Yes, we're alive... 9/27/06
Surprise!!! Yes, it's a blog update. And one that's fairly current, at that. I'll be taking the chronological path with this one as it stretches over a few days.
Starting with last Sunday, we went over to the parent's house to show everyone the Japan pictures. Sorry for those of you in blog land that haven't seen the pictures from our trip yet. I'm working on publishing them, slowly though.
That night we were able to spend some time with our little niece Sofia. Unfortunately, I forgot that my camera was set to ISO 800 from earlier in the day when I was using it indoors without a flash. As a result, the quality of the pictures from Sunday night aren't great. Live and learn, I guess. At least it wasn't a professional picture that someone was paying me for.
The happy family. :-) I need to work on getting everyone to look at the camera for the photo. Sofia hasn't quite learned the meaning of "Say cheese!" yet.
Fence update. I'm sure you're not very interested in this. Tough. I need to share the fruits of my labor. Two fence posts are now set in concrete and more rock is in place to fill in the previous mud pit. Next I have to build the fence to replace that temporary 4x8 plywood shown. But the big rush was to set the posts while it is still warm, so now I can relax a bit.
On Tuesday before picking up Hiroe from school, I had wanted to take some pictures of the building beautification going on at the U. It's obvious they're trying to make it a very reputable institution, at least from a shiny building perspective. However, I ran out of time and just snapped some picks in a rush. This is a building on the river that apparently is destined for better things.
Coffman Union from the river side. What used to be a tired building is now a classy hangout for the students. You can sit and read inside by the fire or relax outside and sip on a cappuccino while admiring the river. The bookstore inside of the Union now resembles an Abercrombie and Fitch.
In other news, the boxes from Japan keep rolling in. Our poor mailman. I gave him a tip yesterday... I hope he kind of likes us again. But with the arrivals it's like Christmas everyday here. Cool!!! Another present for us!
I kind of went overboard when I packed things in Japan. Hiroe was complaining that one box weighed only 3 kilograms and came with a bowl, some chopsticks, and a can of Japanese mosquito repellant. But I remind her that the bowl was not broken. Yes I was extra cautious, generously wrapping each item and testing my padding by dropping the wrapped item from a height of 1 meter. Then each item went in the box separated from each other item with oodles of crumpled newspaper.
But when the boxes arrived looking like this, I'm glad I was so anal.
John's wrapping style...
...kept all of this safe in one box.
And it means we can now enjoy tea in lovely cups like these.
Some of the book boxes have not been so fortunate. When a box with books arrives with straps, like this one, we worry.
The problem is I think several of the boxes broke open in the same general area. When I say several boxes, I mean other peoples boxes too. The molested boxes usually contain a note like this...
Which means that they stuffed everything back into the boxes without a clue as to what goes where. We've received other poeple's photos, books, and even a personal journal. There is a girl named Tiffany somewhere that should soon receive a marriage proposal. We were looking for clues as to who's journal it is so we could send it to them... honest.
All of this is not ours. There are some Japanese comics that I might try to sell on e-bay. Or maybe use for Christmas presents.
We've even received coins. Mostly from Canada and Hong Kong.
We also received these coins. No idea where they're from. Doubt they're worth enough for me to retire.
One other event of note this past week is that I've signed up for home schooling via the New York Institute of Photography. The books have started arriving - more good news for our mailman. I have assignments, quizzes, and projects due. It's pretty cool. Maybe you'll see some improvement in my photos in the coming months.
Starting with last Sunday, we went over to the parent's house to show everyone the Japan pictures. Sorry for those of you in blog land that haven't seen the pictures from our trip yet. I'm working on publishing them, slowly though.
That night we were able to spend some time with our little niece Sofia. Unfortunately, I forgot that my camera was set to ISO 800 from earlier in the day when I was using it indoors without a flash. As a result, the quality of the pictures from Sunday night aren't great. Live and learn, I guess. At least it wasn't a professional picture that someone was paying me for.
The happy family. :-) I need to work on getting everyone to look at the camera for the photo. Sofia hasn't quite learned the meaning of "Say cheese!" yet.
Fence update. I'm sure you're not very interested in this. Tough. I need to share the fruits of my labor. Two fence posts are now set in concrete and more rock is in place to fill in the previous mud pit. Next I have to build the fence to replace that temporary 4x8 plywood shown. But the big rush was to set the posts while it is still warm, so now I can relax a bit.
On Tuesday before picking up Hiroe from school, I had wanted to take some pictures of the building beautification going on at the U. It's obvious they're trying to make it a very reputable institution, at least from a shiny building perspective. However, I ran out of time and just snapped some picks in a rush. This is a building on the river that apparently is destined for better things.
Coffman Union from the river side. What used to be a tired building is now a classy hangout for the students. You can sit and read inside by the fire or relax outside and sip on a cappuccino while admiring the river. The bookstore inside of the Union now resembles an Abercrombie and Fitch.
In other news, the boxes from Japan keep rolling in. Our poor mailman. I gave him a tip yesterday... I hope he kind of likes us again. But with the arrivals it's like Christmas everyday here. Cool!!! Another present for us!
I kind of went overboard when I packed things in Japan. Hiroe was complaining that one box weighed only 3 kilograms and came with a bowl, some chopsticks, and a can of Japanese mosquito repellant. But I remind her that the bowl was not broken. Yes I was extra cautious, generously wrapping each item and testing my padding by dropping the wrapped item from a height of 1 meter. Then each item went in the box separated from each other item with oodles of crumpled newspaper.
But when the boxes arrived looking like this, I'm glad I was so anal.
John's wrapping style...
...kept all of this safe in one box.
And it means we can now enjoy tea in lovely cups like these.
Some of the book boxes have not been so fortunate. When a box with books arrives with straps, like this one, we worry.
The problem is I think several of the boxes broke open in the same general area. When I say several boxes, I mean other peoples boxes too. The molested boxes usually contain a note like this...
Which means that they stuffed everything back into the boxes without a clue as to what goes where. We've received other poeple's photos, books, and even a personal journal. There is a girl named Tiffany somewhere that should soon receive a marriage proposal. We were looking for clues as to who's journal it is so we could send it to them... honest.
All of this is not ours. There are some Japanese comics that I might try to sell on e-bay. Or maybe use for Christmas presents.
We've even received coins. Mostly from Canada and Hong Kong.
We also received these coins. No idea where they're from. Doubt they're worth enough for me to retire.
One other event of note this past week is that I've signed up for home schooling via the New York Institute of Photography. The books have started arriving - more good news for our mailman. I have assignments, quizzes, and projects due. It's pretty cool. Maybe you'll see some improvement in my photos in the coming months.
posted by john and hiroe at 10:17 PM
2 Comments:
John, I'm so excited that you're taking some photography classes! I know I keep saying it, but I really do think you have an excellent eye.
Lately I have been thinking about how much I miss you guys and then you have to go and post pictures of tea in beautiful Japanese cups, making me long for a nice rainy afternoon of tea and conversation with my dearest friends.
Anyway, hope you are fairing well, and I can't wait to see what you produce for your class...
Hi Rachel!
Yeah, I'm excited too. I'm not too deep into it yet, but they give you sooo many things to think about... that normally wouldn't come to mind but make sense. I think part of the key will be practice.
So you like the tea shot? It was good tea. Sorry.
We miss you guys too. Hopefully we can trek back to Philly soon!
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