Family – Page 90 – d@vidb dot net

Noa in Korea! (대한민국)

On our way back to Canada, we had a mini-vacation-type 3 day 2 night stopover in Korea. Although we ended up spending the majority of our time relaxing in our very nice hotel, we did eat some amazing korean bbq and Noa had his first swimming pool experience.

Here are a few pictures from our Korea adventure.

(Noa thought he would ride with us until I shoved him in the suitcase.)

‘Help me’ he said. I said “no.” ‘Get back in your suitcase.”

No Korean adventure is complete without public protests,

~~Korean flags flown everywhere~~ accordians,

and Shane Jeans.

As I mentioned above, Noa had his first pool experience. He absolutely loved it. He loved it (and I’m being serious) right up until I dunked him underneath the water to see what would happen. I had read somewhere that babies automagically hold their breath when they are pushed underwater.

They don’t. Who knew? (actually, Kiko knew. She tried to prevent me.)

jesus christ my legs are hairy. and you love it.

Finally, when Noa climbed out of the suitcase we let the gigantic korean baby eating bear after him.

Dagger is getting bigger (歯磨きしてます！)

Noa’s only weapon (currently) is getting bigger. Fear him.

(Kiko has also asked me to inform you that we clean dagger to prevent the destruction that is my set of teeth.)

Noa’s Training

Along with his rigourous ninja training, we also train Noa to do more mundane things.

…like using dagger to destroy a plum (his first!)…

An even better showcase of Noa’s brillance is him responding to his own name. Here is some video of Kiko calling out his name (“Bennett Noa-kun!” [Japanese name order and -kun, a Japanese honorific] and Noa respoding by raising his hand and saying “Hai!” [yes!]. My baby can kick your baby’s ass. Even if your baby doesn’t even exist yet.

DOWNLOAD NOA’S SELF-AWARENESS VIDEO HERE

希空くんのビデオ (お返事)

Lee’s Family Photos … our family

We have arrived safely in Canada!! Suffice it to say, we are extremely jet lagged.

unfortunately, after arriving in Canada I realized I forgot to bring my usb cable to get our pictures off of the Camera(s). I will figure something out… don’t fret. In the meantime, now that we have Lee’s permission, we would like to share some of our favourite pictures from Lee Gribbon’s amazing family photo shoot.

The full shoot is available here.

That is all. (He’s amazing! THANK YOU SO MUCH LEE!!!) 😮

Getting ready to leave Manno (Chunan / Kagawa)

That’s right… our two year stint in Chunan (now: Manno) in Kagawa Prefecture is coming to a close. We leave on Tuesday morning but still have a ton of packing to do. Here are a few photos that we have taken over the past few days that we thought you might enjoy.

This first photo is actually a scan of an article that appeared in the Shikoku Shinbun (the big paper in our area.) The article is a thank you to me and saying goodbye to our family.

My liberal translation:

Thank you, David! David Bennett (26) who has been working and living in Chunan Town (now Manno Town) since August of 2004 as an international relations co-ordinator will be leaving us. As a student, David spent two years on exchange in Yokohama and Tokyo. In his current role David was very active around the community through numerous events, school visits, and English classes. He also brought internationalization to the local community groups through his visits. David came to Chunan with his wife, Kiko. Their first son, Noa, was born last year in November. (That pretty much covers it. I rushed the translation, so if you think you could do a better job… do it.) 😮

At least 3 times a month Jim and I ate at the local kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi place. It was fantastic. (Especially the oinky bits [read: meat susghi] and the salmon!) Definitely will miss the sushi… and possibly Jim.

And finally, Noa took me for a drive the other day.

That is all.

Noa

I actually have a ton of things to write about. Between preparing for our move to Tokyo, our trips to Canada and Korea, and all of the goodbye stuff that is going on here, we have been quite busy.We hope to post about it in the next few days.

In the meantime, we had to share with you this amazing picture of Noa that our good friend Lee Gribbon took. We will be posting the entire shoot over the next few days (once he says cool, cool?)

Back in the day…

Instead of posting pictures of Noa, I give you this:

And now for a Noa video…

Remember our discussion of flowing noodles? While Scott & Stacey were visiting with us in Japan, we were invited for some more flying noodles.

Noa got in on the action. He was amazing at catching the noodles.

DOWNLOAD NOA’S FLYING NOODLE VIDEO HERE
希空くんのビデオ (流しそうめん！)

Live from the field

Scott and Stacey… in Japan!!!

More Breaking News!!!

breaking news!!!

Noa has a tooth!
初めての歯！

That’s right… for those of you that doubted Noa’s brillane. Noa has his first tooth. Although Noa is big for his age, and can do things quite advanced (like crawl and beat-down other babies), we were getting a little worried about the lack of teeth.

We now have a new weapon in are arsenal. Fear the mighty Noa and his tooth (we have named the tooth dagger.)

Congratulations Noa and dagger! 希空くん、おめでとう！

ps. as a reward we sent Noa to daycare for the first time today as we needed a chance to pack. We thought he would freak out and/or destroy the other children with dagger, but it turns out he had a super time. He didn’t even notice we were gone 🙁

See how happy he looks? 😉 (and by happy I mean cold and alone.)

The end of an era…

I’ve decided to take a break from the regular Noa reporting to talk about me for a little bit. 😉

Don’t get too excited…

Today marked the end of my two year contract with Manno (formerly Chunan) Town, and as a CIR on the JET Program. It was quite sad for me to leave my office for the last time as it has been an excellent experience. Living in Kagawa Prefecture taught me a lot about Japan. My other experiences as a high school and university exchange student saw me living in Tokyo and Yokohama, and gave me the false impression that I had even the slightest clue of what Japan was like. 90% of Japan is rural farmland (and mountains) and it took 2 years living here to learn about what that was like.

(I know this is getting corny, but forgive me for just this post.)

During our time in Chunan/Manno (仲南町/まんのう町) we got to meet many kind people, grow vegetables, have a baby, buy a car, live in a super fantastic house, receive vegetables on a daily basis, and just get the brunt of the generosity that the people here have to offer.

　
As a CIR on the JET program I was fortunate enough to be put in a town that supported me in whatever I chose to do, and allowed me to work at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo, work as a prefectural PA councillor, star in the JET PR video, act as vice president for the regional AJET group, and have a whole lot of interaction with the Tokyo office of the JET program through the organization of orientations etc.

My actual duties here included numerous things such as school visits (elementary, kindergarten) [where we did tons of stuff like play games and make gingerbread houses, etc… remember!?], visit community groups, organize activities (cooking, speeches, whatever), town english classes (with really dedicated people, old and young), write articles in the local newsletter and papers, a weekly radio segment, and a whole bunch more.

Why am I writing all of this? I just needed to put it somewhere so that I wouldn’t forget and I can look back and remember. This is where Noa was born, and Kiko and I have had a great time living here for the past 2 years. We are going to miss our house, our gardens (except the watermellon-killing dogs), the nice people, the beautiful mountains and scenery, and all of the friends we have made.)