Summer — Kiko and Kei in Tokyo
Noa and David in charge of doggos
Summer is hot
Tag: nikki
Kei won an award! and other stuff
Hanging out with Nikki to see Louis CK and my workspace at Tenstorrent – Hana is also a sharpshooter!
Austin 2018
Phenomenal time in Austin with family and friends
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.)
No worries, we will be back to reporting on Noa tomorrow, not to mention what we will be up to now that we are leaving Kagawa… don’t get too excited.
Chunan and Manno, thank you!
仲南町、まんのう町、ありがとう！
(okokok. i give in)
Noa Update #6
I have decided to start posting more about what Kiko and I have been up to. Considering our move to Tokyo (and me to Gakushuin University!) very soon, we should have quite a few things to say about our trip back to Canada, our move to Tokyo, our new apartment, and our new lives living in poverty.
In the meantime, here are some more pictures of Noa!
This is Noa (in full team uniform!) with Ayano-san, our very good friend and dental assistant. She is currently looking for Noa’s teeth, without any luck. Noa has a part time job as a stripper.
A little bit of sad news… but one of my best friends here in Kagawa over the past 2 years, Nikki, has left back to America. We had a going away party for her with a few of our good friends. (Sorry about the picture Lee! Our little camera is on the fritz… damn fritzes.)
And finally this:
We like to dress Noa up in pink so it hurts less when everyone accuses him of looking like a girl.
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! 
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. 
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…!)