From the river to the bay: JAPAN

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, after a night at gail's and a cosy catchup with the gang in torquay sunny drove me to the airport on Friday night for a midnight flight. A super typhoon was forecast for Saturday afternoon in Tokyo so i wasn't sure i'd even be going but i decided to front up at the airport and see what was happening - a nice chance to spend time with sunny over a champers :0) the flight left on time and arrived safely

After a pretty tense drive home to rene's with cal in the car with us, through driving rain and drenched highways we arrived safely. it was pretty hairy on saturday having emergency evacuation jingles coming in on our phones all day. we were all ready to go but after a lot of checking on the web sayaka and rene decided we were way out of the danger area. it really just rained and rained here, the wind wasn't even too bad although we think we got a mini earth tremor in the middle of it all. the floor kind of wobbled under us for a second or two.

SUNDAY - blue skies and a light breeze, we joined half of tokyo and went to ikea for the day, after dark i thought we'd head home but no, two more shopping experiences to go. i was bushed when we got home but it was all fun and i had a favorite experience, buying stuff in a japanese hardware store

IKEA was nuts - just jam packed but perfectly organised,
the flow of people never stopped :0)

MONDAY - an unexpected (or forgotten) public
holiday so we had a day with the kids

a lovely old local shrine and cemetery on the way to lunch

we went to one of

the conveyor belt

sushi bars, a hot

water tap for green

tea on the table,

booths, a special

drawer for

chopsticks and

great food :0)

rene requested that i cook kedgeree

and show him

how to make it.

an old family

favorite now passed on

to another

generation :0)

MARA what a little treasure - she's funny, creative, loves to sing and dance (very seriously :-) she's ambidextrous and draws in an interesting way, i'll be really interested to see how she develops as she grows up

CAL - a dynamo, on the go from morning to midnight, living at a pace that's almost too fast for him to keep up with himself, funny little fella

Not many good photos of cal, he pulls faces every time

the camera is around, i'll have to catch him unawares.

MORNINGS here i've walked with rene and the kids to school then down to his office where i either work on my laptop while he gets a couple of hours done, or go down to the beautiful park around the corner. Tall tall old pines and lacy maples, a tranquil pool and winding paths leading in all directions.

rene's office is in a really great building, very elegant design
with attention to detail, stair rails etc all very attractive. in a
quiet street set back on a large block right next to the park

i'll be doing

a little 8x8

portrait of

rene when

i get home

so i'm doing

drawings

and taking

a few pics

WEDNESDAY I had a lovely walk this morning after we dropped the kids off, through the lovely green park and along the canal. it's a quiet suburb here, residential with narrow streets and little traffic. a good place to be with little kids. the school is great, modern, open and progressive, big open spaces and a relaxed attitude, a bit like a montessori atmosphere

GOT BACK to the office and Jamel dropped in, what a lovely guy. he ended up coming to a bike fair with us, Rene and Sayaka hoped to catch up with past contacts in the bike industry and they sure did, they were on the go the whole time we were there, i just wandered around, photographed them and drew people who were sitting near me. lots of food supplied too.