Foto Friday

Is back!! And I promise good camera piccies, not the crappy iphone ones. Why is it back? Because I have nothing else to say! Respect to people who update daily all the time, it's kinda hard to find interesting things to say apart from the daily humdrum that is my life and is just about as exciting as reading about watching paint dry...

Last night's festival was ok, I'm glad I went and bought Ash a jinbei in the morning, or otherwise he would have been the only kid without one as well as the only kid who wasn't a pure blood. I only caught the last 15 minutes (probably a good thing!) because I had to work, but the teachers had assured me in the day that if I could make the last 15 minutes it would be the best part, the fireworks!!! Wooo I was excited, I always enjoy a good fireworks display! As it turned out it was a few of the dads lighting supermarket fire works. But Ash enjoyed them even if I was muttering in English how lame they were. Ash also got a goody bag with age inappropriate snacks (big hard lollies!) which he ate for breakfast and almost choked on. Sweet. The mothers didn't ignore me too much, the one mum who can speak English came and talked to me (in Japanese!) and MIL youroshiku onegaishimasu-ed for her to "help me" in the future. FUCK OFF with the asking people to help your dumb foreign daughter in law, seriously! But that's a whinge for another day.

OK, on to the piccies!

Ash's ride home! We ended up with Ryota and I on the big bike, MIL and Ash on the scooter and I pulled Onechan rank on BIL and made him cycle up the bastard hill on my bright purple bicycle, baby seat and all.


Sweaty family shot.

Ash in front of his and all his mates' hand prints. Kawaaaaiiiii!!

Not too sure about this ball game business Obachan...

Oooooo Jellyfish....


Daddy explaining the wonders of the ocean to Ash...

Little turtle popping up to say Hi.


The wonders of fish

BBQ housewarming at Sassymoo's house.

The rules of tea mixing

But before we get on to the tea rules, a report on last night's anniversary festivities. Was pretty tame actually, we weren't even going to do anything but with an available babysitter, my lack of desire to cook anything and the thought of ice cold beer, we toddled off to all you can eat yakiniku for a few hours. We also fucked the idea of presents for each other off and decided we'd go shopping on the weekend and just buy us some good shit we want. Much better than guessing, getting it wrong, then pretending to like it. Piccies piccies...

Ryota is soooo is the way of the shot of my beautiful beer...

Beefy, beery goodness!

The menu was like a karaoke song ordering screen thingy! How good is that! Although makes you eat far too much. Ryota was saying "Why didn't you tell me there was going to be photos, I didn't do my hair!!" when I took this one.

*INSERT LOVEY DOVEY PHOTO TOGETHER HERE*

We did consider a photo together but after my third beer I still had the wits about me to think that leaning across a bastard hot grill for that perfect shot was going to end up in some kind of fiery disaster, besides, you've seen enough of my ugly mug!

And now, on to the rules of tea mixing. Got a good telling off from Grandma this morning, Ryota usually takes a big arse bottle of aquarius to work with him but for some reason he decided he wanted tea today. Now instead of telling me, the person who organises this kind of shit, he decided to tell him Grandma. Why? Because he's a Japanese guy, and all Japanese dudes (read pussy mummy's boys) can have any problem solved by Mummy or Granny.

So Ryota was getting ready and Grandma informs me she'll go fill up a bottle with some tea for Ryota, but I actually wanted to use the piddly bit of tea that was left in our fridge to make room for the big arse watermelon that we couldn't say no to. So I said I'd fill the bottle up but I'd probably need a bit extra to fill it to the top.
So filled the bottle, and it made it to about three-quarters full, then went over to Grandmas to fill the rest up with her tea. And she almost dropped the plates she was holding when she saw me filling the bottle up, she was all, "What the fuck gaijin!!!?? What kind of tea is that??" (She actually sniffed the bottle, like she would be able to tell) I replied I had no idea, but tea is tea, all the flavours would mix in together and Ryota wouldn't know the difference anyway.
She then mumbled about tea mixing being a punishable offence and shuffled away in exasperation.

Bite me Grandma, seriously, I wasn't mixing milk and juice, it was all in the tea family!

Going to Ash's kindy festival tonight, I'm sure all the kindy mums will ignore me which will make for good pissed off post tomorrow.

P.S. It's too fucking hot!

10 things I love about you.

So for today (and today only) I have decided to be Mary effing sunshine and do a lovey dovey post, seeing as it's my wedding anniversary and all. See, I even avoided saying 'fuck' in the opening sentence! (and the explanation fuck so doesn't count)
Ryochan and I have been married two years today, tanabata. Although, I may have to alter this figure and tack an extra year on in the future so Ash doesn't twig that he was so obviously a 'dekichatta' baby...

10 things I love about you

I love the way you don't care what people think, and if you do care, you just tell them to shut the hell up.

I love the way you are Mr fashion and care about the way you look.

I love the way you fart in public and then blame me in a loud voice because you know I'll go bright red.

I love the fact that you are the 'nice' parent, always sneaking Ash snacks when you think I'm not looking.

I love that you use really bad English in such a confident way.

I love that you're a surfer.

I love that you stick up for me when I stuff Japanesey culture things up.

I love that you will never actually read this, because you can never be arsed reading anything in English, hence saving me any open affection embarrassment.

I love that you take the piss out of me.

I love you Ryo-chan!



A lot has happened in the past two years, but through unplanned pregnancy, birth, death, love, fights, petty lists (see previous posts...), time apart, too much time together, new job, new business, family arguments and all the rest in between I'm still glad I got married for some insane reason.

The bastard hill and the bastard shrinking husband.

OK, here are the piccies of the bastard hill I have to go up and down twice a day, it really is my definition of hell...

This is the view from the top, you see how high it is by the view of our fair little city below!

Ash and I in sweaty heaven as I procrastinate the trek up the hill of death...

View from the bottom...

View from the bottom complete with chubby,halfuuu child head included...

And now on to the tale of the shrinking husband. I'll have to do a before- after type picture to see if you can tell the difference, but Ryo-chan is shrinking, he's lost 10kg since April (lucky bastard!!) and continues to lose weight. He claims it's because he's constantly running around (literally) at work, but I'm not convinced. He's also stopped taking rice for lunch and last night had a tiny little okonomiyaki while I chowed down on my second one complete with sausage and cheese topping. Does anyone else sniff a wiff of anorexia!?!?
I confronted him with this theory this morning and this is how our convo went:


Him: I don't need rice today, just tea.


Me: You're going to get skinnier, stop fucking dieting, it's making me look even worse than I already do!!!

Him: I'm sexy any time but I'm soooo popular when I'm skinny, you better watch out!! (squeezes my chubby bits)

Me: Fuck off! I'll divorce you if you're too skinny!

Him: I can't help it, I lost a kilo since yesterday! (big smug grin)

Me: You weigh yourself everyday?! You're flipping anorexic!

Him: No I'm not, you're just jealous! (more smug grins and chubby bits poking)

Me: Whatever byouki (sick) boy.

I guess it'll just take a while for me to get used to, he was really skinny in his old surfing days photos. I should use it as motivation, although I have been running everyday for the past two weeks, let's hope it pays off soon. Unfourtunately hope won't battle the marshmallow addiction that continues though, I have no idea what it's about but I feel compelled to play chubby bunny every single day.

The pure joy of racing car trikey goodness!

The "dame" sign

really really really pisses me off. When using it to teach English, love it. When communicating with a small child or animal, love it. But what I don't love is the dame sign when it is being used towards me with an undertone of "fucking foreigner isn't going to understand me so I'll make a huge X mark with my arms to get my point across."

I'll admit though, when I first arrived in Japan, the X sign was very useful, no language and gestures are a lovely combo, but I feel I've gained a few gold stars in the old language department that it really is uncalled for now.

I was accosted with the X arms this morning as I parked my bike, and fair enough, I knew I wasn't supposed to stop there, but it was bastard bloody hot and I was just nipping into the bank for a few minutes, and there were other bikes there too. So as a Japanese bird is pulling out, I parked but was promptly greeted by the old dude in the yellow coat making the obnoxious X sign. No words, just the sign.
I immediately got my gaijin racism radar going and was going to quiz him on why he didn't tell the J-bird off but I knew I was possibly jumping to conclusions and that he had possibly said something before I arrived (unlikely though). Now I can just imagine if Ryota had been there, he would have told the old dude to fuck off and that if the police took his bike away he'd worry about it then, but alas, I'm just not that strong. So I gave a big, pissed off sigh and asked him where I could actually park, he seemed a bit surprised at my gutter Japanese accent and told me I could park underground, but you know, who can be fucked going underground?

So I left and parked round the corner out of his sight, surprised he didn't follow me gesturing crazily though. Just as I was parking and going into 'fuck off Japan and your rules' mode, I knocked the bike next to me and caught it just in time before the bike domino effect started, but then I was in a bind, holding on to my bike and the one next to me, the banking crap and my bag. As I was pondering my next move in the tricky game of bike maneuvering, an older lady came and saved me, grabbing my bike so I could get the other one. She was so sweet, telling me she always made the domino effect and that "it sucked dogs ball eh"!? (rough translation!) and waited until all the bikes were set right before she went off. So the X sign gesture old bugger soured my mood but the nice lady quickly restored my faith in humans all over the world!

I find Japan is so like that, things piss you off soooo fucking much but then something happens like you leave your wallet full of money and cards in a bar when you're blind drunk and go back the next day to find someone handed it in. Err, just an example there, I would never get that drunk and be that stupid...

I always bitch about people standing by and not helping here but there are times when people really do surprise me. Another example was the other day on the way home from kindy, there is a mother fucker of all bastard hills, it's not that long, but about 100 metres of pure hell. I'll try and take a photo today when I pick Ash up, but I'm sure it won't do it justice. It also is made much worse by Ash's odd 15kg lardy arse plus his kindy bags which have enough clothes and general shite in them to keep a small country going for a year.
I ALWAYS dread this hill, like every day, and the other day was particularly hot and sticky, as I was panting and puffing my gaijin arse up the hill, a guy from behind asked me if I needed him to push the bike. I was a little shocked at first and considered saying yes but then I remembered the lady who asked to hold a woman's baby and ended up breaking the baby's legs because she was mental and I had images of this perfectly normal good Samaritan wheeling Ash down the hill into the shrine at the bottom and then laughing hysteriacally.

So I politely declined and joked that I needed to get in shape any way and it was good training for me. But seriously, what a nice offer! Very far and few between unfortunately, but I guess that makes it extra special when it happens.

Bugger!

Must not break everyday posting rule!!!

It'll be a quickie from bed though. That sentence sounds like I should be getting some action but I'm actually cocooned up in my blankie with air con blasting and small child and not so small child-like man snoring away next to me.

Had nice day out in Osaka today with some lovely ladies and ash, although the big smoke (and possibly the lunch time beer...) really wore me out, I was fucked by the time I got home, ok here are some piccies and the promise of a real post tomorrow!




Ash and the princess fairy chillin on the train...




Lovely ladies all squished in together!




Hmmmm okonimiiiiii....




Annnnd, ash being a dick with a nappy on his head!9

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Muuuuuuch calmer

Happy to say there was no fighting, wanking or general mayhem last night, thank god!

Although I did have a bit of a blubber in bed as was still stung by 'the list' incident. Ryota was still being a bit of an arsehole which didn't help and I had one of those moments all us gaijin wives have when we contemplate throwing a few boxes of udon soup and some undies in our suitcase and shipping back home. The thought did cross my mind, but after a good sob into the futon I felt better. Unfortunately Ryota heard me crying and that pissed him off even more (he HATES criers) and I ended up hating him even more for it. So we went to bed angry and I was sure it would continue on into this morning but it actually didn't, Ryota has been super nice to me all day and even made us pancakes this morning! What the fuck is with that, maybe his period is due and he was p-man-m-s-ing. Who knows.

Nothing else much is happening... How boring. We braved a trip to the local aeon mall this morning for some stupid reason, bought Ash a little trike thingy (you'll be jealous Sassymoo! hehehe) it's awesome! Bright red and with racing cars that go round on the front and big noises and lights, but most importantly, a long-arse handle made for those of us who aren't midgets, meaning I can push him around without looking like I have rice picking humpy back.

OK, got to go do some work, feel free to not comment on this post, it's not worthy! But I have work to do for Harry Potter's imminent arrival. Hope everyone is having a good weekend!