d@vidb dot net

… because there are no pictures. In fact, you might not even read this.

At any rate, I am doing a pre-update of an update scheduled for tomorrow. What is Tomorrow? Tomorrow is the day Franz comes to Japan and I take him around. 10 days of action packed excitement.

In case anyone is curious we will be going to:

Osaka -> Nara -> Kyoto -> Himeji -> Kagawa (my home!) -> Nagoya -> Yamanashi (Mt. Fuji’s home!) -> Tokyo

Crap. That’s a long and very expensive trip. Whoever else is reading this, please know that when you come to Japan I will be happy to show you around as well! The important thing to remember is that you can only spend so much time in Chunan without going crazy.

At any rate, other than that… things are good! My new computer should be here soon and those problems will be fixed. We are moving to medium-high speed Internet by the end of April and this 10 day vacation should give me the much needed rest (even though it is bound to stress me out because Franz is stressful.)

Where is Shane? I don’t know because he doesn’t answer my e-mails.
Where are my friends? I don’t know because I don’t e-mail anyone. (Sorry!)

… Why am I rewriting the homepage from scratch? Because I am a loser.

Now send me some love.

David

Ever since Kiko and I moved to our new house, we have stalkers.

Well… I have stalkers. Two little girls from one of my elementary schools. One of them follows me around and calls me fat (a play on the name “dave” in Japanese. They pronounce “Dave” = “De-bu” and if you shorten it to “debu” it becomes the Japanese word for fat.)

Incidentally, I also made her cry one day by implying she was a little hefty herself. The other one dresses up in make up and ho boots and comes to my house. She also regularily lifts her skirt while I am teaching.

They are cute.

At any rate, every weekend they come to our house and leave me homemade chocolates and homemade candles. I usually send Kiko to the door to dissapoint them by having her say that I am not home.

Here is a note they recently left me:

It reads (in Romaji, Japanese written with English characters) “Dear David. You speak English very well. Please continue to teach us. From Haruna (fatty) and Kazuki (ho boots.)”

I was also surprised to look at the chalkboard at the back of the classroom and see this:

The blond hair gave it away. Note that I am also saying realistic English sentences (which I am sure I say all the time!) such as: “Hello.” “English!” “My name is …” “Orange” and “Red”.

This just makes me laugh. It was a sign below the shampoo and soaps at a hotel Kiko and I stayed at when we went to Matsuyama last weekend.

“We make up for deficiency.”

Hey Everyone!

Just a small update. Yes we are still alive. The site is constantly being updated, but just not where it makes any big difference 🙂 There are a couple of new galleries, but they are only available if you go to the “main gallery“. Check it out!

We are just putting the last touches on the new house, and our internet is slow. very very very slow. Most of the site updates and pictures will have to be done from work. Kiko is taking pictures of the house as we speak, and we will have them up soon.

We’re here… we’re alive and we miss you lots. There will be a number of new galleries coming online over the next few days and a big overhaul in March.

love
David & Kiko

ps. No pictures… so maybe no one will read this 😉

今年初めての毛筆＆硬筆のお稽古に行った際、２人で書きぞめをしました！
小学生以来の習字は難しく思い通りに書けなかったけど、久しぶりの習字は楽しかったです。
私は新年の抱負として「健康」という字を選び、Davidはと～っても難しい「心」という漢字を選びました！

(David: I couldn’t translate that, but I will explain! It is tradition to write out a word or a phrase (in Kanji, Japanese/Chinese Characters) at New Years to bring good luck, happiness etc. Kiko and I both go to calligraphy class on Tuesday so we wrote out these for our New Year’s Kanji. Kiko wrote “health”. I wrote “heart.” Kiko’s is very good. Mine is fabulous. (Unless you are Japanese and recognize that is most certainly not fabulous. I guess it is more fabulous for ME, taking in to consideration my skill with handwriting in any language.) I wrote heart because it is the only one I could remember.)