True to form, Anthony got up at 5:15. My eye felt and looked much better. At 7:45, we set out on our bikes to deliver Anthony to his first full day of daycare. We were looking forward to a “day off”, but the primary goal is to get him experience playing with other kids. He'll go Mondays and Wednesdays.

When we'd brought him the first time (last week), he'd gotten off to a rocky start because one of the day-care ladies took him before he felt comfortable with the place, and so he screamed bloody murder for a while. She said that all the kids did that and to just go so that he could get over it more quickly. We didn't like that at all, but it was one of those things that happen so fast you can think about it later. They thought he was crying due to separation anxiety, but I knew it was simply because he wasn't yet comfortable with the new place (having been there for only a minute before being thrust into it). So anyway, this time, when the same lady tried to take him, I was ready and simply said “no, that's okay, I'll sit with him”. And indeed, within about two minutes, he was drawn by the lure of new toys, and was off to play.

The first thing he found was an interesting wooden toy that looks like a bunch of small cups tacked to a broomstick. You put a big marble in the top one, and it tips over and dumps the marble to the one below, which tips the other way, and so on, all the way down. He was thrilled with this, and had a kind of excitement that his face and body simply couldn't contain. The facial contortions were almost gruesome, and were it not for the happy reason, I would have been concerned. I'd thought such excitement was reserved for meeting Santa and/or Christmas morning, but it was thrilling to see that it could be found in such a simple toy. While Fumie and I were extremely heartwarmed to see it, were disappointed not to have captured it on film.

While he was enjoying this, we slipped out, not wanting him to become fussy by seeing us leave. We stopped by a small cafe very near the apartment that we'd not stopped by before. We each had their “morning set”, which involves a tiny cup of coffee, three small rolls of various flavors, and a tiny salad that might fill half an American coffee cup. We were having a nice, quiet time, and so extended it by getting another (mini) cup of coffee. The total for this feast was a mere $20. The prices for eating out in Japan are worse than airport pricing, but if you think about it in yen (2,000 yen), well, it's like paying with Monopoly money.

Around lunch time, I made the five-minute walk to the convenience store for lunch (we still haven't gotten into a routine of grocery shopping), and half way there, getting into the more city area that our apartment is just off of, I took a picture down the street. The apartment is behind me, up a hill a minute, on the left side of the street. Anyway, if you follow the view in the picture down the street, you see a big orange arch. The almost-fisheye lens make it look much smaller than it seems, but if you take the five-minute walk from there (maybe 7 or 8 minutes from the apartment), you find that it's huge — about four stories tall. I think the one that's there is a rebuilt version of the original. The original is probably 800 years old, but this one can't be more than 150 years old. (It turns out that it's about 80 years old). Anyway, it's not a common site in Japan, but we can see it just stepping out of our apartment complex, so I thought to take a picture of it. In there are around it are museums and such (such as a museum of modern art — something I'm not likely to visit any time soon :-))

In the afternoon, Shimada-san came over to see the place, and together we went out to look at cars. He knows a lot about everything, and in this area he didn't disappoint. I'd gone with the idea of looking at a few select models (mentioned two weeks ago), but he directed me to other models that I'd not thought were appropriate for us (from casual inspection seeing them on the street) which turned out to be very good. We stopped by a Honda place and a Toyota place, and I ended up getting brochures for maybe nine different models.

I was running late to pick up Anthony by 5pm, so I decided to drive there directly. Apparently he'd had a good day, but he was happy to see me nevertheless, and a bit hungry. He's used to eating on his own schedule, but they have a set schedule.

When I got home, Fumie and Mom were there. We played around with Anthony for a while (who, after getting some food and milk, was in a wonderful mood). I gave him a bath, and put him to bed at about 7:00. It was the earliest he went to sleep for some time; I hope he sleeps through to the morning.

Fumie and Mom went to look at the temple light-up that we'd tried to see yesterday. I stayed home with Anthony, and caught up on this diary.

Continued here...

After having gotten up at 5:15 and watched Anthony for an hour, Fumie got up and let me go back to sleep, which I did until 11:30, feeling totally drained when I did get up. I needed to catch up on sleep, and the 5 extra hours wasn't enough (but was extremely appreciated).

While asleep, two more of the packages we'd mailed from Cupertino arrived (yes, surprisingly, on Sunday). After unpacking them, I sort of felt that some things were missing, and upon further inspection of my paperwork, found that we'd mailed 7 boxes, not the 6 I'd thought. The 7th was mailed a week after the 6th, so I guess we've some time to wait for all the goodies that went into the last box. )-:

Toward the later afternoon, I set out with Anthony on the bicycle (the first time I'd taken him out alone on the bike) the to furniture shops to take a third look at desks and chairs.

The one expensive chair I'd looked at was the Okamura “Contessa”. It's adjustable every which way, and may actually be comfortable to sit and work in (unlike any chair I've ever really used). I won't be able to tell unless I spent some time adjusting for me, and using for a long period, so testing in the store is not sufficient. At $1,300 or so, it's a lot to gamble on. One of the main reasons I went again was to get the web site of the manufacture, so I could research it (and perhaps find a cheaper price) on line. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone online selling that chair.

I then went to the place selling the plain “eastern mahogany” desk, and decided to put my order in. It'll take 3+ weeks to arrive.

One interesting thing I noticed on the way there, while waiting for the light at the corner of Nijou and Kawaramachi, was a very thin apartment building. In the center of the picture is a spiral staircase going up about 10 floors. The staircase takes up most of the front of the building — it's not connected to the dull gray building on the left, nor the brown & glass building on the right. I noticed as someone on a bicycle went by that the width of the entire building was about the same as the length of three bicycles. You can't seen in the pictures, but the room numbers are the same as the floor numbers — 1 through 10 (one apartment per floor).

After the furniture stores, I had an hour and a half to kill before 6:30 mass, so I went to the Kamogawa river (which runs along Kawabata street, which is a 15 minute walk from the house). The river is set well below the level of the surrounding city, and there are bike/walking paths on either side. The paths are very nice – I hadn't explored them at all – and was shocked to find such a wonderful hidden treasure so close to the apartment. There were people walking their dogs, riding bikes, doing tai-chi (or whatever), nature photographers (the name of the river means “wild duck river”, and indeed, there's plenty of ducks, tall white cranes, and other wildlife), couples on dates, and groups having picnics. It was a wonderful, wonderful find.

I stopped with Anthony to look at the ducks, and to let him run around and hopefully burn of some energy. It was a nice time. I then thought to explore more, and so rode north (upriver) several kilometers, and it just got nicer and nicer. There were short (1- or 2-yards tall) waterfalls every block or so (you can tell the blocks due to the bridges), and in general, it's a wonderful place to relax, it seemed.

Time was running late, so I turned around at what turned out to be Imadegawa street. To do this, I had to take a path that rose up to street level, cross the bridge, then take a path that went down to river level again. They're not at every bridge, but luckily both were here. On the return path, I exited early (at what turned out to be Marutamatchi Street) because I didn't know whether there was an exit near the church (at Ooike Street). I took some back streets to stay away from the traffic on the main street, and made it to church about 30 seconds late.

I didn't have the stroller, so felt fairly worried about how Anthony would act. Luckily, he was mostly wonderful throughout (I kept him full of raisins and small crackers, which helped).

We got home a bit before 8:00pm. Lately, he's been going to bed later and later, but getting up at the same 5:15am, which means less and less sleep. I'm of the impression that babies his ages should be sleeping at least 12 hours at night, plus naps during the day. Even though he slept almost four hours earlier in the day, it still didn't make up for the lack of sleep at night, so we decided to take him for a stroller walk to see whether he'd be lulled to sleep.

The temple across the street from our apartment, Shorenin Temple, is one of the most famous in Japan. It was in a list of the top 30 temples I saw once (note that there are well over 30 temples within a mile of here, so to be in the top 30 in all Japan is sort of big). The streets around here are packed on the weekend as tourists (mostly Japanese) visit this and many of the other temples around. Anyway, starting today, they were doing a special “light up” in the evenings. They're normally closed at night, but for a week they have things lit up beautifully at night.

We haven't actually visited it yet, so thought this would be a good chance. Unfortunately, bringing in a baby stroller was frowned upon (it's very hilly, and probably not practical), so we decided to go elsewhere to get him to sleep. We went to Maruyama park about quarter mile away (passing a temple or two along the way). This is the same park where Anthony enjoyed the birds last week. He wasn't quite asleep as we walked around, and so we left the park via a way we'd not been before, and came upon one of the most amazing sites I've ever seen in Japan. It turns out that we'd come upon the site of the Yasaka Shrine (a fairly famous shrine, apparently). It's actually part of the park, although I didn't know that at the time. Anyway, what was so amazing was that it was beautifully lit up, with the surrounding area very clean, and there was almost no one around. Normally, anything of beauty in Japan in which the public is allowed to go is immediately saturated in smoke, garbage, unruly kids, and crowds. This had none of that. It was unreal.

As we walked around that area, we came upon a small street that was equally beautifully lit up, with small little restaurants lining it. While we could see people in the restaurants, the street was eerily empty. I felt as if I'd wandered onto some mostly-deserted movie set built to some westerner director's idolized concept of what old, quaint Japan should have looked like. I commented to Fumie that had I really been on such a set, I would have told anyone who would listen that you'd never find a place like this in Japan. It was so peaceful and beautiful as to be moving. And all within a 10-minute walk from our apartment.

Thankfully, Anthony had fallen asleep by this time, and we were getting tired, so we left movie-set Japan behind and came home by 9pm or so. After putting Anthony in his futon, we took a bath. I then had a glass of Chinese lemon wine (yummy) while putzing around on the computer. I was getting tired, but since the bath my left eye had been slightly irritated (dry, or something), so I thought I'd check it out in the mirror before heading to bed. I was aghast to find that the lower-outside corner of my left eye had essentially turned into a disgusting mass of semi-transparent slime. It looked as if I should be able to just pick it off my eye, as if a leech had attached itself (and believe me, I tried), but after a while I decided that it was not something growing on my eye, but the eyeball itself. Needless to say (but I will), I was fairly freaked out. It didn't affect my vision, but was physically slightly uncomfortable, and mentally very uncomfortable.

I still have full health insurance with Kaiser in California, so called them (6:30am their time). I talked to an advice nurse, and after describing it as best I could, she had no idea what it might be.

Looking to local medicine, after a few phone calls by Fumie, it turns out that the Kyoto City College of Medicine's Hospital is not too far away, and even at night (it was now 10:30pm), they had an eye doctor available. So, I headed off on my bicycle, arriving in about 15 minutes.

I waited for about five minutes before someone came to help the person in line in front of me. Once they were helped, I waited for someone to come back so I could register, and while waiting, some guy comes in carrying a crying 4-year-old. This guy walked around me, to stop directly in front of me (and so be directly in front of the registration window). I looked at him incredulously, and the old man at a nearby payment window did the same, motioning me that I should let him know what he'd done. But the guy had a crying baby — how could I ask the crying little boy to wait? I just let him go. I couldn't tell whether the guy was rude, or just not thinking about anything other than his son. I hope the latter. He never said anything to me the whole evening.

Eventually, I got up there and filled out the paperwork. I was happy to be able to write my address down completely, although I realize now while writing this (the next day) that I'd swapped the order of the two characters used to write “Kyoto”. Doh! No one said a thing about it, though.

It was also the first time I'd used the name “Jeffrey Matsunaka”, as that's what my insurance card was in. A bit later, in the waiting room, when the nurse called out “Matsunaka-san” and I (a big white guy) got up, she did a quick doubletake before gaining her composure and walking me to where the eye doctor was.

The eye doctor was all business, skipping all the pleasantries and asking “what's the problem”. I showed her my eye, explained that it had just popped up a couple of hours ago, and that I'd never seen of anything like it. She looked at both eyes through the blindingly-bright slit lamp thingy that eye doctors use, jammed her finger into the affected eyeball, and after all of 30-45 seconds, told me that it was allergy related, that it's fairly common (mostly with children), that it should be gone by tomorrow, that she'll give me two sets of drops for it, and that if it's not gone by the next day, I should go see an eye doctor.

Well, that was a relief. As I headed back to the waiting room (I must have been gone from it for 90 seconds), I was turning my phone back to non-silent and noticed a message from Fumie reminding me to be sure to tell the doctor about my former LASIC, and that I'd just moved from America, just in case they mattered. I didn't think they'd matter, but better to be safe than sorry, so I headed back to find her writing up the prescriptions. I told her, and she said that yeah, neither mattered, but she was visibly surprised that I'd had LASIC, and said that she hadn't noticed. I guess she's not used to seeing the quality result that I got with Dr. Mandel in California.

I waited to be called to pay the bill. It turned out to be $33. Had we not signed up for insurance last week, it would probably have been $330 (you pay 10%-20% with the insurance), so the insurance already well paid for itself.

I got my prescriptions (a steroid drop, and, I think, and antibacterial) and headed home. I'd been at the hospital for 50 minutes. When Fumie looked at the info sheet that came with the drops, she suddenly realized that what I have must be KETSUMAKUEN. I looked it up in a dictionary and found it to mean “conjunctivitis”, which means as much to me as “ketsumakuen”. A quick internet search showed it to be “pink eye”, which I've heard of, but thankfully had never known what it was. It's disgusting, and the pictures I found accurately describe what I had. Yuck.

There are three varieties, two of which are highly contagious. I apparently had the third. Still, I washed my hands well, and made sure to stay clear of Anthony. I put the drops in and went to bed.

Continued here...

In the late morning, Fumie and I biked down to the street with all the furniture stores — it was her first chance to see high-end furniture in Japan. She was unsure still what kind of style she wanted to go with, and seeing all that was out there made her more confused. She, too, was shocked at the prices.

She did like one of the desks I was interested in from yesterday. It's a simple flat rectangle of a wood called “Surian Batu” (indigenous to Japan, it's also apparently known as Eastern Mahogany) with legs. The people in the family-owned store selling were very nice (as were everyone in all the furniture stores we went to, some going so far as to beg us to buy something — I guess the 15-year-down economy has hit them hard). This one was “only” $650, and had a more refined look than the L-shaped one I'd also been interested in, but lacked the L-shape and the rolling mini file cabinet. It also lacked $750 extra dollars in the price, so had a certain appeal.

Mom had been visiting, so all four of us drove to Kuzuha (she can't be away more than a day, because Huck needs to be fed/walked or there will be messy “issues” that unfed/unwalked dogs tend to have). It's an hour's drive, and the three had a good snooze. When we arrived and they woke up saying what a nice snooze they had, I said “me too”. Ha, I wish.

After Huck was walked, Mom watched Anthony while Fumie and I went out to a local “furniture town” where many stores were clustered. Some where huge, with many fine pieces. What they all lacked, pretty universally, were customers. I felt bad for them. You'd think prices would come down, and perhaps they have, but they're still very expensive.

One very small shop was one of those that must have been in the family for a long time, and it was mostly a workshop. The gray-haired proprietor takes these huge slabs of natural wood – I'm talking vertical cuts that are 8 feet long by 4+ feed wide – and turns them into rustic “natural” tables (reminiscent of driftwood pieces common in California 40 years ago). Prices seemed to start at several thousand dollars. Fumie likes that general style, I guess. Gulp! We'll see.

At one store I found about the best relative value I found for what passed as a bookcase. Made of some kind of semi-hollow fake wood that seemed to be a bit better than MDF or particle board, it was “only” $430 after shipping. The guy practically begged us to buy it, but still, wouldn't let us order over the phone, if we decided later to go with it. I took his card and would think about it.

Fumie, Anthony, and I drove back to Kyoto, arriving around 9:30 or so. I was pretty tired, and we all went to bed fairly quickly.

Continued here...

Anthony woke up at 6:15 or so, which would be considered amazing, except that he didn't go to sleep until 9:00 the previous evening. He's just not getting enough sleep, so I hope things settle down soon. (He did get a three-hour nap later in the day, today, but then didn't sleep until 9:30pm; we'll see how tomorrow morning goes).

Once Fumie got up, we thought we'd try our first group bike ride. We both got baby seats installed, so either of us could carry Anthony. Yesterday afternoon, we'd all gone to Toys R Us in Otsu, where Fumie picked up a super-light umbrella stroller. The goal is to be able to carry it plus Anthony on the bike, so that she can go out shopping with him by bike. We haven't had time to figure out how to attach to the bike, so we decided that I'd just carry it, or put it in my basket, or something.

We first went to 7-11 to get things for breakfast, and then headed off to the Nanzenji temple (where Anthony and I had gone on Tuesday). It was later in the day and there were more people around (including the most annoying class of human on earth, hordes of high-school boys walking to school). Still, it was nice, and we had an enjoyable breakfast in very nice surroundings. I'm sure we'll do this often.

We then set off for the southern end of the Tetsugakunomichi (“Philosopher's Road”), a trailish kind of walking/bike path that run north/south through much of eastern Kyoto. It's particularly well known to be beautiful during cherry blossom season, but that was best earlier in the month, or late March. Still, it's quite nice, especially the southern part closer to our place.

When we got back, I headed out by train to the electronics shop, and picked up another light, and a cordless phone. By the time I got back, Mom had stopped by, and soon after, Fumie went to get a hair cut. There's a place about 2 minutes from here that she wanted to try. (When I saw her later in the evening, I couldn't tell that anything had been done, but she said that she loved it, so that's good.)

It was getting to be after 4pm, but I wanted to move forward on things, so I went out to reconnaissance furniture stores. I had a lead on a good furniture store from my friend Shimada-san (who seems to be the source of all knowledge – he's the one who told us about the Toys R Us, as well). It turned out to be a very good lead in one sense – the furniture was of a very high quality, and I'm sure Fumie would like some of the styles they have. It was also extremely expensive, with the cheapest dinner tables starting at $1,000 (chairs, if you want them, add $250 each). Maybe it wouldn't have been a bad idea to ship furniture from Cupertino, after all! (We eventually got some stuff from this place, and a couple of years later, did ship some stuff from La-Z-Boy in Cupertino.)

I did want to check out getting a desk for my work area, and they had a number of very nice ones. Prices started at around $800, but went up in case you wanted a little book shelf (where a hutch might normally go), or a matching file cabinet that rolls under part of the desk.

I found a nice set that I was quite interested in, but at $1,400, I doubt I'll get it. It's large, so I should have lots of space to throw my junk, and it's an L shape, so I can have books or whatnot on one side.

I also need a chair, and most chairs that they had were pretty typical chairs that offer a couple of adjustments. But they had one that adjusted in a bazillion ways. I'm sure it'd be very comfortable, but at over $1,000 for the cheapest model, again, I doubt it. But since I spend so much time working at the computer, it may make good long-term sense to get a comfy chair.

In the evening, since Mom was here and could watch Anthony, Fumie and I went out on a “date” for the first time in ages. We went to the Sanjo/Kawaramachi area of Kyoto, known for it's lively night life. We found a nice bar/restaurant, and had a few drinks and nibbled on some food. It was a nice time.

Most of the day, the weather was as absolutely perfect as I could ever imagine it being, but in the late afternoon it started to get very windy and cooler, and by the evening, it was down right cold. The 10 minute bike ride back was chilly, but there was a hot bath waiting for us.

Continued here...

Anthony slept fitfully, and got up at 5:20 or so. Fumie and Mom (who spent the night) were still sleeping, so I took him out for a stroll. I just sort of wandered aimlessly, passing by and through a multitude of temples whose names I couldn't read. I ended up at one whose name I couldn't read, except it's big enough to have information in English posted. Called Nanzenji, and quite famous, it dates from the 12th or so century.

We came across a big wooden gate, and it was just in time, as it started to rain. It had been overcast all morning (by this time, it was probably 6:30am), and just as we arrived, a few drops started hitting. The picture is way overexposed, because it was so dark, but anyway, to give you a feel for the size of the thing, each of the columns in the front must have been three feet thick. Here's another view.

I let him out of the stroller to play around under the roof, while it rained outside. It was a nice time.

Later that morning, the guy came to finish installing the air conditioners. It took quite some time (four or five hours), but in the end, they all got done. They have some ugly piping running along the walls — I guess that's just the way it's done here.

I'm writing this on Friday, so I forget most of what happened as this week flew by. Fumie got her bike delivered, so we've been able to be mobile locally, which has been nice. Also, I've done a lot of driving (still borrowing Fumie's folks' car), and I've gotten quite comfortable at it. I'm now quite adept at Japanese driving, including driving for long distances straddling two lanes, cutting people off with only the slightest whisker between us, parking in the middle of a driving lane, etc.

The only thing I haven't been able to make myself do is to run red lights. Were I to really drive the Japanese way, I would be able to run a red light a good 10 seconds after it turned, so long as my (and others') running it was able to keep cross traffic from getting in our way. Alas, I guess I'm American at heart, at least WRT driving, because I find myself actually slowing down and stopping at a yellow light. Heck, maybe that's not even American (at least not Californian). It must be the Midwest in me.

Sometime along the way (Wednesday?), the internet connection I signed up for became valid, and, of course, filling the void of a week without reliable internet access kept me awake way too long. It also allowed me to hook up my Vonage IP phone. It's pretty cool – you can call me at my old Cupertino number and it rings here in Japan (and costs nothing – incoming calls are free). Well, to be clear, it probably doesn't actually ring, since we'll have the ringer off when we (or Anthony) are sleeping. It goes to voicemail after about 10 seconds. If you want to call but don't want voicemail, you'll improve your chances of reaching us by remembering the time difference.

Continued here...