Fresh Pretty Cure & The Many Secrets of Toyland

Today I took Anna to see the newest os the Pretty cure animation series, Fresh Pretty Cure & The Many Secrets of Toyland.


Now, the premise of the story is that someone is causing every toy in the world to suddenly vanish into thin air. The girls of Fresh Pretty Cure find that a villan by the name of Toymajin is responsible. From there they must travel to Toyland to get the toys back to the children of the world.

Soon after arriving it is discovered that Toymajin's body is comepletely made of the forgotten toys of children & many of the toys of Toyland sympathize with Toymajin's plans.

I find story to be incredibly ironic coming from the team of Toei Film Studios and the major toy manufacturer, Bandai. Each year the toy makers in Japan change the characters and stories of these shows each year. (The Pretty Cure TV show is in it's 5th year)

These companies count on the old toys being set aside and the new ones being bought every year. We avoid buying these toys at our home here because we know that, eventually, my daughter, Anna, won't be asking for the same toy next year.



- Posted by Mark from his iPhone

Koshigaya Lake Town Mall

Today we decided to brave the trains and head to Saitama to the brand new mall in Koshigaya. The place was HUGE! We were very thankful for public transportation due to the 3 day weekend and the massive crowds looking to avoid the cold.



This was my lunch. Massive fried cod and oysters. YUM!!!


Here we are waiting for our connecting train at Higashi Matsudo,

- Posted by Mark from his iPhone

Anna Mae & Maika

Here are a couple of pics of Anna and her friend Maika just before thier marching routines at the undokai.





Posted by Mark from his iPhone

First pic from Anna's Undokai

Anna Mae and her school are having their sports day today. I'll have some moe pics to post later.


- Posted by Mark from his iPhone

Godai, my co-worker

Here is a picture of Godai, my co worker. Tonight while drinking he shared his special skill with us.

Tilt Shift for iPhone

It's been quite some time since my last entry. I now have the ability to update Blogger from my phone!

I also added a simple program for editing my photos right on the phone and wanted to share some of those here. Today is my daughter's 6th birthday so here are some pics of the festivities.



Here we took another trip to Kashiwa no Ha park.









-- Posted from Mark's iPhone

Sakatagaike Park

On Saturday we went to a new park found with the secret society of Kobayashi Tenjin Mothers.  Their network of informants throughout the area and communications are second to none.  All linked via their cell phone network each exchanges information regarding parks, teachers at the kindergarten, and family activities.

Following Ballet practice Hiroko had sent an e-mail to a couple of the mothers from the class and told them we were headed to a new park they had discovered.  Sakatagaike Park is located in between our place in Inzai and Narita (Where the airport is).  Once we were there Anna's classmates also showed up one by one with their little brothers in tow.  

The Park has a great looking suspension bridge that spans a small valley below where you can spread your picnic blanket and have lunch.  There is also a real long slide that begins at one end of the bridge and slides the kids down 100 meters of track.  Most of the kids bring a box they can use to sit on for more speed since the slide is made of rollers that vibrate your brain at a steady 17.8 MHz (Just below the threshold for brain damage... I think) without something to sit on.

Also, towards the back there is a large area for big BBQ parties with multiple grills that you can reserve in advance.  Then behind that they have space for your tent to camp over night.  The park was just beautiful.  The surrounding neighborhood has some great looking and very large traditional Japanese homes that look to have been passed down many generations.  All of them nestled in rolling hills of pines and bamboo forests.   We will be going back for sure.