Met Tai-kun and family for lunch at the killer Italian buffet in Mandarin Oriental, and after lunch took a walk down through Ginza, the Tonchabeast napping happily all the way to the station and on the bus ride home.
Loaded the Ton onto the bus and headed to Ginza. Dropped off my suit jackets at Azabu Tailor to get the sleeves adjusted, and then headed to the toy store for some much needed goofing off. Tonchan played with the dogs, checked out the toy kitchen, enjoyed the doll house and Miffy display, and finally sat mesmerized by the fake legos for a couple hours.
Finally dragged her away as she wanted to ride the train, so we headed to the subway line and went to the big 'bucks at the Hills and she fell asleep.
I did some kanji practice on my new Nintendo DSi and Pchan joined us to return some DVDs just as the Tonchabeast arose from slumber.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
P needed iron and animal flesh, so she came over and we had lunch at Lawrys.
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.
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.
Took the subway home as we didn't want to surface, given that it was crappy and raining all day. When we got to Jyuban we stopped by Appi for a few hours until the Ton was really sleepy and grumpy. I threw her in the stroller, bought her an onigiri at AM/PM and she was asleep a block later. Totally messed up her sleep schedule napping so late, but whatever; she was having too much fun playing to care.
Had to stop by Honbu Dojo for a bit, then we headed over to Mitsukoshi across the street in a feeble attempt to find a pair of white sandals that cost considerably less than 7000 yen. We failed. However we did find a cool electronic singing book in the Miki House store that entertained Ton and some other random kid for minutes on end.
Here she is singing along to the Totoro theme song.
Just about to go up to school and she spies the AM/PM and speaks the magin command:"Onigiri!"
So she sat outside the door and ate half the onigiri before heading into school.
Having an 80s FlashDance-inspired moment, Ton really wanted to wear her leggings to school. And a pink shirt. As much as she is into watching heavy earth moving equipment and riding on trains and buses, she is really into the colors pink and purple.
*sigh*
Trying so hard to keep her from being a girlie-girl.
Big Boss in town from London so we went to Taka in Nishi-Azabu for some serious sushi. No menu, no ordering: you eat what is served.
Just woke up, heads straight to P's purse, grabs the little makeup bag, sits down in the corner of the sofa (on the extra pillow), reaches over to turn on the TV, and proceeds to put on both lipstick and chapstick, never taking her eyes of the TV.
Eventually she made it to the table for breakfast. Chocolate bear bread? Pasta with tomato sauce? Udon? Udon!
I have a feeding-my-daughter theory, in two parts. Whenever it's just me and her, eating goes something like this:
Just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's not evil!
And just because it's vegan doesn't mean it tastes good!
Actually the apple filling was good; not too sweet and properly apple-y chewy. But the crust was practically rubber, and they should have given me a steak knife because I couldn't cut the damn thing even with the serrated dinner knife that came with the fork.
Lovely weather so I walked down to Azabu Jyuban thinking I could get a lovely fish dinner, but the place was closed. So I headed to Eat More Greens for a healthy bowl of taco rice.
After lunch we went to Azabu Tailor so I could order some pants for my suit, then we got on the subway and went to Roppongi. I knew she had to be tired so I would not let her out of the stroller. We walked over to the Chinese Embassy and she started crying and having a hissy fit about going back to Roppongi Hills Kids Room and getting apple juice out of the vending machine. As soon as I turned around to go back, she passed out. We ended up going down to the 'bucks in Azabu Jyuban and then home. After switching to P's lap, she ended up sleeping for over two hours.
Did some more wandering and shopping but couldn't find any decent shoes for the Tonchabeast. Everything was WAY too expensive. I am not paying 6000 yen for a pair of sandals that she will destroy and outgrow in six months.
She did get some new hairbands at Miki House though. For the bargain price of 630 yen. Man, I work for the wrong industry!
Getting hungry and she wanted fries with ketchup so I tried to find TGIF's but it appears to be gone. So we headed to MossBurger, where she didn't touch the fries but all the buns off of my burger. They have some decent onion rings, too.
Let's Ginza!Our mission was to buy Tonchan a new pair of white sandles, with snaps not velcro. We took the bus to Shinbashi then walked up ChuoDori. First stop: Hakuhinkan toy store, 2nd floor. She spent a good half hour checking out Totoro, Miffy, and Penelope, as well as playing with the kid-size furniture in the back. Managed to get her back into the stroller and out the store somehow, and we checked out the Cool Muji in the basement of Matsuzakaya. No shows, but a fine apple juice.
Masa came over and cooked dinner. In fact she cooked enough food for ten people! At the end the ladies enjoyed some handmade pudding. Masa and P ate it, Tonchan squished it and spread it all over the table and threw it all over the floor. Great fun.
After lunch I figured if I put her in the stroller she'd get tired...or maybe hungry for a chocolate frosted donut. Same thing, I guess. After biting and licking all the chocolate off, I was left to eat the naked donut. Still a damn fine snack from our favorite local bread store Mont Thabor.
Lunch break! P wasn't in any mood to move around, so I took Tonchan to the local soba place. She didn't eat any of the sweet omlet but she inhaled the daikon oroshi and all the nori off of the cold soba. I finished off the noodles and tempura.
Borrowing someone's watering can, she likes any excuse to play with the water faucet.
The Tonchanizer has an amazing ability to befriend whomever in the sandbox has the most toys.
We usually get lucky as there are some kids in the sandbox who bring the proper equipment and will share with Ton, but you never know so I grabbed the spade (plastic) and she put on her jacket, backwards of course but at least she has a good use for the hood; that's where panda goes, and off to the park we go!
As soon as we got to the park there was an abandonded kid size shovel that no one claimed, so the spade was relegated to the stroller and she proceeded to use her new scooper.
I think I need to get her a dump truck and maybe a crane in addition to a sandbox tool kit (shovel, bucket, brick form) so that we can do undertake some proper construction projects...
Dave Spector is an uninteresting white guy who has been on TV in Japan for longer than I have lived here. I remember him because 15 years ago, when I was working for Tokyo Journal, there was a big expose on him. In an article called "The Incredible Inflating Man" they took apart his dyed blond hair, blue-eyed contact lenses, claim to membership in the Academy and a host of other things he professed to but turned out to be true. And generally nobody cared. He plays the role of clown perfectly; harmless white guy who speaks the language, cracks bad jokes, and reaffirms every foreigner stereotype that makes this xenophobic country feel safe and secure. And hell, more power to him if can manage to make a living doing it.
Supposedly he was once asked what he thought about all the other foreigners bad-mouthing his Uncle Tom antics on Japanese TV and his response was: "Not my audience."
Anyway he was filming for a TV show or something on the edge of the park so I took Tonchan to see him and she absolutely freaked out. Wouldn't get near him and started crying and screaming. I actually felt bad for the guy and managed to take this picture whilst walking backwards away from him, holding Tonchan as she was trying to grab the cellphone out of my hands to keep me from taking the photo!
She still hasn't figured out how to kick to keep herself swinging, but she is getting more and more fearless. She climbs up on the swing, stands up and goes "Papa, BIIIIG push please!" So I get her swinging and figure the worst thing that'll happen is she falls off, lands on her face, and the swing smacks her in the back of the head. I've done worse. ALOT worse.
Such awesomely excellent weather so off we are to the dry cleaners, then the park.
Went to lunch with Tai-mama. 150 grams of dead cow goodness, on a sizzling plate! The restaurant was no smoking, but still there was a cloud of smoke at the ceiling from all the flesh grilling. Ah, sweet meat coma on a warm afternoon, finished off with icecream.
