Never too late for an update, is it?

Things have been really, really busy for me lately. Worst of all were the multiple projects I had to submit for my Masters program in the last few weeks. My very last one is not due until next week as I received a one week extension in order to gather more data. I'm doing an Action Research Project at my school; I'm teaching one of my international classes easy and effective ways to study English on their own outside of class. My big questions are: will they do it, and will it help them?

As I said in my previous posting, we still don't know whether our baby is a boy or a girl. However, several friends have mentioned some mysterious Chinese calendar that is supposed to very reliable in determing a baby's sex. So in the pursuit of knowledge I googled it and found a lot of sites. Here's the one I used. It claims to be an ancient Chinese secret that is 99% accurate. Other sites seem to range from 80% and up. If this is correct, and how can over a billion Chinese be wrong, our baby will be a girl.

I see that my last pictures are from my trip to America in the summer so I have a real backlog of photos and stories to tell. The biggest news has to that our good friends Kazu and Hiroko just had their first baby, a little girl named Miku.

ミクちゃん、ようこそ！

Mommy is doing great too.

Hiroko & Miku

Kazu & Miku. She just stops crying and falls asleep in his arms. That's one trick I'll need to learn pronto.

Other things in the somewhat recent news:

Our niece Yuka is doing well. We were a little worried because she was late to start walking but now there is no stopping her and she is always going to and fro.



Like finding a needle in a haystack. Wait, no it's not.

We had another visit from Fu-chan and her mum Yoko. We are certainly being pulled into the world of children and babies aren't we.

Fuka takes a break from rampaging around our apartment.

Yoko & Yukiko

Fuka & Hiroko

We went to Kazu & Hiroko's place for Kazu's birthday.

Happy Birthday Kaz!

The low-table is all the rage in Japan



We went to an annual street festival (Jizo bon) near Yukiko's parents' house in Higashi Osaka. It is sponsored by a local yaki-soba shop owner to honour the spirit of his daughter who died in a traffic accident.

paper lanters light the way

Our friends Chika & Shige

Yukiko's friend Kibu looks smart in her yukata

Yukiko & I went to Mino park in Osaka for a day of fresh air and exercise. We were also hoping for some monkeys but they were nowhere to be found this day. :(

This beautiful restaurant sits under a forest of trees and next to a winding little river. So it is probably very expensive.

a great place to take a break from the hustle and bustle of big city life.

Gotta maintain your fluid intake

Bright red bridge = good, bright red Coke vending machine = bad



The end of the hike, waterfalls but no monkeys. Only humans, who are often far more annoying and noisy. Still, a great day overall.

This is a statue of a man carrying his mother along the path. Luckily we were just about finished our hike when we saw it so Yukiko couldn't get any strange ideas


Yukiko changed her hair colour.

the 'Classic' look

the new Yukiko