Baby Watch Update!

Yukiko's water broke this morning! We are expecting the contractions to begin within the next 24 hours. She has been to her clinic for a checkup and bother mother and baby are doing fine. If the contractions don't begin in the day or so we will head to the clinic where the doctors will induce labour. This baby boy is coming real soon!!!


While I'm anxiously waiting at home I'll update some old stuff I've forgotten to, or just haven't gotten around to posting here.

After our trip to Oji Koen (see the last posting) we got another package of baby clothes and toys from my mum. She is a fantastic shopper! The clothes are amazingly cute and we have so many now that we won't have to buy anything for probably his first year.

A great shirt from our friend Winnie Law-Law :)

Lots of our friends came to visit us too.

Emi with Hiroki & Hiroko with Miku

Fuka & Miku

Yukiko & Miku

As part of my driver 'training' in Japan we went to a delicious little vegan restaurant near Rokko station called Vegi-Smile. As usual, the food was delicious. Yukiko really likes it too. The hemp tea wasn't all that great though. I guess hemp wasn't really made for drinking. We all know what it's really made for right? ...that's right, high quality clothing and paper.

Vegi-Smile has a cool, jazz-like interior.

On January 20th Yukiko threw a little surprise party for me at my favourite Mexican restaurant in Osaka. I had a strong suspicion about the party but I didn't know who would be showing up. Big thanks to Seigo, Keiko, Yuka, Craig, Miki, and of course, Yukiko for setting it up for me. It was lots of fun. Although I was a little disappointed that the vegetarian, avocado burger had been dropped from the menu :(

Miki, Craig, Moi, Yuka, Yukiko

Yuka gives Yukiko & I some parenting pointers

On the 22nd of January I went out to a 新年会, or new year party, with a bunch of friends from the Japanese school I used to go to. It was at a delicious, macro-biotic vegetarian restaurant in Shinsaibashi called Maman.

Shinsaibashi's electric-boogaloo glow



Yukiko is quite the mastermind. Unbeknownst to me, she had arranged this little get together as a second surprise party for me. And I was completely fooled. When everyone in the restaurant started singing happy birthday I had no idea who it was for. I didn't realize it was for me until the waiter plunked the cake down in front of me. Well done Yukiko!

Beautifully timed, this picture captures me at my most stunned.

Everyone in the restaurant broke into applause. Which was really funny because they were having some business function and seemed to be writing tests at one point in the evening.

Cynthia, Tomita Sensei, Sara, me, Yukiko, and Piyo (errrr... Cliff)

At the end of January we were visited by Yukiko's sister again. Seigo was clever enough to realize that the Chinese New Year started the next day so we all went into Kobe for the afternoon. First up was Sweets Harbour, a whole shopping complex devoted to sweets and desserts.

Yuka & Seigo

Yuka & Yukiko

Kobe's Chinatown at night.



Seigo, Keiko and Yuka stop for some delicious Chinese food.



The night's main event, the Illuminated Dragon Dance.

To gear up for the baby we went on a bit of a buying spree. Luckily, Yukiko's co-workers teamed up to buy us a great baby bed. We went to Babies-R-Us and picked up a new child seat and baby stroller.



Keiko picked up this great tryke for Yuka at Costco.