Category: Family

2006 Coming of Age Ceremony

One of my biggest posts from last year (by biggest post I mean the one that drew the most traffic to davidandkiko.com as determined by Google) was my January post on Japan’s Coming of Age Ceremony. It was very strange, but I found the picture I had posted their linked to many many websites.

In January (while I was in Canada), my town, Chunan-cho (now merged to become Mannou-Cho) held it’s last Coming of Age Ceremony.

The second Monday in January is Coming of Age Day where all 20 year olds gather together in a ceremony held by the local governments around Japan to mark their passage into adult hood. 

What makes this ceremony faily exciting is the huge number of young people you see wearing very elaborate kimonos wandering around the streets of Japan (young people wearing kimonos is not a common sight!) during the first half of January.

Here is the photo from Chunan-cho, 2006. 

chunan-cho last seijinshiki.jpg 

The Noa Update

Yet more complaints about my lack of pictures, and recently, my lack of updating you on Noa’s progress. Well, to keep it simple, Noa is doing fine. Actually, he is doing more than fine. Here is a list of some of Noa’s more recent accomplishments:

  1. He can grab things.
  2. He can put said grabbed things in his mouth.
  3. He can propel himself around in a circle like homer using his fat. 
  4. He can ALMOST roll over. He gets 99.5% of the way and then falls back over in a fit of crying.

So basically, he is a genius. Like his dad.

Now before I go any further, let us get something straight. You need skype. GET IT NOW! It allows you to talk with people around the world for free using skype, or (even better) make calls out (or even take them in!) for a very cheap price. go spend the big bucks, buy a $5 mic, and add davidbennett1979 to your list. please. emoticon

Now, to take care of the picture part. Introducing the Noa picture extraveganza. 

Happy Noa

2006-mar-happynoa-1.jpg 

Sad Noa

2006-mar-sadnoa-1.jpg 

Confused Noa

2006-mar-confusednoa-1.jpg 

Noa doing something

2006-mar-noadoingsomething.jpg 

Imprisoned Noa (aka. Noa in Jail)

2006-mar-imprisonednoa-1.jpg 

Noa hanging out with one of his two ugly dolls (which he loves and eats.)

2006-mar-noaandmonster.jpg 

Noa getting some action (aka. His first kiss)

2006-mar-noagettingaction.jpg

and Noa hanging outside.

2006-mar-noaoutside.jpg

That is all.
 

Town Merger – 合併

What do you get when you cross three towns (one of which I live in?)

 chunan-small.gif + kotonami-small.gif + mannou-small.gif

 

=

shinmannou.gif 

That’s right! My little town of Chunan has merged with two other towns (Kotonami and Mannou) to form… Mannou. I now live and work in Mannou town. (Some of you might be wondering why, if we merged, we took the name of one of the towns. Well, it is complicated.. not really but anyways…. the old Mannou was spelt 満濃 (chinese characters) whereas the new one uses the phonetic alphabet まんのう)

 The opening ceremony was an exciting affair involving a crazy man on a loudspeaker denoucing the merger, the rope breaking on the unveiling ceremony, and the sheet covering the new town logo tearing after the rope had been fixed.

I am now working in the Mannou town office which is a 15 minute drive from my home. I absolutely love Chunan. It is a fantastic place to live and everyone at my office was very nice. That being said, I am also looking forward to working in Mannou. They treat me the same as the other employees complete with name badge, official swearing-in ceremonies, and a new computer. Yeah for me!

At any rate, Kiko and I are still recovering from our jetlag ordeal. We will have a ton of pictures (and dear I say it…? a new website???) soon!

Love, David and Kiko.

Mannou Town, March 20th, 2006