Pension La Terrace Tateyama

... here in Japan... and it's a bit different. Sure, you have songs, and video with scrolling lyrics, plus people making fools of themselves, but it's all done in a little rented room. So, it's a private, more intimate affair among friends, rather than the publicly humiliating event at a bar, like in The States. There's a food menu, plus an endless stream of pitchers of beer. We had two mics, and a lot of fun! Tomas won "Most ...

... all some form of Japanese pickled plum (which I love btw). They had pickled plum in pretty much any form you can imagine: candies, sauces, onigiri seasoning, etc. and so forth...

Although I never went down to the beach (I was like 2 blocks away), Kamakura is right on the ocean and there are several beaches to enjoy. This is another town (like most of the others I already visited) that I wouldn't mind spending some more time exploring.

The highlight of ...

Alex sailed today, so it is probably a good time to do another blog. Photos might not be as plentiful from now on with only one person able to take the photos - I'll try and snap pictures when I can though.

In the last couple of days she has started to smile - very rare occassions though. Hopefully smiles will come more frequently from now on.....

... so we definately know she is growing.

For the first few weeks all she seemed to do was sleep, which was a nice 'ease in' for her parents! Now she is a lot more active and has quite a bit of awake time, particularly in the mornings. It is amazing to watch her develop into a real little person.

... downgraded to Transient Tachypnea of the newborn - essentially fluid on the lungs. She just needed additional oxygen for a while until her lungs were strong enough. On Day 10 she was finally able to come home, which was such a wonderful day. A rough start, which was probably ********* us than on her, but now she is completely healthy and loved all the more!

Olivia decided that she couldn't wait to enter the world, and decided to come along 3 weeks early - and she decided to do it in a rush too! After only 2 hours of labour, and after only being at the hospital for 35mins, Olivia arrived!

She was born at 2:05am on Friday 3 July 2009. She weighed 2.8kg (6 pounds 2 ounces).

We were caught short with a number of ...

... a charm.

I grew up in a suburban Tokyo area where people always hurry and look for more things to do in a second. Coming to this place was just a relief, listening to the wind, trees, streams. Haruzo said, "Things are getting more convenient nowadays. Competitions are crazy, but we got smarter. We could make things that way... but at the same time, people seem to lose their ability to communicate with the nature ...

... we stopped at small tea house serving Japanese sweets.

After dark, we travel to "Kita-Kamakura" station to visit "Enkaku" Temple but the gate was closed at 6.

At night, we moved to "minato mirai" (futuristic town) of YOKOHAMA, we went to the top floor (69th) of the Japan's highest building, the landmark tower ...

... stairs. We eventually returned the bikes and continued our explorations on foot. The highlights were: 1. Fantastic soba noodles somewehere along the way. 2. A crystal clear view of snow covered Mt. Fuji from atop Kencho-ji. 3. The Daibatsu Buddha.

... right and was destined to spend his life thinking himself a big-time player when he was, in reality, never even enough to be a small-fry. He was babbling on endlessly to Ellie in Japanese dangling first a set of car keys and then a couple credit cards to entice her into...what? We could only imagine, but it gave us hours of enjoyment dreaming up scenarios. Most likely, he was trying to get her to come work as a hostess at some seedy Roppongi bar or take part in some cut-rate ...