Posts from — February 2007

Gregory on his new bicycle.

Greg turned three years old this week, and got his first bicycle. This is the cake that he decorated himself by drizzling multicolored frosting all over. On his birthday, Greg presented a box of sweets to Nurse Lee, who delivered him at the maternity hospital

Greg poses with a Mustang at the Kyoto Import Auto Show

This car is so ridiculously wide that it probably couldn’t turn a lot of corners in Kyoto neighborhoods without plowing through the corner of a house. Yet, there are at least two or three around town, though perhaps not the bigger model.

At the Kyoto Import Auto Show, we were entertained by Kyoto-based juggler Watanabe Akira (link goes to his website). I’ve always enjoyed cigar-box juggling.

Gregory napping with serendipitously good color coordination. It’s less than two weeks until his third birthday. Always entertaining, sometimes sweet, sometimes obstinate…I suppose he’s about normal. He’ll start kindergarten in April. Kindergarten is typically a two- or three-year stretch in Japan, three for Greg because we are starting just after his third birthday.

We woke up to a snowstorm on Friday, the first time we had more than a few flakes this winter, but by midmorning it seemed to be melting, and then it started raining. So that Greg might have a chance to stomp around in snow just once before the spring comes, we got on the Eizan train and headed upslope to Kurama.

Sure enough, it was still snowing further on up the line, and Greg had fun crunching through the snow up the road in Kurama. Yoshiko suggested that since we came all this way, we might as well go to the Kurama Onsen (hot spring) at the end of the road, so we did just that — an impromptu bath in a winter wonderland. It was the first time for me (and Greg) to bathe with snow falling on our shoulders, an experience I highly recommend. This is the view looking across the men’s bath across to the mountainside.

On Tuesday we had a very sunny and warm day, so Greg and I set off for the park in the morning, but unfortunately no one was there. Greg (2 years, 11 months) had the idea to keep going south, and going…and going…and going… and refusing all suggestions to turn back.

Once Greg sets his mind on going in a particular direction, he starts jogging — or trotting — at a good speed, and Yoshiko and I seem to be following him quite a bit, catching up to watch out for safety at intersections.
We went to the shopping mall, Qanat, on Kitaoji Street and played in the padded playroom for a while, then, because it was so unseasonably warm, we had a picnic lunch by the river. Well, the riverside trail is just too inviting, so Greg turned south and just kept going…and going…and then he said he wanted to run all the way to Grandma’s house, which is really quite far, about 5 km from our house. When we got to Nijo Street he suddenly wanted to turn east, so we went into the Heian Shrine area and jogged around there a bit.

There’s a bus that goes directly from Heian Shrine to our home (how convenient), so I thought we would congratulate ourselves and head home, but Greg was adamant about continuing on to Grandma’s house, so we went south across Sanjo, walked around Maruyama park for a while and then said some prayers at Yasaka Shrine, where Greg was ceremonially presented when he was one month old. He loves praying at shrines and temples, and not only says “Thank You Kami-sama” in a sincere voice, but follows with “Bye-bye Kami-sama.!”

From there it was only a few blocks west, and a few blocks south to Grandma’s house near Gojo. Unfortunately, Grandma wasn’t home, so we continued west to Kawaramachi, then north to Sanjo to catch the bus home, adding about another kilometer to the total distance covered. Thus, I think we went a total of approximately 6 km on the day. Quite a trek for a 2-year old (almost 3).