31 March - Last walk in Tokyo

Getting in Early with my blog today as I leave for the airport in a little over an hour an then probably won't have Internet access until I get back to Australia tomorrow.
This morning i went out for a walk at 6:30 ish to get some air.
4 photos in one again today.

1) My hotel "The Hotel Grand Palace" is neither grand nor palatial

2) Breakfast options outside the hotel. I'm glad I stuck to the hotel buffet - which incidentally I had this morning sitting with this guy and his 'team' - since the restaurant was so busy we shared a table. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Darchinyan

Hes in Tokyo for the World Bantamweight Title fight next weekend.
I think it would have to be my first meal with someone who has a Wikipedia entry about him!!

3) on my walk I made it to the Tokyo Dome. It's about 40 minutes away.

4) and on my way back from the Dome it got windy...really windy...as in windy enough to almost blow me over!!

Now that I think about it, windy enough to make this afternoons flight pretty unpleasant I reckon!!!!

30 March - Tsukiji Fish Market

Out at 4:50am this morning for a special behind the scenes look at the Tsukiji fish market organized by the Japanese Fishery Agency.
Tsukiji is the largest seafood market in The world.
As you can see there was quite a variety there. From extremely smelly dried squid, Whale meat (yep all you protesters start complaining), plenty of frozen tuna (the one pictured sold for approx $3600 Australian dollars this morning) and a lot of boxes of fresh fish.
Though it was fresh I'm not certain how healthy it was. Leatherjacket are DEFINITELY NOT supposed to swim upside down.

Oh and on another note, the Cherry Blossoms are just starting to appear.
I did get some very dirty looks for touching the branch like this to hold it still for a Photo, by police security troops who have been placed everywhere to protect the trees!! Suddenly Today tents and security have appeared and the whole area has turned into one big festival setup.
Latest predictions have the blossoms starting to appear tomorrow.

29 March - Where oh Where

This is supposed to be Cherry Blossom season in Japan, but apparently it's been cold recently so they have not bloomed yet.

Everyone is predicting after the warm weather here this week that they will blossom next week.

And I leave on Saturday. Typical...

28 March - Expensive Shopping

Tonight after the meeting I decided to brave the Tokyo subways to get to Ginza shopping district as I knew there was a 5 storey toy shop there among other things.

Had a little trouble working out the fare I needed to pay for my ticket. But there were a LOT of 160yen on the map (that was only in Japanese despite assurances from people there would be an English sign) so I went with 160. Turns out it was right as I got there ok, even with a transfer between subway lines at a station on the way.

On the map I was at the yellow square in the middle and had to get to the 160 on the red line toward the bottom where it meets the orange line. Clear enough??? :)

27 March - Old meets New

It amazes me how the new and old technology affects everything in Japan.

The toilets in the building where my meetings are being held has two cubicles in the men's.

One is modern with the digitally controlled bidet and buttons everywhere, and includes a heated electric seat.
While the other doesn't even have a seat and closely represents a hole in the ground that you squat over. Apparently you face the silver pipes and can hold on to them for balance.
How very charming!

26 March - Walking in Tokyo

This afternoon I went for a walk to see if I could find any good shops to look at.

On the way I accidentally found the Tokyo Dome, which is the huge enclosed Baseball and Sports Arena , and next to it a theme park.

Yes that Roller Coaster DOES go up over the roof of the building, and yes there ARE people standing up in the cages on the round thing, which promptly drops them again at great speed once they reach the top!!!

I also found a really cool Hello Kitty themed food display outside a Shopping Mall. i really liked the sauce kitty on the food....But I didnt find the actual store inside that sold the delicious looking food. Oh well....

25 March - Sydney to Tokyo

This was my view for about 10 hours today. Followed by 1.5 hours standing in queue at Immigration, and then a little over 2 hours on a bus to finally reach the hotel.
Which as can be seen from the last photo is highly underwhelming.
I hate travel.

24 March - Hotel

Hotels suck. So does the reason for being in one. So does being away from Leah and Grace.
The only redeeming feature some hotels have are the thick striped sheets on the beds.

23 March - forgotten

I just realized this morning that I forgot to do my Blog yesterday and I didn't actually have a photo to use either.

So my blog is now 7 hours and 21 minutes late and the photo is actually from Saturday but oh well.

This is the way Grace decided to relax this morning while watching Baby Einstein on the iPad when she woke up.

22 March - New Slide

Tonight we bought Grace a new slide, since the ones at Aldi looked awesome and have a soccer goal and basketball hoop attached.
It's a heap better than the old one Grace had in the playroom.

I think she will be pretty impressed when she gets up tomorrow morning and sees it!

21 March - Up and Down

Tonight Baxter got excited and decided he could climb the ladder onto Graces cubby. Turns out he was right!

And since the ladder was in use by the dog, Grace decided she would have to climb the slide instead.

20 March - Trampoline Child

After work today I met Leah and Grace at Monkey Mania and had a play.
But it wasnt enough for Grace and once we got home we spent a while on the trampoline.
Grace gave me a huge cuddle, then decided she could do head stands.

19 March - Firefox

Really not much to say about today.
First day at work with our new Compliance Manager though she managed to be out of the office for most of it on a 'business' lunch with the Boss.

Did give me the opportunity to spend a bit more time on my tablet doing decent drawings in Draw Something.

I don't really know how Nathan guessed this but I'm pretty impressed he did.

18 March - Bunnings

Grace and I had a trip to Bunnings this morning, just to grab a couple of brackets for some shelves in the garage.
For the first time, Grace wanted to PUSH the little trolley instead of sit in it!
She was especially happy once we put something in it.

17 March - In the Air

Huge day of aeronautical activities today.
Up at 5:30am to see the balloon festival, although the weather wasn't great so there weren't many actually taking off.
Them tonight at 6pm was Skyfire on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.
It started with the two Squirrel RAN helicopters doing a flight show, followed closely by the 6 roulette stunt planes.
Pretty impressive evenings entertainment.
And finished off with a huge fireworks display.

16 March - Stunt Squirrels

At lunchtime today two Navy Squirrel helicopters were practicing for their stunt show tomorrow night at Skyfire 2012.
We went to check it out, and they were pretty impressive. Especially when they flew right at you, directly above and then turned at a very low altitude to fly across the lake.

15 March - Windows 8

Today at work I installed a virtual copy of Windows 8 to have a look.
It designed to be used on touchscreen computers and tablets as well as with a mouse and keyboard.
You can get to the usual looking windows pretty easily, but the main screen is a lot like windows mobile, using a tile layout that you scroll to access apps etc. unread emails show up as a number on the mail tile, just like on a phone.

I have to say from a 10 minute test, pretty damn impressed with it so far!!

14 March - Toilet issues

After nearly 5 months of our toilet being blocked and draining slowly, it's been Finally time to fix it.
So I removed the pan myself and we got a plumber over on Monday to clear out the drain. He spent an hour or so and cleared out a baby wipe or 10!!!
Then he left assuring us it was all good.
Tonight, after siliconing the pan back on yesterday, I reconnected the cistern and flushed.
Lo and behold....IT'S STILL BLOCKED.

So after a week and one plumber visit we are back to the Hole in the floor.

13 March - Graces love of planes

For sometime now Grace has loved planes.
This morning when she got up, Grace watched a movie or two on the iPad, and Leah found her a new episode of Baby Einstein that had planes on it.
As you can see, Grace was pretty happy with it!

12 March - Outside day

Spent nearly the entire day outside today mowing, whipper snipping, tidying and rearranging the backyard.
Got a hell of a lot done in one day and the last task of the day was to attach the basketball hoop to Graces trampoline.
Of course Grace had to help and was very keen to stand on the chair with me and watch what was happening!

11 March - Caging the Kid

This morning while I was rearranging our baby fencing I put together a small piece into a square.
Grace was so impressed with it that she sat on the floor inside it and made sure she pulled the opening shut so she was well and truly caged. She got in and out a few times but always closed it behind her again! The dogs thought it was pretty neat while she was reaching through and feeding them.

Kind of like a zoo in reverse really.

10 March - I think I am dying

When Leah was so sick on Thursday and kept saying she felt like she was dying i thought it was a bit of an extreme statement! But as of about 10pm last night, it was my turn.
And it turns out Leah was dead right (if you will excuse the pun!). All day I felt like I have been dying. Or wishing for it.
So the photo is of my pillow. Because that's where my head spent most of the day buried. The remainder was spent in the toilet and I'm not sure anyone needs a photo of that!

9 March - target

This morning we went to tuggeranong to check out the myer closing sale. Not
Much there but we also had a look at Target where Grace found herself a play tent with some toys in it!!
She didn't quite realize that the pedestal was the table base , but thought it was a stool!!
Pretty happy with herself once she got on!

8 March - Baby Grace

This afternoon when Grace got up from her nap and we sat to have something to snack on, it really struck me looking at her on the couch, how even though she looks so big and seems so independent to me now, she really is still just my little baby, reliant on her parents for most things.

And also...gosh that was a long sentence I just wrote!!!! Probably could have used at least one full stop, or at least a semi colon in there somewhere.

7 March - New Tuner

Last week when I bought the new guitar I also ordered some new strings for two of the guitars. By coincidence that day the place I was ordering from offered a $20 coupon in return for some feedback on their online shopping site.
As a result my two pairs of strings ended up costing me only $5.
Also got myself a new little treat, it was a clip on chromatic tuner. I have wanted one for a while as they looked like they worked really well, but had never bothered to buy one.
Thanks Artist Guitars!!

6 March - Taking Shape

Tonight after work I started on Graces wardrobe. After a very quick demolition, I started building the new cabinets. A couple of hours and a few dowels later and they are taking shape pretty well!

5 March - Melamine

Fuck I hate Bunnings.
What should have been a quick trip to get some Melamine to build new shelving in Graces wardrobe once again turned into an epic shopping trip due to the uselessness of the people that 'pretend' to work there.

But I did finally get the melamine and associated dowels, screws and shelf clips.
Now I just have to whack it all together and hope it looks like a wardrobe.

4 March -Pie Face

Today while in Civic, we decided to be a little bit naughty and grab a hot chocolate and mini tart (and I don't mean a midget prostitute).
Of course this also meant we had to send a photo of the tarts to Cass and Nathan, though we didn't remember until we had taken a bite already.
But as the old saying goes, better late than never.
Funniest part was Cass and Nathan both thinking the photo was three tarts I had bitten so Leah and Grace didn't get any! :)

3 March - Thomas the tank engine

This morning we took Grace to Lollipops for a play. When we left we stopped into toysrus where Grace decided she really must try the Thomas the tank engine ride on things. But she wouldn't wait for just one to try so she tried all of them still sitting on the shelf!

2 March - 45 LONG minutes

Today when we went to pick up the Jeep from Rolfe motors they made me wait 45 minutes because they hadnt invoiced it yet! BASTARDS.
So to pay them back I let Grace do whatever she wanted without any boundaries. So when she decided to drive the metal and plastic powered toy truck over their expensive leather couches, rather than tell her no (and despite the filthy looks I was getting from various staff) I took a photo! Grace also managed to knock down a whole rack full of Volvo catalogues, and spill some dirt on the floor from a pot plant with the same truck. Nice work kid. :)

1 March - Graces movie setup

Grace is at a stage now where she really knows exactly what she wants and where it goes.
For example tonight she threw a tantrum because Leah brought a jumper out but didn't put it on!! So before we could go out, Leah HAD to put the jumper on!!

As a result of Grace wanting things, when she got up this morning and wanted to get setup on the couch with her 2 dummies, 2 ducks, 2 balloons and her blanket so she could watch a movie on the iPad, I had to give it all to her!
The only problem was she found it a little difficult to see past it all to actually WATCH the movie!!