Finally got the rest of the various photos out of Kevin's digital camera. Ended up just putting his 1GIG microdrive into a PCMCIA adapter and sticking it into my laptop. Had to squish the photos down to a reasonable screen-viewing size, but anyway more photos from Joel & Aki's wedding and shots from the BBQ back at Hiroko's parents' place in Ibaraki. Hiroko's friend's daughter Momo was their and I just absolutely love her. I gave her a couple of English books; a book with all kinds of cool stuff to color and draw because last time she came over we were playing with coloring books alot, and a Dr. Seuss book: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. She speaks not a word of English...well that's not true she's been watching Sesame Street and she had free English lesson from some local cram school so she says "thank you" and "hello! ren" and "cucumber" (cucumber?) and her mom was like "Oh great, thanks ren now I have to learn how to read these!"
She's only five, but she acts much more like an old man, which in it's own way is really cool. Unlike every other little kid, she doesn't like Sports Day; running around all day playing games. Ask her why and she sighs and says "tsukareru" ("it's tiring"). We always grill cloves of garlic and when I was showing her how to peel and eat them she looks up and goes "miso", asking for bitter-sweet miso bean paste to dip the roasted garlic in; just like an old man at a yakitori bar snacking on a little something and washing it down with a cold beer. We got into much mischief that day, but luckily we didn't get caught.
Got schooled again in aikido -- weather's getting warmer and it was a non-stop sweat-fest. Can't wait for the real summer practices to start; 35 degrees C and 90% humidity.