Hiroko's Hitokoto

Met up with Chie and Kei chan for dinner. Thank you ladies!

To return charms to protect children. Thank you very much!

Awesome liver paste sandwich at Backerei Brotzeit with iced latte from 68HOUSE in Tsukuba.

Kindergarten's pool was closed due to cloudy weather, kids decided to go to a public one. He dressed up in his swimsuit and got on a bus.

Met up with Michael in Roppongi, and had sushi dinner together. Then went to Robot park until dusk. Thank you, Michael!

 Kindergarten had pool open to public today so Mo went to cool down in Tokyo heat.  And a video of him in water here .

Ending a gourmet day of Kurodas at a recent opened boulangerie, Maison Landemaine Tokyo , which stands where Suji's used to be. Surprisingly it was not crowded at all.

 Shaved ice with vanilla & rose and colorful puffs on top  "Tiramisu"  Boy ordered mango lassi Checked out Yelo for shaved ice in a very hot and humid day in Tokyo.

Salmon tartar and French toast for myself

We went to an exhibition of Pokemon Lab at Miraikan today. It was for kids (adults can participate, off course) to guess what's in a pokemon monster ball you picked at the entrance. You can chose from 3 levels: easy, middle, and heard. They have more than 10 machines to examine the contents and each are very well programmed. At the end, they place the monster ball and machine tells you the answer. Great thing about it is that you can come back again and try as many as you want as long as it opens. Then we had light lunch, checked out other permanent exhibitions, watched Ashimo demo, etc. Ashimo, a robot demo videos are below: Ashimo demo #1 Ashimo demo #2 It started raining very hard and thunder rumbling, we went to top floor for break. We just love this place. It's open, clean, low key, yet you can stay all day with doing here and there. Photos here .

Photos here . Saka, an art teacher from kids preschool took them to renovated aquarium in Shinagawa. Kids had fun and they enjoyed the splashes at dolphin show. Thank you very much, Saka!

Short video of Mo bouldering here .

Kids decided to go to bouldering in the afternoon, so we went to Spider down the hill.

Went to Fuchu to meet up with Jeremy, Naho, Emiko, and Shinobu before they fly back to CA. Kids were very excited to see Emiko, Mo couldn't stop taking care (bothering?) her.

Official first day of summer break for kids. Went to Tokyo Big Sight for a n admission free event for kids. They had several booths kids can do, and both Ton and Mo picked what they wanted to do, and enjoyed a couple of shows on stage. It was very hot outside so was great staying inside all day.  Photos here .

Ton and Mo played a swimming game. Video here .

Annual birthday party at Yoshidas, with lots of yummy dishes. Happy birthday Masami chan! Photos here .

Here .

Saka, Mo's former art director at preschool was having a picture exhibition on her book, and we went to check out. It was a tiny cafe run by a former elementary school teacher who had lived in Portland and learned coffee business. It was great catching up with you, Saka chan! Photos here .

 Kid's pancake combo with umbrella  Banana carob mochiko pancake  Chocolate sauce over pancake... Today's lunch combo for myself

Ton asked one of mom of class mates to take photos of her friends, so that she could give these away to Miduki, who were moving to Princeton, NJ.  See you again, Miduki chan!

Met up with Hama chan after her Fighting Exercise class at TAC in Azabu Juban. We had lunch first then went to have shaved ice! This is mini tomato shaved ice for Hama chan.  And my Chinese lantern plant shaved ice Hama chan's second order, celery shaved ice

 Kids scooped 126 pieces of potato at kindergarten's small farm. They needed volunteers to make potato chips so I helped. It was actually a lot work we spent almost 4 hours...  Faculty room turned into a chips factory.  Looks good. This is just 1/3 of all potato slices.