"Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next."

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tempozan Sunset

View a beautiful sunset from Tempozan
Tenpozan Harbor Village is famous for offering one of the most beautiful sunsets in Japan. It is located where the Aji River flows into Osaka Bay. The surrounding area has been developed as a modern port, "Osaka Port & Harbor."
Tenpozan Harbor Village offers an excellent view of Mt.Rokko to the north (right), Awaji Island across the bay in the west (front), and skyscrapers at Nanko Cosmosquare to the south (left).

Shabu-shabu

Background
Shabu-shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ, , also spelled syabu-syabu?) is a Japanese variant of hot pot. The dish is related to sukiyaki in style, where both use thinly sliced meat and vegetables, and usually served with dipping sauces, but it is considered to be more savory and less sweet than sukiyaki. It is considered a winter dish but is eaten year-round
Shabu-shabu was introduced in Japan in the 20th century with the opening of a Shabu-shabu restaurant "Suehiro"[1] in Osaka. Its origins are traced back to the Chinese hot pot known as "shuan yang rou". Shabu-shabu is most similar to the original Chinese version when compared to other Japanese steamboat dishes (nabemono) such as sukiyaki. The name of Shabu-shabu was named when Suehiro served it. After that, Suehiro registered the name of shabu-shabu as a trademark in 1955. The cuisine rapidly spread through Asia[citation needed]. Together with sukiyaki, shabu-shabu is a common dish in tourist hot-spots, especially in Tokyo, but also in local Japanese neighborhoods (colloquially called "Little Tokyos" or "Japantowns") in countries such as the United States and Canada.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Finger Paints

These are one of those educational toys that are extremely messy; that you'd want to be sure to keep out of your kids reach. Kids can take the 6 available colors and make a huge disaster somewhere. The reason I am posting this is because I thought it was funny how in the instructions it cautions its buyers to only let ages 3 through 105 play with it.

食べ放題 (Tabehoudai)


This was a fun little outing that we had to celebrate our new home and the Sakura season that we worked hard in. The attraction of this restaurant was its buffet, Gelato icecream, and the order of two kinds of pasta and 5 other awesome dishes for an extra ¥100. It also had a sweets corner with brownies, puddings, jelly's, and a chocolate fountain. The price was a meager 999 yen per person, and 499 for kids, I think. Great food! And thank you Jesus!

Attempt at Photography--not that I would ever become a maniac

         
        
   

Monday, April 19, 2010

怖いお兄ちゃんやねん。。。

Kenji refused to take a photo with these two goons because they were too scary, he said.

 

A Breath-taking View

Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

We were finally able to get a year-pass for one of the world's largest aquariums in the world. If my information is correct, the world's largest aquarium is located in Okinawa, and the Kaiyukan located near-by here is one of the largest in Japan, it seems. I'm pretty sure this is accurate info. ha

Santa Maria

The Santa María was a small nao, about 70 feet long[1][citation needed], used as the flagship for the expedition. She carried 40 men.
The Santa María had a single deck and three masts. She was the slowest of Columbus' vessels but performed well in the Atlantic crossing. She ran aground off the present-day site of Cap Haitien, Haiti on December 25, 1492, and was lost.[2] Realizing that the ship was beyond repair, Columbus ordered his men to strip the timbers from the ship. The timbers from the ship were later used to build Môle Saint-Nicolas, which was originally called La Navidad (Christmas) because the wreck occurred on Christmas Day.
(Taken from "Wikipedia")


Better pics of the Santa Maria

Thursday, April 15, 2010

A Giant Shuriken

Happy Birthday Daiki! This Shuriken is for you. Love -- Kenji and Deryk

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

At the Game Center

Our boys were having a blast at the game center--really, just a once a year thing; a reward for letting daddy and mommy go out ballooning 12 days in a row non-stop; and because Grandpa and Grandma came. This was a rare occasion that was enjoyed to the full.

Kenji and Deryk were at it for like 30 minutes, putting those coins in by the dozens, maybe even hundreds. They had one remaining coin each, and they both put them in at the same time. All of us watched the drama as they neared the bottom, hoping they would win us a fortune. But with one-out-of-like-a-hundred-thousand chance, both of their coins met and got stuck just inches from the bottom. We couldn't believe it; such coincidence.
Well, I know I'm being a little dramatic. It's not like we would have won a fortune or something, maybe just some more game coins or something. But still, it was very dramatic at the time. And you should have seen their faces. Every time they got a winning, they grabbed those garnered coins with such joy and enthusiam as if they had won a million dollars or something. So when their last coins got stuck like that, you can imagine that it must have been pretty dramatic for them.

The "Sun Princess," the ferriswheel, and an outing with Grandma

"The Sun Princess"--explanation in before post


Outing with Grandma Sunshine
We found shelter from the pouring rain in this cute Chinese cafe' and bought one of its renowned snacks. It's something or another like a giant deep-fried omanjyu. It's really good though. It was the 3rd time I got it--really quite addictive.
We let the boys have a go at throwing real shuriken's at the targets, as it was something they have been talking about and wanting to do from the day we came. My youngest brother, Daiki, was sure to leave good memories of his love for making shuriken's out of origami.
Try to figure out this faucet that doesn't seem to have an in-let. What is the scientific explanation behind this mystery of a running faucet?

Thursday, April 8, 2010

I was dying to post some pics of our awesome house, but then just as I was thinking of doing so I thought that it wouldn't be so good for our security. But this is one lovely house that the Lord supplied for us. He couldn't have given us anything better. TYJ!

Check it out!

In TSC this faithful old clunker was more than just a funky old work vehicle used for pick-ups. In the beginning days we used it for all sorts of things, and at times the embarrassing reality was that we depended on this 6 passenger to be more of a 10 or 12 passenger. Fortunately, this changed with the upgrades in our home and the new Winning Offensive vision. Children and pregnant mommy's and people in nice business suits no longer needed to rely on Old Faithful for their means of transportation.
Yet, the van was sort of the image of our home at the on-set of it. The beginning days of TSC was the image of a bunch of rowdy boys on the ranch. If for nothing else, Tamba Soul Clinic will be remembered for its clear and defined transition from unprofessionalism to professionalism, for which I'm proud.