david – Page 35 – d@vidb dot net

Kagawa Halloween Party

I was debating about putting Kiko’s picture up, or putting up pictures from Halloween. Halloween won.

Here are some pictures from the annual Kagawa AJET (JET Council, of which I am vice-president??) Halloween Party. Everyone looked pretty good. Especially Greg in his saran-wrap costume, and Jim as spiderman. In case you didn’t notice, I was dressed up as a disgruntled Canadian. Kiko was the wife of a disgruntled Canadian.

If you want to see bigger (more?) of these Halloween Pictures, look here.

Kiko and I are now off to watch "It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" for Halloween.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween Party

My Amazing Sweet Potatoes

Coming hot off the heals of the potato party, take a look at my sweet potato excitement. Boo!! That’s right. 3 types, all transported from Kiko’s Island of Tanegashima to here in Kagawa. (I live in Chunan-cho, but you guys know that, right?) emoticon

Now enjoy the view and look how cool I am picking my sweet potatoes. (and yes… I already know that no one likes to comment on my farming because you are all jealous.)

Sweet Potatoes

The Famous Potato Festival

This entry was actually entitled "Update on Kiko" but she didn’t like the photo I was going to upload. She promised I could post one tomorrow, so expect an update tomorrow. She looks… umm… big. But cute…

Anyways… yes, it’s the Potato Party. Remember how Kiko used to work at one of my schools? Well they invited us back for a Potato Party. The actual translation was "The Honourable Potato Party"… but well… umm… that’s stupid.

Now what do you do at a potato party you ask?

Well, first you take cut-up sweet potato, put them on Ritz crackers with whip cream, add some more whip cream and sprinkle liberally with chocolate chips and sprinkles emoticon

Potato Party

Then what do you do? (Do you really have to ask?) You have a potato quiz, sing the potato song and talk about potatoes. (He is pointing at a sign that says "Potato Quiz" by the way.

Potato Party

You’re jealous right? And why shouldn’t you be.

Konpira Festival and Me.

Wow! I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to write a little article about this entry, but there is nothing on the net about it! I’m a little shocked, but I will fill you in.

On October 10th I was asked to take part in the Konpira Festival. Konpira is a shrine (Shinto=Shrine, Buddhist=Temple) located in Kotohira, a town right next to mine.

The cool thing about this festival is that it re-enacts a procession from the Heian Period (794-1185AD) in Japan complete with dress. (Guess who was the star attraction?) You can check me out in my gear below.

Or you can take a look at all the pictures here.

At any rate, basically the deal is on October 10th (October is known as the month when the gods aren’t around… keep reading) we take the God out of the shrine and take him down the mountain to hang out in a Japanese-inn (Ryokan). The next day, we drag him back up the mountain and put him back home.

That’s fine and all.. the problem is that Konpira is famous for having something like 800 steps and is located at the top of the mountain. Also, the God lives in a portable shrine (omikoshi or something) (or whatever… those crazy asians) which literally weighs 1 tonne. Combine that with the fact that we have to take all his stuff as well and it makes for exciting times.

My team was in charge of the big Japanese-drum (Taiko). emoticon Suffice it to say it was ridiculously heavy.

Enjoy. It was a lot of fun. They don’t know for sure, but rumor is I’m the first foreigner to take part in the event (its been going on for hundreds of years.) neat.

Konpira Festival

An Update – and other stuff

hey hey hey.

Just going to put a bunch of random stuff here because I have a few pictures that I’ve been meaning to put up. To be honest, things are getting quite hectic with the arrival of the baby. Expect more baby announcements soon. (not MORE babies, more announcements…)

It seems like I never really got davidandkiko.com 3.0 out the door, but that’s ok, 4.0 is on the way. It will be ready before the baby and will look a lot nicer, be easier to update, and hopefuly a little more fun. Surprisingly we still have tons of traffic, just not as much interaction as we used to… 🙂 That’s ok, this site is both for Kiko and I, and for when you feel like seeing what we are up to (not that that has to be regular at all!)

As well as the upcoming site-overhaul I have finally managed to upload some pictures from our trip to Tanegashima. Take a look –> HERE <–.

In the meantime, let’s look at some pics I have stored up. First off, when I was in Tanegashima we went to this stooooopidly small and crappy shoe store called Footpark. Low and behold, what did they have their? Shoes. tons of them. But what else? The best pair of Pumas I have ever seen. no joke, I really really really want one.

Tell me that isn’t cool? …. I am accepting gifts.

I forgot to mention that we will be putting up pics of all the baby stuff we have got and bought. We have spent almost $1000 on baby shit and that is us being super thrifty and begging as much stuff as we could get. Apparently babies in Japan sleep on baby futons which cost a billion dollars. The only explanation I got was that since babies sleep all the time, they need to sleep well. emoticon wtf?

This is another picture that I’ve been meaning to put up for the longest time. A few weeks ago Kiko, I, and a whole bunch of JETs (new and old) went bowling. It was a lot of fun… you also get to see my good friends Nikki and Jim.

Super swell.

I hope you are all learning how to play Shogi. I need someone to play online with me, so get to work!! (they have a cool picture on that link, so look at it!)

That is all.

Love David & kiko.

ps. Take a look at my new soccer team (formerly known as the Sanuki Udons. We are working on a new name…!)

Surfing in Tanegashima

We just got back from Tanegashima where we celebrated Kiko’s Dads kanreki (60th birthday) and relaxed for a week.

We will be posting a ton of pictures of Tanegashima, our nieces and new baby nephew and Kiko’s family. Should be good! In the meantime, look at me in all my surfing glory. (I am also bruised to shit and my breasts hurt. emoticon ) But it was worth it…. (ie: I stood up for maybe 15 seconds.)

That’s me with Hina and Kana, our nieces. They are so cute! emoticon

Where is Kiko??

I’m all alone here in Kagawa…. and it sucks. Kiko left to visit her island about 3 days ago. I will be joining her on Tuesday, but until then I have been home alone. 😉 (not a pretty sight! I thought I would enjoy the time alone, but that is not the case!)

I would have gone with her, but I have to work this weekend at this years Sport’s Festival. (See here for pictures from last years!)

Anyways, I guess I am just writing this because I have nothing else to do. Lonely? I leave on Tuesday for Kiko’s island of Tanegashima. 1 week of beaches, kiko’s family, vacation, a new cell phone and (hopefully!) baby presents. We should be able to update the site.. (but don’t expect any more maternity suit pictures…)

Wow… I thought this would have been a little more inspired. If you want to be inspired, GET ON SKYPE! It’s like an instant messenger (think MSN/ICQ/AIM) but for voice. Microphones are like $5. Go buy one, its pretty amazing. Google Talk is also really good. My name on skype is davidbennett1979, and my google talk e-mail is davidbennett1979 (at mark) gmail (dot) com.

In the meantime look at my green peppers. I grew them myself.

… yeah… I’m not sure why they are red. They were supposed to be green. I think they were at one point… apparently they are edible though….

Take a look at this: This was the Kagawa Soccer team (formerly known as the Sanuki Udons, currently known as nothing). We kicked the crap out of junior high school students. … well, actually we won 3-2 (thanks Jim!) But it’s good to have a team back…

that is all.

Sorry, I lied. I can’t say enough good things about this book. It was great! Get it. In fact, click on it and add it to your Amazon cart, NOW!

Parenting School – 両親学級

David and I went to parenting school last weekend. David doesn’t know much about Japanese parenting, so I think it was good study for him. Now I will soon be 8 months and my stomach is very heavy. David had to wear a suit and see how hard it is for me and my stomach. emoticon

先週末、初めて両親学級なるものに行ってきました！Davidにとっては初めての事ばかりで「ほほ～」なんて感心したり納得したり・・・いい勉強になりました。妊婦体験スーツを着て床に落ちている物を拾ったり寝転がったりして、８ヶ月の大きいお腹がいかに大変かを実感したようです。

Davids suit

(edited by David) Here is another one for good measure!

ps. Why the hell did they have to add breasts to the suit? I feel and look and am retarded.

Davids suit

My Day …

Well, it was actually yesterday, but I had a pretty crazy day. Not only was there a killer typhoon, but a number of other … stuff … happened. Here is a quick summary.

The Good

Look at my new printer? It is an Epson PM-A870. It is a copier/scanner/printer all in one. It specializes in photos and also has a negative scanner as well as memory card inputs to print your photos directly. The thing is a beast!!

in more ways than one. It’s friggin huge. Here, take a look:

It prints fantastic pictures by the way!! Super friggin excited.

The Bad

MY COMPUTER BROKE!!! Not only did it break a little… it broke a lot. 🙁 I am very sad. It wasn’t my main computer, it was the Linux machine that runs my MythTV server, my phone server, parts of davidandkiko.com (the parts you guys don’t visit!) and held davidandkiko.com 4.0. (We are skipping 3.0 in case you didn’t notice…)

What the fuck?

So there was a typhoon yesterday, right? Anyways, I wish I had taken a picture, but there is this dog that is always locked up outside of his house. (like every other dog in Japan.) He always barks but is super lazy so just kind of wanders around his little house barking at people half-assedly if hes not too tired to get up. Because my computer broke I was depressed and decided to head out in to the typhoon for some lemon coke. A little part of me expected to not see the dog there, the day of one of the biggest typhoons to hit Japan in a long time.

… he was there alright, but don’t think his owners didn’t care. In front of his little house they had nailed up a peace of light wood. So this poor dog was locked in his house and nailed shut by a flimsy peace of wood that didn’t cover the entire door.

Nice…

Anyways… on a brighter note here are some more exciting pictures. (Yes, I am trying to draw my readers back with bribes of pictures.. bastards.) 😉

A big congratulations to our good friends Mike and Tomoko who recently added "Kaito" in to the mix. Look at how cute he is? When my baby is older he is going to wrestle Kaito… or something.

How about a picture of Kiko’s little garden pre-typhoon? She loves it.. most of the plants blew away though. emoticon

And finally… since I’m all about giving the people what they want, here is what everyone needs. A giant kiko. (photo by Greg!) Thanks!

That is all.Love David & Kiko

Monster Bash 2005 & More Tokyo

Monster Bash 2005 – Yes… it was pretty exciting. I got to see exciting bands such as Orange Range, Dragon Ash, rize, and Yaida Hitomi with my good friend Greg emoticon . It was a lot of fun! (I have pictures to prove it!) (and movies to! – try them!) (How was it Greg?)

For those that don’t know, I live on Shikoku. Now nothing really exciting happens on Shikoku. However, once a year, a really big musical festival comes to Mannou Park, which happens to be about 5 mins from my house. (Incidentally, mannou is the name of the town I will be living in after Chunan merges with the surrounding villages.) The venue is super beautiful and the weather was co-operative.

… too co-operative. You will be excited to learn that I had an allergic reaction to my sunblock. Stoopid ass Japanese sunblock. I didn’t realize until after I let it soak in the sun for an entire day. I now look like the Phantom of the Opera. I don’t think it will be going away anytime soon (and I have a big C on my chest for some unknown reason.) Stop the excitement.

See how beautiful the concert was…

Monster Bash

Here are some movies I took at the conert. Keep in mind that these were taken under duress as I had an angry man trying to prevent me from filming.

Orange Range 1 Orange Range 2 Dragon Ash 1 Dragon Ash 2

This last picture is Kiko, myself and my very good friends Nakanishi-san (whom some of you have met!) He is a super nice guy and took us to Jojoen, one of the best yakiniku (Korean BBQ, read: super good) places in Tokyo. It has a fabulous location overlooking Shinjuku and is fantastic… and expensive. THANK YOU!!!

Nakanishi-san