give your meat: 2009/04/26

Nice lounge area and a kid bathroom, right across the street from nezu museum.

After the park we took the bus to Shibuya and did some shopping at Loft, then Ton wanted to ride the train to we took the Ginza line to Omotesando and walked all the way back through to Nishi Azabu, with a break at the Maclaren shop.

sandbox

sandbox
Originally uploaded by renfield

Sandals off and jeans rolled, Tonchan does her standard sandbox attack: buckets of water and lots of muddiness later -- hungry.

pose!

pose!
Originally uploaded by renfield

Ready for the morning assault on the sand box!

shogayaki

shogayaki
Originally uploaded by renfield

Lunch with Tai-mama.

silly face

silly face
Originally uploaded by renfield

Her Royal Tonchaness was grumpy and sleepy this morning; not much of a nap yesterday and went to sleep kind of late. She spent most of the morning on the couch watching Totoro and then finally had some breakfast with P. I was not allowed in the room until it was finally ok to change diapers and put on some clothes.

She also wore her new pink beach sandals, but after about five seconds her toes started hurting, so I carried her to school like always.

fish head!

fish head!
Originally uploaded by renfield

After Jorge left we had dinner: FISH HEAD and gobo! So. Good.

And just to make sure we had tons of food, Masa showed up and took over the kitchen, cooking up a storm as we got Ton into the bath.

The Mighty Tonchabeast was really tired from so much excitement but finally came to bed kind of late and passed out immediately.

view from 52nd floor

view from 52nd floor
Originally uploaded by renfield

ball pool

ball pool
Originally uploaded by renfield

Big sign on the back says "No jumping", which is pretty stupid given that even I wanted to jump into the ball pool. What the sign SHOULD have said is "You are the adult, it is your child, take some responsibility for raising him/her not to be a completely spoiled prat."

Amazing to compare:

Japanese moms who let their sons do anything, no matter how obviously deviant and dangerous, with the meekest of "Let's not do that, ok?" whilst dad smokes down the hall
Foreign moms who are planning out the next play date at the American Club amongst themselves whilst their children beat on each other and anyone in the immediate vicinity

I attempted to get Tonchan to jump into the pool only when the space was clear, and would not let her throw the balls at all, as a bunch of other kids where doing such a fine job of throwing the balls off the wall I was regularly pelted in the head. Whilst mom took photos.
There was also a Japanese boy who kept burying himself in the ball pool and a few times someone fell on him or stepped on him. I even pulled him up once when it was obvious he was about to have his nose broken...probably should have let that happen. Maybe then his mom would have stopped talking on her cell phone and pay some attention.

After playing for a couple hours we got the viking dim sum for lunch, wrestled Ton into the stroller, and headed to National Azabu to resupply. Ton passed out nicely and stayed out until we were just checking out. Then I ran into the V Man himself, fresh from the tennis court, and then Jorge called. So we hit Starbucks and met up with Jorge, then walked home, Tonchan now completely amped up and hyper.

shopping for doraemon stuff

shopping for doraemon stuff
Originally uploaded by renfield

Hanging out in Roppongi Hills on our day off, and Tonchan wanted to check out the Doraemon store. She pretended to shop for a bit, and then we met P, who tried to get into a cheap movie (Women's Wednesday) but it was too crowded.

Instead all three of us headed up to the 52nd floor Skydeck where Bornelund had set up a whole kid's thing; ball pool and playhouse and fishing boat...and a bunch of kids beating on each other, etc.

mandarin oriental 38F bathroom

mandarin oriental 38F bathroom
Originally uploaded by renfield

On my way to Honbu Dojo to meet BigTony I stopped by this most excellent men's facility.

Spent the AM in Honbu training with BigT, Hoshina, and Gosoke, had a bento, made some final notes, and then BigT and I headed over to Sakuraya.

We bought some new kit for a bargain price, then went to the Volcom office in Shinagawa to meet his Japan team. One of the guys went with us to the Volcom store in Harajuku where we met up with Roger and headed to Harajuku Gyoza for some quality dinner. Then we went down the street to Starbucks and Elvis joined us for some general smack talk and silliness.

Finally headed back to BigT's hotel, finished up some bid'ness, watched the end of Oceans 11, and headed home.

bear

bear
Originally uploaded by renfield

happy girl with steak

happy girl with steak
Originally uploaded by renfield

P needed iron and animal flesh, so she came over and we had lunch at Lawrys.

morning!

morning!
Originally uploaded by renfield

maya todd tonchan

maya todd tonchan
Originally uploaded by renfield

Toddie Papa launches Tonchan into orbit as Maya demands her turn. All the kids spent hours running about, riding kick scooters and tricycles and causing general mayhem. Tried putting Ton in a stroller to see if she'd nap but she was having none of it. Finally just picked her up and carried her to the station. She cried for 10 seconds when we said good-bye but then she passed out by the time I went through to ticket gates.

Went to Shibuya, got on the bus home, and when we got off at our stop she woke up and cried for onigiri so I bought her one but she was too tired and grumpy to eat it I carried her home and dumped her onto P so she could snuggle properly.

waiting for the bus

waiting for the bus
Originally uploaded by renfield

Anxious to go to Shibuya and see Maya and Amy! We met them at TGIFs and then took the subway to Sanja to go play at their house with all the random neighborhood kids.