The Great Radish Crop Failure of 2005

I'm sorry but we have no radishes today. Yes, we have no radishes today. My great horticultural experiment was a failure. Lots of green leaves on top, no red bulbs down below. What's the deal with that?
The only thing I can think of is that I put too many seeds in the planter. Perhaps I was too greedy for their radishy goodness. So I'm trying again but with less seeds this time. I'll try for quality over quantity. Hopefully me peas will fare better. I don't know how many failures I can endure before I wig out and start interrogating the vegetables at the local supermarket. "You'll grow big and fat for some heartless farmer, why won't you grow for me? Why damnit why? You're headed for Guantanamo hear me!" Now imagine me throttling an egg plant. Yep, that's how it'll probably go down. I'll give em one more chance.

Surprise!!

SURPRISE!!
Yes, it has all been a big lie. And I have been the ringmaster of deception. But now I shall lay out the whole plot. Read all the horrid details my friends, if you dare!

Yukiko thought none of her friends could come to a party because it was a holiday. True enough, but I had contacted them weeks before and we had come up with this great plan. Special thanks to Hiroko for her sneakiness. I encouraged Yukiko to phone her friends to invite them out to El Pancho's, a Mexican restaurant we like, for her birthday. Of course they all said they were busy. Yukiko was pretty bummed because often her friends are busy on her birthday and she doesn't have a party. I suggested we go to the restaurant anyways and said a few of my friends could make it. I had to say someone was coming or she could have just decided to cancel the whole thing.
So the reservations were made and everyone had to keep their guards up. I became the point-man as I was with Yukiko for most of the week. A few times she said she was going to phone her friend Kaori to double check if she could come to the restaurant or not. I said that's a good, while secretly fumbling to email Kaori and warn her in advance.
The day before the party I bought a nice birthday cake from the department store Sogo in Sannomiya. I was on my home from Tokushima and was hoping to drop it off at Hiroko's apartment as she lives near the same train station as us. Alas, my lack of planning hurt us here. I hadn't made plans with Hiroko to give her the cake so she wasn't home at this time. Luckily my friend Dan was home and he volunteered to hold onto the cake for me. Even more importantly, he agreed to bring it to the party. Thanks buddy! The side trip to Dan's made me a little late getting home. Naturally I blamed my tardiness on the horrible traffic on the highways and said my bus had arrived late. Yukiko was a little miffed and my spaghetti was only luke-warm by the time I started eating.
On the big day Yukiko and I spent most of the day relaxing and cleaning up around the apartment. We also did some gardening. I gave Yukiko some yoga DVD's and some little, cheap knick-knacks. Of course she liked the cheap knick-knacks best. When will I learn. The present she most enjoyed was to take me shopping though. As most of the world knows I have the fashion sense of a colour-blind ferret. So Yukiko likes, no loves, to take me shopping. It was like a scene out of Pretty Woman with me being fawned over by all the shopkeepers as Yukiko mixed and matched for me. However, I'm still amazed that in the land of Sumo I can't find a belt that fits me properly. I ended up getting some great jeans, work pants, and a batch of shirts from the Gap. We finished just in time for our reservations. Our reservation, meaning Yukiko and I, was for 6:45. Everyone else was supposed to be there at 6:30.
As we got into the restaurant a waiter directed us to a big table in the corner. It was somewhat dark so we couldn't make out if anyone was at our table yet. As we got closer we could make out Dan sitting one one side. I couldn't see Yukiko's friends yet so I started to get worried. Luckily though, they had found a shadowy corner of the table to hide in and were videotaping away as we arrived. When they stood up and yelled "surprise" Yukiko was just stunned. I don't mean just surprised, but dumbfounded. You could see her trying to work out what was going on and not having much success. She had no idea what was going on. It took a few minutes for her to realize that it was a 'surprise' party and that her friends had been tricking her for weeks. It took even longer for her to figure out that I was involved in it too. Doncha love it when a plan comes together (lights a big stogie here.)

A slightly out-of-focus picture of our great group of liars. Well, technically, Dan didn't lie about coming to the party. But I'm sure he could have :)

I think she looks happy, don't you?

The cake. Apparently in Japan, you're not supposed to bring a cake to restaurants as they will specially prepare one for parties. Who knew?? But they kept it for us and delivered it with impeccable timing. Once again Yukiko was shocked and couldn't fathom when I had the time to get it, as I had been with her for most of the week.

No wishing for more wishes!

Kaori + Hiroko + Yukiko = good times. Congratulations to Hiroko as she is expecting a baby!!

Doesn't this look like one of those photos that would have a summary like, "last photo taken before the deceased was repeatedly stabbed with a dessert fork."

Lastly, we'd like to send a shout out to our good friends Neil and Rachel who just welcomed their first baby, a girl named Jayden, into the world. Well done! Jayden was born on May 5th, which is a doubly special day in Japan because not only is it Yukiko's birthday too, it's also 'Children's Day.' How appropriate.

Happy Birthday Yukiko!!

Not only is it Children's Day in Japan it's also Yukiko's birthday. Happy birthday sweetie! We're also smack in the middle of Golden Week, which is a string of national holidays all in one big bunch. Both Yukiko's company and my school were nice enough to to also give us off the few days inside Golden Week that aren't technically holidays. So all in all we have 10 days off in a row. Well I've got some weddings to do but not many this year so we've been lazing around quite a bit.
Being as it's Golden Week and most people are taking off the holidays we weren't really able to organize a party for Yukiko with her friends. We'll have a nice quiet dinner together tonight and then a couple of my friends will join us for some Mexican food at El Pancho's in Osaka tomorrow night.
The other day we met up with Seigo, Keiko and Yuka again to go to an international food expo in Osaka. We ended up arriving really late, sorry guys.
Our first stop was the Asian pavilion which featured a wide array of noodles from all around Asia.

The god of tapeworms!

Cool decorations are everywhere. I feel like I'm in Asia.

An instant ramen museum. And look how busy it is!

The noodles here looked delicious but there was just one problem. Despite the thousands of people coming and going between the pavilions there were only 2 ticket vendors selling tickets for the various noodles here. That meant some lining-up was in order. But I didn't realize how much lining-up there would be.

This guy's sign marks the end of the line.

After some major zigzagging we ended up outside the building.

Then it was 1 block down and 1 block back. And this was just to get food tickets. Then we had to line up for whichever bowl of noodles we wanted to try. Needless to say I was a little annoyed by this pavilion.

Luckily the other pavilions were far better organized and everything became much better when we discovered the German and Belgian Beer vendors.

So is there a hoegaardener?

Oktoberfest in May?? What the hell, I'm willing to compromise.

Little Yuka took everything in stride though. She seems to very happy most of the time and rarely cries, at least when I'm around. Maybe I've just got good timing.

Who needs beer when you've got a groovy 'Roots' fashion bib from your uncle Jason!

The local Asahi beer is good too.

As Yukiko can attest to...

Just kidding, no one got blotto like Otto there. We did have some tasty; Osaka udon, Ehime Mikan juice, vegetarian (eggplant) takoyaki, Thai rice & noodles, and delicious cappuccino frosties. There was even a lone Canadian stand selling, you guessed it, maple syrup.

A couple of unemployed NHL'ers were working the cash register.

Does anyone else still shed a tear for the demise of 'Due South'? Keep on saluting brother!

On the walk back to the car the sun was going down and we passed by some interesting looking buildings. In case I never get the chance to come back and check these places out I thought I should at least take their pictures.

The Osaka wine museum.

One of the biggest clubs for live bands - Zepp Osaka.


Back at home it was about time for us to get a little dirty in the garden. And I mean 'a little' because it's just a little garden. My radishes and peas look to be doing good with lots of green stuff coming out of the soil. Time will tell if we'll be able to give up our supermarkets and Costco and just live off the land though.

The veggie and herb wing, with some flowers and a snow willow thrown in for good measure.

The other half of our garden. Be careful, it's easy to get lost in there. What with the 4 corners and all.