Huh.

We took Ryan's parents to our favorite okonomiyaki (Japanese savory pancake) restaurant in Tokyo last week. As we were leaving, they brought over a gift for Ian. It was wrapped in a package and looked like this:

We waited until we got home to investigate. Ryan has the hiragana characters memorized, so he read the words ton-katsu on the package. Ton-katsu is breaded, fried meat or veggies. It's similar to tempura, but definitely a thicker breading. It's pretty good. Upon opening it, we saw this:

Needless to say, we were a bit confused. Ryan took the first bite and had an awful face. It was basically a fried stick without any meat inside and awful seasoning. After Ryan's reaction, I chose to lick it. Yuck! Ryan then proceeded to bring it to Bill to taste. Here was Bill's reaction:

I cannot imagine why they think this is a good gift for an 11 month old, although I do appreciate the gesture. Ah, the things we parents do to protect our children.

Hanami

Hanami (or "flower viewing") is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers, specifically sakura (or "cherry blossoms"). On Easter Sunday we traveled to Ueno Park in Tokyo to take part in Hanami with a few people from our host nation...

It's a fairly popular tradition.

Yes, she is balancing a bottle of alcohol on her head. Huh, I still don't know what she is doing.

On Saturday we enjoyed Hanami at a local park with a group from work...that managed to pick a park that overlooked work, errr (the shipyard is in the background).

If you would like to visit us during Hanami in the next couple years, the best bet is the last week of March and the first week of April.

I thought this was an interesting sign in the sakura park at the top of a hill. There is lots of Kangi on the sign but the message seems clear enough, if you are driving in a slot canyon, which, is no where near here, watch out for kids.