Anthony turned four years old yesterday, but it was a long day, so we put off opening the present sent by his Aunt Natalie and Uncle Alan until today. (We still have presents from both sets of grandparents to give as well.... more fun for another day!)

Natalie and Alan put together a wonderful set of surprises for Anthony. I'll let his face tell the story....

Curious George slippers

They are Curious George dolls before they're slippers, so he hugs his new George friends

As slippers they fit just fine

And some colored pencils

A card with a Curious George drawing by Aunt Natalie

And STICKERS!

He likes the stickers

A sketch book to go along with the pencils.... giving it a try

And THREE Curious George books

The pictures ended here as he wanted me to read all three books to him, which I most happily did.

I still have my cold, but watching his joy made me forget about it for a while.

Anthony Turns Four

Anthony turned four today.

Due to a fluke with Fumie's schedule, I made his bento this morning, following simple but detailed instructions that Fumie had left. The result wasn't pretty, but I judged that it probably wouldn't kill him.

Fumie and I both picked him up from preschool, and on the walk back to the car I asked how the bento was. His understated reply was “It was okay; I didn't throw up.” (He used the Japanese ge for “throw up”)

Now, there are a few things you should know about this: we ask how the bento was every day, and his answer is usually something enthusiastic along the lines of “it was tasty,” so the lukewarm “it was okay” is a reflection on my bento-making skills. However, the comment about throwing up is not a back-handed compliment about my bento skills, but a reference to last Friday when he come down with some kind of stomach ailment and spent most of the day throwing up. He was fine today.

After picking him up, we headed for a toy store to let him pick out his own present. After searching for a while, he picked out a big garbage truck and hauled it to the register.

In choosing this garbage truck, he passed up big fire trucks, large airport parking structures, helicopters, and other things that little boys generally go for. But the choice of a garbage truck is not that surprising considering his track record for choosing his own toy.

After hauling it home, he was a bit pooped

But somehow opening it brought back his energy

He played for hours

When we lived in Cupertino, the trash company was Los Altos Garbage, so that's what I see when I see the “Lotos” on the side of the truck.

He'd been looking forward to the cake for a very long time

Fumie taught him about making a wish before blowing out the candles

He wanted to eat directly from the cake. We certainly wouldn't normally allow that, but it's his birthday, so why not?

It was a long day for him, and I have a cold (that I probably got from him), so we'll open other presents tomorrow. His Aunt Natalie and Uncle Alan sent a package that we're really looking forward to. (We haven't told him yet, since he'd never be able to wait.)

One other thing to mention is that yesterday he called me “お父さん” (otousan - dad) for the first time. For the most part, he calls me the English-only “Daddy” whether he's speaking English or Japanese, and sometimes “Papa,” which works fine in either language. Most Japanese kids his age use “papa” or “otousan,” eventually using only the latter as they get older, but for whatever reason he'd never used otousan with me. We were making pancakes and I'd given him the eggs and milk to mix, and he said “ね、ね、お父さん、これでいい？” (“Hey Dad, is this okay?”)

It really warmed my heart.

I was at Yodobashi Camera in Osaka the other day, the largest camera store in this part of the country. It's something like six expansive floors, selling everything from obscure large-format camera accessories to luggage (but, alas, not the out-of-production AF-Nikkor 28mm f/1.4 I was looking for).

They're a national chain, and internationally minded: the “welcome to Yodobashi Camera” jingle that continually plays storewide cycles among a bunch of languages (at least Japanese, English, German, Chinese, and I think Portuguese. Maybe French too? I wasn't paying that much attention.)

So, with that in mind, I found the English in the lower-left of this sign to be funny:

They have a copy of this fairly large sign at each of the many cash registers around the store.

If you do read English and don't read Japanese, do you have any idea whatsoever what it's trying to say? Heck, I read Japanese (at least enough for this) and don't really understand what they're saying.

The red Japanese writing above the English says, in part, “please understand that the purchase with intent to resell is prohibited.” Okay, that's fine, and makes sense, although I certainly didn't get that from the English version below it.

The red Japanese text also notes that sales to those “in the business” (such as a camera-shop owner) are also prohibited. This seems sufficiently odd that I figured that I must be misunderstanding the Japanese (and again, the English version is of no help), but I checked with Fumie and indeed, that's what it says. She doesn't understand why, either.

Odd.

The English did make slighlty more sense once I realized that “theresale” is supposed to be “the resale” rather than the “there sale” that I'd originally parsed it as. Still, it's funny. The whole bit about “impossible for other person to buy it” is not at all reflected in any of the Japanese on the sign.

In case you're curious, the other parts of the sign are not related to this. The text in the green box on the right says that the warranty proof card is included on their receipt. Above the credit-card logos it says “you can use these cards.” In the top yellow section, it's advertising the store's point card, where you basically get some percent of your purchase total as store credit for a future purchase. (Such point cards are common at consumer electronic places, and can sometimes represent a 20% discount. I still have over $100 in credit at a local place from when I bought my camera, and chip away at it from time to time when I need a printer cartridge or something.)