Home from spring break

How did it get to be March so soon? We just spent five days on Guam, which was a ton of fun.  We stayed at the Pacific Islands Club, which is chock-full of fun activities, including a water park, lots of pools, snorkeling, sea kayaking, windsurfing, and just plain swimming.

Omochi pounding

Masahiro is the assistant boy scout troop leader and soon-to-be-husband of our cub scout pack leader, Bonnie.  They are a great couple and make the boy scout experience a great one for both kids and parents.

I can't resist posting this photo, taken at a fertility shrine at Daishi Kawasaki in Tokyo.  We were in the neighborhood to pound mochi for the new year with a group of Japanese scouts.

I hear this penis shrine is quite popular and many foreigners come to pose with it, so add me to the list!  While we were here, I did see some families posing in front of the temple with their young babies, presumably giving thanks for the success of the fertility shrine.

If you can't own a car, might as well get a bike with some caché

I see these bikes all over Tokyo.

The best grocery sack in the world

Yes, the Japanese have the best reuseable grocery sack.  You may not have even known that you need the features in this grocery sack:

1. It folds into a very neat square that you can tuck into your purse or briefcase
   
2. A snap to keep things in the bag
3. A pocket for your wine bottle (of course, the store will also cradle the bottle in its own foam fishnet sleeve)
4. A small inner pocket for your money, in case you are doing the grocery store run
5. Super strong handles and construction because you WILL be walking those groceries home for several blocks

Here is a little video showing the huge globe that hangs in the Museum of Technology and Innovation in Odaiba, Tokyo.  We spent an entire weekend at the Museum, and we still didn't experience everything.  One highlight for Kai was sitting in front with the other kids during the demonstration of the Honda Asimo robot.

Yeah, that's right, the date on the music is April 3, 1982, when I was in high school.  I've recently been practicing in the mornings after the kids have gone to school and before I'm due at the office, and I've pulled out some of my old music books to tackle.  It feel really good to play, and in some ways I'm a much better musician than I ever was in high school and college.  And yet my technique is rusty -- there's no way I'm going to be able to get back to where I was when I played 4 or 5 hours every day.  That's okay, though, it's still fun to play and frustrating not to be better, just like it was all those years ago.