Right before Kohaku was born, I saw a link to a company that makes Japanese style stamps from a scan of your baby’s hand or foot.
I decided to buy one hand stamp and one foot stamp, placed my order, and quickly received a response from the company (in English). They were great to work with and the stamps arrived earlier than expected (around 10 days). The stamps, when finished, are the exact size of your baby’s hand/foot, are beautifully crafted, engraved with your baby’s name/birth date, and come in a paulownia wood box.
They do deliver to other countries, can work with customers in English, and their site can be found is at:
www.oteteanyo.com/index_en.html
Haven’t made any updates in quite a long time, but quite a bit has happened in the last few months. Most importantly, we have a new baby boy in our family. He came a bit earlier than expected, but on 25 June we were finally able to meet Kohaku for the first time. Both he and mom are in good health and, thankfully, it was a pretty smooth delivery at the Red Cross hospital here in Yokohama.
Calf is feeling better and I am able to walk around a bit better now. After lounging around the place all morning, we decided to head out for a day of doing nothing, and ended up going to Minatomirai area to look for shoes.
Didn’t find any shoes, but walking through the area, we were handed maps displaying times/locations for a weekend of street performance. At key locations throughout the Minatomirai area there were performers scheduled to perform for the crowds that are expected to celebrate the opening of 109 Minatomirai (sister mall to the famous Shibuya 109 department store), the new Collette Mare shopping complex, and the beginning of warm spring weather that usually accompanies the end of cherry blossom season.
Unfortunately, this year, as soon as it begins to warm up, we have seen cold front after cold front roll through. Today was no different. Cold and windy. We stopped by to watch a couple of the performers, but as late afternoon started to roll around it started to get colder and we left early to warm up at home.
Tore my calf muscle recently and haven’t been able to get around recently. Still can’t walk well, but hobbled around the Kannai area of Yokohama last weekend to view the cherry blossoms along the Ookagawa river, eat festival food, and view street performers.
The weather was dreary, but the cherry trees are in full bloom now, the first festival food of the year was great, children were able to make mochi (pounded rice cakes), and the live music was a nice touch.
Every year the pink and white ume (plum) flowers precede the sakura (cherry) blossoms across Japan and their arrival marks the final cold weeks of winter here in the Yokohama and Tokyo areas.
As they are some of the first colors seen each spring, they are often associated with the start of spring and, as such, the event is marked with festivals (ume matsuri) in gardens, parks, shrines and temples where vendors will set up stalls selling traditional festival foods and artisans playing traditional music on the samisen and koto.
Plum Blossoms at Sankeien Garden in Yokohama:
Plum Blossoms at Sumida Park in Tokyo:
