A fun day

Today was a day of just hanging out with friends and enjoying company. One of the very cool things we saw today was at this parking are for the apartments that our friends Reiko and Tomoko have. Japan is very limited on space obviously and they've made a fine art of building up and not out like we do. I had to get video of this puzzle parking garage in action. I've got a much longer one that's around 2 minutes long but this one shows it pretty well how everything moves around. The next videos below are of Sachi and Ai playing around on our friends Marimba. The last video is of Reiko doing that bumblebee piece that some composer is famous for. I'm sure you'll recognize it. Reiko by the way is a world class marimba player and travels around japan with a group that does concerts at schools and halls etc to get kids interested in music. S also used to play with this group and I went to one of their performances when it was near the base one year. Truly impressive.

The driving for the first time in Japan in a long time went very well and I only made Sachi squeal once or twice. Sachi is blind as a bat though even with her contacts now so there was an occasion or two where she was reading the kanji street signs and yelling "turn here" at me in Japanese when I was already half a car-length into the intersection.... Had lunch at a restaurant called Heartland and then to Reiko's house where the parking video was taken. Some pictures of the "Somen" we had for dinner. Somen is a combination of two words. Soba, which is cold, thick noodles in a cold broth and Ramen which most of you will recognize as being hot skinny noodles in soup. So, wait for it...........Somen is skinny noodles in cold broth.

Today we are going to go out to a Japanese Manga store for my sister who wants to pick up a few authentic comics from Japan. We're also planning on a quick trip to the local temple for sister to see that. My brother in law is coming over later and bringing his 3 week old son. My nephew. That's it for today. Tomorrow is Disneyland and we are all looking forward to that. I never got the chance to go when i was stationed here and it should be fun. I've always wondered what Mickey or Minnie or Goofy would look like with slanted eyes.... I guess tomorrow I'll find out.

Crap, I almost forgot. Here are a couple pictures of me talking with my friend Shuji on his wife's VIDEO CELLPHONE. Let me say that again. video cellphone. Live. I spoke with him for nearly fifteen minutes and while the picture was sometimes choppy, it was truly amazing. Check it out: