Ooops...

We did it again....
This one will be our last one for sure (?!) but now Ms. Salaryman Jnr. 2 has joined the family.

The first nine months of pregnancy is a general bee's nest of nervousness, but everything turned out well, apart from the men in the family now being outnumbered 2-3... 

In a year or so, things might get back to normal blogging I assume...

A Review

One of these is mine...

Earlier in the week we went to see a performance put on by little Ms. Sunshine and her Kindergarten class. In case you are thinking of going, here comes a review for you to make you informed consumers:

The props were amateurish and looked like they had been reused a hundred times, costumes were limited to stupid paper hats and looked like they were made by small children.

Over half of the performers did not sing when they were supposed to and several completely ignored it and wandered about aimlessly instead. The ones that actually sung were completely out of tone.

The dancing numbers were completely out of synch, that is, for the few performers that actually bothered to try and dance.

The only redeeming feature was that the piano playing adult actually could tinker out some simple melodies.

All in all, it was a horrible performance which I cannot recommend to anyone. For lovers of fine art this was an insult of a performance.

The Top 3 Most Annoying Kid's Shows in Japan - Number Two

You might have thought that things were bad enough with Happy Crappy, but believe me, there are worse things out there... Today we have reached number two of the most annoying kid's shows in Japan on my list.

2. Anpanman

Almost like the Justice League

It might be that I have lived in Japan so long now and have been exposed to so much Anpanman, but my feeling is that this character is by now relatively well known even outside of Japan? I might be wrong, but for those of you who are not familiar with Anpanman, it is a picture book turned cartoon show starring mostly characters made out of some form of bread. The lead character Anpanman is a superhero flying around helping people and fighting his archenemy "Baikinman" (Bacteria Man) who cooks up various devious plans to destroy all that is good. If I tune out and don't think about it the show is not that bad. It's pretty standard fare with Anpanman, together with his friends, helping out someone and thwarting the plans of Baikinman. Baikinman is not completely evil either but more mischievous.

To call the show "annoying" might actually be a bit wrong as I find it a little more disturbing than annoying... The premise of the show with a superhero who is made out of a Japanese sweet bread is odd enough, but that Anpanman sometimes takes pieces of his own head to feed friends in need and that when his head gets dirty (Anpanman's own Kryptonite which makes him lose his powers) his baker Overlord Mr. Jam just bakes up a new head which promptly replaces the old head is bordeline grotesque... Not to mention that most of the characters in the show are based on something edible, little Ms. Sunshine is especially fond of Hamburger-Kid for some reason...

The other annoying thing, which is not directly related to the show, is the extent in which Anpanman permeates the life of people like me with small children. Everything is Anpanman: clothes, toys, candy and even the Kindergarten uses Anpanman characters for decoration and in their games (certainly without paying any licensing fees, those thieves). 

Rating
Sexiness: Nothing. 0 out of 5 stars
Pointlessness: The show usually does have some form of point and a story to tell so this is not where I find this show the most troubling 3 out of 5 stars.
Characters: This is where things start to get disturbing with Curry Bread Man, Cream Panda (a pun on "pan" which means "bread" in Japanese), Infant Baby Man etc. -5 out of 5 stars
Total Score: I give it 1 out of 5 stars

The Top 3 Most Annoying Kid's Shows in Japan - Number Three

As you can imagine, I am nowadays more often than not exposed to Japanese kid's TV shows. There are shows that I might not find particularly entertaining myself, but which I recognize as reasonable entertainment for the kids. For instance, the kid's shows on NHK are of reasonable quality and even if they become a bit grating upon the 103rd time of watching I do not actively hate them (thinking of the Wanwan show, With Mommy (おかあさんといっしょ), Play in English (英語であそぼう) etc.). But there are shows that I am more actively annoyed by and will list them here in the hopes that some of the annoyance will rub off on you.

So, I will present the Top Three Most Annoying Kid's Shows in Japan for your education and as a possible warning for those with small children considering a move to Japan... Here comes place number three with the rest to follow!

3. Happy Crappy

Yep, it's Crappy Alright!

The name is great, I give them that much. I admit that I actually have no idea why they have chosen the title of "Crappy", there might be some meaning in Japanese of this that pass completely above my head (Ok, I guess it could be "Clappy" but "Crappy" is way more suitable here). Happy Crappy is shown on the cable channel Kid's Station and I see it as a little flashier and fast moving version of the NHK kid's shows. Basically a lot of singing, some English and stupid characters. In fact, the stupid characters are what annoys me most with this show. Not only the cute mascots, but also the guest characters in the form of the odd robot man, the Power Ranger like things and the most annoying jungle characters. I admit that I feel that I have not yet adequately conveyed the awfulness of this show, but the below opening theme might convince you?

Rating
Sexiness: Ok, this is one of the few areas where this show wins, the host girl looks a little sexier and sluttier than in most shows, but it's still only degrees in hell. 2 of 5 stars.
Pointlessness: This is where this show wins, I am not sure if they want to sing songs, tell stories or what they want to do. Thankfully the offspring seem to feel the same way as they are not too attached to this show. 1 of 5 stars.
Characters: Awful... Plain horrible, just see the picture and watch the video if you are not convinced...
Total Score: I give it 1.5 out of 5 stars

My advice is to avoid at all costs. Usually you can just switch to a recorded NHK show and the kids will thank you for it without putting up a fight. That is the only redeeming quality of this show.

...no baby, but not too far off...

Daddy? Is that you?

The other day, I was sitting in the sofa with the iPad reading the comments on my latest post with 2 1/2 y.o. toddler Sunshine sitting next to me. As I was scrolling down the screen she screamed out with glee andpointed at the "Our Mumbai Escorts" picture I used in my last post, happily exclaiming "Mommy!" (more specifically, the right one "Rina"). As a parent, I felt that I needed to set her straight with a "No baby, that's not Mommy, that's... someone else..." after which she went back to doing whatever she was doing.

Apparently a few days earlier she had been going through one of Mrs. Sunshine's fashion magazine and stopped at a one page advertisement with a sweaty hunk staring horny into the camera, happily exclaiming "Daddy!".

I guess I can say that I probably am closer to a sweaty hunk than Mrs. Sunshine is to an Indian prostitute at least, but that might be stretching it... 

A $2 dollar ambulance

Our ambulance wasn't this fancy

Ooops, I just realized that it's been almost a month since my previous post... To my defense I can say that even though the horrible heat of summer is gone, Japan has now entered the probably worst season of the year; late autumn. This is the time of year when the bugs are all over the place and commuting by train is a surefire way to catch most of them.

After a spending a week in the US East Coast in work (and ruining basically two full weeks due to the extremely painful jetlag that 13hrs time difference gives) I came back just in time for the cold and catching a few of them as well. In turns, the whole Salaryman family has been sick at one point or another and in the fantastic team spirit that we have, we do it in relay form, shipping it forward to the next person to make sure that someone is sick at all times for a little over a month now. Being sick myself is no fun, but on the other hand, having a sick Toddler Sunshine or Baby Salaryman is not much fun either and a sick Mrs. Sunshine leaves the two kids all under my supervision which is almost as exhausting as it is being sick. Most of the times two members of the family have been sick as well...

It started with Toddler Sunshine catching a fever a few weeks ago. The first day she was ok in the morning, although obviously feverish. Mrs. Sunshine took her to the clinic where she received some nice suppositories (glad I don't need those) while I was off to work. During work I get some mails from Mrs. Sunshine with health updates, each getting a little worse than the next as her fever had gone up past 40 degrees. By the end of the day she was getting really worried and was drifting in and out of consciousness. As we both have the view that it's better to call the ambulance one time too many than one time too few she called the ambulance as I was on my way home.

I arrived home just in time for the ambulance arriving and Toddler Sunshine looked alarmingly out of it. The paramedics were great though and took her and me and Mrs. Sunshine with us in the ambulance. Just to embarrass us Toddler Sunshine started coming back to life when in the ambulance, still highly feverish but looking curiously around and responding to us talking to her. After some cursory check-ups the ambulance took off, with the red lights and siren on (giving the Mama Mafia much to speculate on the next day) taking us to the closest hospital with an open pediatric emergency ward. 

As we arrived to the hospital, Toddler Sunshine decided to make us look even more the fools by waking up a bit more and actually giving out a laugh or two between looking sick. The emergency doc checked her up and quickly declared that "this is not an emergency, I'll give her something for the fever but you can go back home". I was slightly annoyed that he didn't run at least a few tests just for the sake of it, but as we were happy to see that she was seemingly getting better we did not push our luck and went out to pay the bill.

I was expecting a hefty sum due to the ambulance, even though the insurance coverage is available in Japan, it does not cover all expenses and it can sometimes be quite costly. However, I was presented with a grand bill of 200 yen ($2 USD) which I paid, thinking that the rest of the cost was being calculated and would be invoiced to us later on or. However when I told Mrs. Sunshine this she matter-of-factly stated that the children's insurance coverage in the area we live cover basically all the cost and the maximum amount that we ever have to pay is 200 yen. 

To me, this has opened up completely new opportunities! Instead of calling a taxi or driving ourselves, we will now try to call an ambulance instead under the pretense that one of the kids are sick and insist on that they take us to a hospital close to where we want to go. I do pay taxes here after all so it should be within my right!

The true face of fear...

You shouldn't have gone on the slide before the change!

After I became a father, first to toddler Sunshine and then Baby Salaryman my priorities in life has changed radically. My outlook to life is probably about the same, but having kids has changed the way I look upon life. The biggest change is of course that it's not all about me anymore, of course Mrs. Sunshine and the family has always been important, but in the end they can take care of themselves. With small children you have to watch out for them and put their needs ahead of your own.

My fears have also changed considerably. Before I had children, my greatest fear was perhaps becoming paralyzed after a horrible accident, getting a nasty form of brain cancer or something similar. 

However, now, my greatest fear is realizing that Toddler Sunshine just did a nasty poo, reaching for the diaper only to have her running away giggling, getting on a slide and slowly making her way down applying great friction to her butt and turning a somewhat nasty, but salvageable, situation into a clean-up nightmare...

(Also for some reason Mrs. Sunshine strongly dislikes it when I measure the fecal output of Toddler Sunshine in estimation of grams as it reminds her of packages of minced meat, which is oddly enough what I use in my head for comparison... Women are odd...) 

  

Involuntary Education

The choreography was probably from an app

There is a certain type of mother that is infamous here in Japan; the "Education Mom" (教育ママ). The Education Mom's are known for their extreme focus on the education of their kids, starting from a young age and drilling the kids to get into the right kindergarten so it then can get into the right elementary school, right high-school and then finally, the most prestigious university. These are the types of parents who put their kids in all kinds of cram schools and putting pressure on the kids to get the highest grades from a very early age. I guess it's not a uniquely Japanese thing as these kinda parents exist all over the globe, but I would think that there's more of them in Asia with the focus on education (as exemplified by the whole Tiger Mom deal).

Needless to mention, me and Mrs. Sunshine does not take this approach. As toddler Sunshine is just a little over two years now our efforts in educating her are very mild and more focused on getting her to say "thank you" and "please" with very little to show for it. However, the iPad is packed with apps for her to play with, some puzzles, annoying songs, simple games but also some educational apps on English, counting and learning the ABC. 

The other day we were standing in an elevator and had just pushed the button to the floor  we were going to when Toddler Sunshine happily started pointing at the numbers and reading them, later in the day during dinner she started spelling out the text written on her plate (a Hello Kitty plate if you must know) shocking both me and Mrs. Sunshine. 

This is fantastic news for us though as we can just let the iPad handle all her education and we don't have to bother sitting down with her and going through numbers and the alphabet! We can just outsource all of that to the iPad. The next thing I need to start looking for is if there are any apps out there that can teach her to become an ethical responsible adult as that seems to be a real hassle to teach. Although most urgently I am hoping to find an app that either teaches her to change her own diapers or one that trains her on the potty!

The Condoms of Japan

As me and Mrs. Sunshine are quite happy with the two little critters we have managed to produce with no immediate wish to further expand the family we use the well proven method of birth control through condoms. As the stock was running a little low I took it upon me to order some more through Amazon.

I buy foreign brand condoms since I know that the size and quality is something I'm comfortable with. After some searching I found a brand I like, 100 condoms in one package (hey, I know I'm overreaching here as two small kids and an active sex-life doesn't really add up, but better to have too many than lacking when we get to it!) and was going to go ahead and buy it when I noticed that the review score was only one star out of five... To make sure to avoid a wrong purchase I checked out the review to see what the problem might be. It was a short, slightly bitter sounding review in Japanese saying something like "I thought this was a great deal but when I tried it I realised that it's not made in Japanese size, I'm really disappointed". That sealed the deal for me as I wanted to avoid "Japanese size".

But there are also many Japanese brand condoms that I felt very tempted to try out and thought I should give you a quick rundown on the brands that I felt were very interesting and what personality types they might be targeting in their marketing. I have earlier done some research into the condom market of Japan (see post here) but thought I should update it a little with this new information.

1. For the guy with a lot of built up aggression - Hokuto-no-ken

I think the picture speaks for itself. I can just imagine the powerful impact that a pack of these might have during a hot date when the girl asks "wait, do you have a condom?". Pulling out a package of these surely will show that you're a guy that doesn't mess around and take lovemaking very very seriously.

2. For the Player - Gokuusu 0.03

Which girl wouldn't be completely and thoroughly impressed with a guy who pulls out a pack of these? The picture on the package very clearly signals that this is a guy who knows what he wants and how to please the women! The picture is slightly censored by me as the actual picture is so hot and sexy that it's sure to make the blood get pumping in men and female alike.

3. For the Guy who doesn't really want to have sex - Rilakkuma

These condoms take it a bit safer and are probably made for the guys who actually doesn't really want to get laid, but rather sit around and play cards instead. The image confuses me a bit, either it signals a preference to playing cards or the bears and duck sit around playing cards waiting for their friends to finish making love? The expression on the white bear also makes me a bit confused, either she (?) is sad because the guy she fancies is sleeping with someone else or she already got hers but wasn't really comfortable with the experience?

4. For the Guy who is more concerned with manicure - The "Findom" Finger Condoms

I'm not sure what to say here so I'll just keep my mouth shut...
  

This wasn't in the job description... (the insects...)

No, I would not do her whatever you would offer!

So far I think I've handled the family life here in Japan pretty OK if I may say so myself. I get along well with the neighbours, have toddler Sunshine play well with the swarm of children around her age roaming the streets of our little enclave.

Among the younger children in the neighbourhood, it seems like boys are in a majority and although I have gotten some minor concerns about Baby Salaryman from observing them play, it's mostly minor stuff like accepting the fact that Baby Salaryman is bound to be more excited by some form of Power Rangers, Gamen Rider and Gundam Giant Robots than Superman, Spider-man and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Although I find the prospect of this somewhat alarming I also realize that it will be a losing battle to try and fight it straight on and have come to terms that it's what happens when you raise a boy in Japan.

However, now in the hot summer months I realised another terrible thing that will be extremely hard to avoid... The insects... Japanese kids love to catch insects, trap them in containers and keep them as some form of pets. These insects are nothing like an innocent ant-farm, we're talking real beasts here like the Rhinoceros Beetle that can be of the size of almost a fully grown persons palm of the hand. Then of course an assortment of other larger sized insects with legs, antennas and nasty stuff all over the place. To my horror I heard that the kids catch these monster bugs in our local small park during the night, supported by their fathers who help them find and catch the bugs...

As you might already have figured out, I have difficulties with bugs. Granted, the fear, disgust and hatred I feel for the cockroach is special but I there is no love lost between me and bugs in general. I did not realise that being a good father here in Japan included encouraging my male offspring to hunt and play with these monster bugs. I guess I have another couple of years to figure out how to manage this, but perhaps I can outsource this part of Japanese parenthood to the father-in-law and keep our house bug-free?

...in any case, I think I might have found out the reason why Insect Porn actually has a market here in Japan...

Learning the wrong language...

The fear and panic is real; the iPad ran out of juice

(First of all, apologies for the host of family related posts these days but with the two little angels/devils at home a lot of my mind and free time is consumed by managing the critters but rest assured that I will not forget the stuff in the other labels as well!)

I think that readers of my blog have already understood how much I love my iPad. My little paddy is nowadays completely essential to me, for home as well as for business travels when all the movies, comics, games, books and built in camera for Skype comes in very handy indeed. Mrs. Sunshine also has an iPad, unfortunately Toddler Sunshine has not completely grasped this and is under the misguided impression that the iPad is actually hers and hers only, severely limiting Mrs. Sunshine's ability to use it when Toddler S is around as she is bound to throw a fit if someone is using HER iPad.

The iPad is filled up with a considerable number of apps for preschool kids, mostly of the educational variety, puzzles and stuff. I have tried to find good apps for toddlers in Japanese and Swedish but the availability of good ones has been scarce so most of the apps are in English. As faithful readers of the blog might remember, I have an elaborate scheme on how to maintain the language dominance in the household (refresher link to the post here). But in any case, our basic strategy for teaching Toddler Sunshine languages is to focus on Japanese and Swedish for now and not really try to teach her English just yet.

The other week, me and Toddler Sunshine was sitting in the sofa next to each other, me using my iPad while Toddler Sunshine was playing with her (read: Mrs. Sunshine's) iPad. I see from the corner of my eye how she starts up an app with English vocabulary training and does a game where a voice spells out a word and a number of pictures show up and the objective is to push the picture that corresponds with the word. I notice that she manages to hit the picture of an onion when the word comes up but chalk it up to luck, but then just a few seconds later I notice with great surprise how she effortlessly gets ten words in a row correct...

Then again a few days later she's playing with another app training vocabulary for colors in English and hear her gleefully and with almost perfect pronunciation repeats the main colors (for some reason she seem to like "yellow"). This is at a point where we have not gotten her to know the words for colors in Japanese or Swedish yet.

The iPad is a great and terrible thing indeed and the educational potential could completely ruin my plans for language domination in the household... Perhaps I should just delete all the English apps and fill it up with apps from a number of random languages to try to distort the damage already done...

There was a time...

Fantastic movie, bonus points if you figure it out

...when a wet spot in the double bed used to indicate that some mutually beneficial socializing between me and Mrs. Sunshine had taken place. These days a wet spot in the double bed usually means that Toddler Sunshine's pee leaked from her diapers and that clothes and sheets has to be change in the middle of the night...

...when white stains on the sheet used to indicate that some mutually beneficial socializing between me and Mrs. Sunshine had taken place. These days the white stains usually marks the places where Toddler Sunshine has drooled in her sleep (wait, that goes for my drool too so maybe not that different after all...).

Well, we take some comfort in the fact that in about 25 years or so we get the house back to ourselves and a little more time to socialize (except if Toddler Sunshine becomes Parasite Single Sunshine and just never... ever... leave).

Nothing else matters

Baikinman, Doki-Chan and Shokupanman socializing

As father of a little toddler, I find myself watching more kid's TV shows than any other stuff on the TV... As NHK has some pretty good shows geared towards the younger kid's, for the first time I feel that we actually get something out of the money that we pay in the NHK fees. Toddler Sunshine enjoys the basic shows such as (readers in Japan with kids will know these shows I'm sure) "Inai Inai Ba" (Peekaboo), "Okasan to issho" (With Mommy), "Eigo de asobou" (let's play in English) and a few others. 

However, in the recent months Toddler Sunshine has gotten a taste for the classic Japanese kid's anime "Anpanman". I find the whole premise somewhat confusing and bizarre, but the main character is a superhero with a head made of bread with sweet red bean paste filling and most of the cast are based on some form of popular bread as well. I haven't been watching the shows in detail, but they seem to involve a lot of singing and some occasional conflicts between Anpanman and his buddies against the mischievous Baikinman (Germ-man).

From a parent perspective, the Anime is quite ok. There's no promotional stuff thrown into the shows (although the number of toys and merchandise featuring the Anpanman is too many to count) and there is generally some soft nice friendly message about how you should be nice to people baked into the stories. The popularity of the show and the characters is also quite amazing, basically all kids from ages 2 to 8 loves Anpanman, boys and girls. I tried to think about it a bit, but can't really come up with any Western cartoon that has the same level of popularity among the toddlers.

So at the moment, Toddler Sunshine's life seems to be focused around Anpanman. Whenever she sees a picture of the character anywhere (which is quite often considering the amount of t-shirts and goods that other kids carry around) she gleefully exclaims "Anmaman" (she's yet to master the correct pronunciation) and in the house she often brings the remote control to the TV and demands to be shown Anpanman...

Me and Mrs. Sunshine has braced ourselves that Anpanman will be a substantial part of our life for quite a few years to come as Baby Salaryman is bound to follow suite in a year or so... 

Room for interpretation

Do you get it?

Last night me and Mrs. Sunshine had the following exchange, in English as we mostly speak that with each other;

Mr. Salaryman: Why don't I go to bed with toddler Sunshine and sleep with her and you put the baby to sleep? Then we can maybe get some peace and quiet... 

Mrs. Sunshine: Ok, that sounds good
.

Just a few seconds after the exchange I realized how wrongly it could be interpreted by an outsider... We're a pretty normal family, really, I promise!.
.

This also made me think of some of my fantastic commentators who post comments anonymously and always seem to take things literally and haven't figured out what this blog is all about (but still can't resist posting a comment). I think my long-time readers know what I'm talking about, those guys/gals who just don't get it however hard they try. I don't really mind them I just find it a bit puzzling, In any case, I'm happy none of them were around when me and Mrs. Sunshine had our exchange...

Hey, thanks a lot doc!

A classic game

As you know if you've read the last posts, we recently added a baby Salaryman to the family. Baby Salaryman was born in a quite typical Japanese maternity clinic, which is nothing negative as the care and service is very good and they do not rush people out the door the moment they've popped the baby out. Some other interesting features of maternity clinics are facial treatments and sales pitches of powdered milk, those are something I'll elaborate more on in another post when I get around to it.
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The first days after he was born, Baby Salaryman did fine, drank both the bottle and the boob in the volumes that he's supposed to. However, after a few days it became evident that he didn't really increase the volumes of milk the way he was expected to do, taking over an hour to get him to drink 50mls of milk on his third day or so. This was discussed a little on the fourth day with Mrs. Sunshine and the doctor expressed some concern over it and mentioned that they might want to have him sent to a larger hospitals to make sure that there was no serious underlying cause for this. This of course made us a bit worried, but as he otherwise was healthy we weren't overly concerned. Then a few hours later, I get a call from Mrs. Sunshine, crying and close to panic, saying that they would be sending Baby Salaryman to the NICU (intensive care unit for newborns) of a nearby university hospital in an ambulance for treatment. As we talked I could hear the sirens in the background...

I quickly dumped Toddler Sunshine (who I was watching at home) with a neighbour, who we don't particularly care or like, but has kids of her own and happened to be home and willing to supervise Toddler Sunshine while I headed off to the hospital as soon as I could. I arrived just as the ambulance came in and watched Baby Salaryman get carried into the NICU in steel "baby box" (reminding me of a cat-box), told that they would now initiate tests and was asked to wait outside until they were finished. With very limited information on what actually was going on now, me and Mrs. Sunshine were under the impression that Baby Salaryman was on the verge of death, making for a very nervous and unpleasant wait. 

After an hour or so, I was called into the unit as the results had come in. To my surprised Baby Salaryman wasn't actually in the NICU with all the scary machines, but in the GCU (Growing Care Unit - think nursery) next door. The young female doctor sat down with me next to our sleeping little baby and explained the battery of tests that they had been performing (blood work, ultrasound, x-ray etc etc.) and that everything had come back fine. 

However, they had also in the end performed another test... The final test was apparently putting a finger in Baby Salaryman's mouth to see if he had developed the fine art of sucking and breathing through his nose properly at the same time... It turned out that he had not yet completely mastered this fine art, but was already getting better at it. So the reasons for his low volumes of milk was simply that he got out of breath and really tired and fell asleep before drinking as much as he ideally should.

As the doctor was actually really nice and I was so relieved that everything was fine with the baby, I managed to hold back on aggressively asking them why they didn't just test that finger-in-mouth-test FIRST before starting to do the other more invasive tests... But hey, in the Japanese health care system, the more tests you make, the more money the hospital can rake in...  

Introducing: Baby Salaryman

Love me and I will be benevolent

Well, if you're wondering why posting has been sporadic at best, I can finally reveal one of the big reasons for my mind being elsewhere... Presenting Baby Salaryman, born to bring balance to the force that is the Salaryman family!


I intend to mold his personality into that of the God from the old testament, all powerful but petty and quick to anger. The only will he will bend to is that of my own, he will be the Salaryman to end all Salarymen and will bring about the renewal of Japan. I will not pressure him though. 

Hey, was this racist of me?

I'm sure one of the was Ukrainian

The Salaryman base of operations lies in a pretty Japanese little enclave, almost completely ethnically cleansed of everything but the Japanese. I have rarely seen any Westerners at all in the neighborhood or in the vicinity of the station, passing by one or two, probably on their way to the station to go back home after doing some English home tutoring or so. But that's about it, otherwise it's all Japanese.

But last weekend, I took toddler Sunshine to a local playground, but not the closest one we have in connection with our gated community as all the kids in the neighborhood were hiding or just refusing to come out and play. I've been there with her quite a few times and there's always kids running around there, so I thought it would be more fun for her. For some reason, it was even more kids than usual there and a fair number of parents hovering over their little offspring just like me. 

I saw one kid who looked suspiciously half-Japanese/white but didn't really think that much about it, but after a half an hour or so I noticed two white ladies, probably in their 30's or so standing and chatting just outside the playground, obviously with their kids running wild inside. As foreigners are hard to come by in the neighborhood and I thought it could be nice to at least introduce myself and little Toddler Sunshine, I walked over to them and said something like "Hi, I haven't seen so many foreigners around here, I'm glad to see that it's not only me" with an attempt of a smile. I was met with blank stares, and then confused expressions as they realized that I was talking to them. A few seconds of silence followed, me still with the smile attached to my face and toddler Sunshine attached to my arm, then one of them said "No speak English". Slightly confused in turn, I switched to Japanese and repeated the greeting and added, "where are you from?". Then they seemed to catch on and replied back in Japanese "we're from the Ukraine".  A few seconds of awkward silence followed and I squeezed out, "oh, ok, nice to meet you, wave goodbye to the nice ladies now Toddler Sunshine" as I walked back to the playground with Toddler Sunshine. 

I had assumed that they maybe would be European or slightly worse but still acceptable; Australian or even, failing all else, American and thought it could be nice to know some people in the neighborhood coming from something of a similar cultural background as me who might also be interested in having their kids get to know other more international kids. But Ukrainian not able to speak English...? The only thing we probably had in common would be the "whiteness" (and for me, that's only 50% anyway) so my interest in socializing with them quickly dropped down to somewhere below 0 degrees C. 

I almost feel like my shift from friendly interest to complete disinterest in the realization that they were Ukrainian was slightly racist, but hey, in the suburban life sometimes you just have to do some things you are not always proud of to survive!       

To me every day is Halloween

Admit it, she's adorable!

The Halloween tradition has been picked up a little here in Japan (still I can't figure out why they picked up on Halloween and not Easter with all the cuddly rabbits and chicks). But it's mostly about selling some pumpkin related stuff and getting some candy and stuff sold, not much effort goes into it. For any real Halloween terror, I think you might need to go to Chris place in West Japan.

Generally there is no "trick or treat" tradition at all here in Japan, but our Mama Mafia took it on them to set up such an event for the kids in our little gated community. I do doubt that many who participated actually had any idea what the "trick or treat" phrase actually means, but since everyone got their fair share of candy it didn't matter much in the end anyway. As you can see in the picture, Toddler Sunshine did however look completely adorable in her little Ladybug suit, which was the only thing that mattered in the end.

On a related note, just recently Toddler Sunshine surpassed Mrs. Sunshine in knowledge in using the iPad, expertly manouvering herself exactly to the annoying apps with songs and stuff that we got for her to keep her pacified. I'm not sure if I should feel proud or slightly concerned as when she will pass me by as Mrs. Sunshine knows her general way around computers and regular software...

That's my girl!

Relax, it's not opened!

Earlier in the day Mrs. Sunshine tried to solicit a kiss on the cheek from little toddler Sunshine. First toddler Sunshine stared at her for a while with a skeptical frown, looking like she was considering something, and then with a surprising speed and power she promptly gave Mrs. Sunshine a quite impressive bitch slap. While Mrs. Sunshine was recoiling in surprise, toddler Sunshine followed up with sticking her index finger up Mrs. Sunshine's nose giggling loudly. Then a few seconds later she gave Mrs. Sunshine a kiss on the cheek.

It's times like these that I find really touching, her sense of humor seem to be just like mine although still a little rough around the edges. She's my little girl indeed!

"Hi, my name is Bitchiko"

We're astounded by her feats of crankiness

When it comes to women's names here in Japan, it's quite common for the names to end in "ko" as in popular names such as Yoko, Keiko, Atsuko and a host of other names. However, don't get fooled into thinking that every name that ends in "-ko" means that it's a woman/girl as there are male names that also have this ending (although, a tell-tale sign for beginners is that the male names are usually a bit longer). For those taking notes, the "ko" at the end of most women's names are written with the character "子" and means child so the meaning of the name usually literally means "child of" (the meaning of the first character).

So, yeah, with that educational segment taking care of, Mrs. Sunshine has recently given (former Baby) Toddler Sunshine a separate name for her when she makes a big fuzz and generally being a nuisance with refusing to do something. The name is "Bitchiko" and apparently at her former job there was a particularly bitchy lady that gave birth to this very descriptive nickname. Granted, literally implementing the meaning "child of..." for Bitchiko when used for Toddler Sunshine carries with it some not very good implications for Mrs. Sunshine... Still, it's a good name and can be quite descriptive at times.

...in other news, the heat is still relentless here in Tokyo now... A weekend like this it's hard to muster up any energy to do anything at all but to lie flat and complain about the heat...