaming of Covid restrictions meant only my wife could go, while I did pick up and babysitting afterward.
My son did get to see the new kid in his class from today there. He said hello, asked if this 100 yen store foam plane that’s been in the park as a lost item since the Showa Era was his (it wasn’t, shock.)
Said hello to the dad and asked if he wanted a few pictures with his boy near the gate/sign/cherry blossoms. He was more than happy to take me up on the offer.
Son and I had a nice talk today about being nice to the new kids, so some good came of it all. And maybe to be continued?
Sunday was usual errands and family stuff.
I went to the Kirby Cafe in Solamachi for an early birthday celebration on Sunday. My husband took me (paid for me, as a present). It was a dream come true as a Kirby fan, I loved everything about it and had a great time.
[I posted pics here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Kirby/comments/12gd04j/i_went_to_the_kirby_cafe_in_tokyo_today/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
My son flushed my AirPods down the toilet…
I stopped procrastinating and hired someone to clean the AC. They showed me pictures of the insides before and after cleaning. Personally I thought the 1man cost was fair considering I didn’t have to take apart the AC and break something on accident.
Was hanging out with an old university pal who came back visiting from Fukuoka when she told me one of her friends just opened up a new bar around where I live and took me along. I thought it was weird her friend was dressed as a nurse but was too focused on catching up and stuff. And then I saw the first tenga, finally noticed the skimpy cosplays hanging on the wall, random dildos laid around, and in big letters 猥談.
I had no idea this was a thing, but since it’s generally pretty difficult to talk about sex-related topics, apparently more and more people are opening up 猥談バー where no topic is off-limits. Not gonna lie, it definitely re-awakened some old demons in me and these places are an absolute goldmine for information.
went out with the intent to buy that hyacinth I fell in love with last week and a shelf for more plants. came back home with a red begonia, because no more hyacinths 🙁 and the plant shelf. it was one of the flatpack kind and I had to lug it up the stairs by myself. a random neighbor who I’ve never met before actually ran after me asking if he should carry it for me, which was sweet of him. I thought I was doing just fine, but I must have looked like I was really struggling…
after building the shelf and setting up my plants, I made pasta for dinner and attempted my first souffle cheesecake. the pasta was eh, the cheesecake seems to be fine, aside from some wrinkling on top. will feed it to my beta testers (my coworkers) later today.
Swing and a miss.
Finally. FINALLY took my motorcycle test on Saturday. The dumbest thing is holding me back. For some reason, my tight first gear left turn (curb hugging) is terrible. I either cannot maintain balance consistently at slow speeds, cannot execute the turn tight enough, or overcorrecting for a follow-up right is where I lose the balance.
The figure 8 has a ludicrously tight left turn entrance. One of the two random testing courses has a left turn crank entrance.
One day it’s just gonna click, but as someone with no previous riding experience, I expect this test to be a 7ish try process. At least we made it.
Had some friends over on Sunday night to watch the nutty MMA card. Great fights.
almost a year since i arrived in Japan, and i finally got a visit from the fable NHK man
and i used the “nihongo wakarimasen” escape card lol
I came back exactly on the weekends from my spring break back home. I spent my weekend just adjusting to the temperature. I could’ve sworn before I left that I recognized the current weather as ‘hot’. A visit back to Philippines had overridden that and I currently find the current weather cold af.
Got Bamiyan delivery. The obvious shrinkflation on the subuta I ordered put a downer on it, but I still managed to eat a lot thanks to also ordering cha han and gyoza. It’s depressing to see dishes shrinking though, and the mom’n’pop Chinese place I’d been going to for years in the neighborhood closed not long ago.
https://preview.redd.it/yqoj7945xzsa1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=06216612ed9ec9c2a3111d4f51c652a3977a0ef1
I went mad on the shopping trip this weekend and bought so many things. Please appreciate these lovely earrings
Several Easter miracles in a row:
– woke up before my alarm, made it downstairs and had my first coffee in 6 weeks in peace
– made it to Easter Mass on time
– immediately found a parking spot at the mall where we went for lunch after
…then toddler woke up from his nap after only an hour and the rest of the day was managing competing sugar crashes and meltdowns.
Applying for jobs, one of them gives me some passages from Wikipedia to translate as a test. There are even links to the Wikipedia articles they are from. These Wikipedia pages exist in both languages, and the Japanese pages are basically translations of the English ones. So there are readily available translations of the passages being used as a test… very odd, though I am using them as a useful reference.
All weekend spent learning a new instrument- as a man in his late 20s. I used to do piano in middle school but stopped. This time it’s a completely new instrument I never did before, taking very smol baby steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Wish me luck.