Cute Kids I Saw in Japan

It was great to see all of the cute kids in Japan.  These are just a few of them.

 Kaiou and his English class friends at the BBQ the Naganos held my first night in Miyazaki.

 This cutie was at the BBQ by the river when we jet skiied :-)

 He sat in this chair for 30 minutes eating one kernel at a time super slowly.  He might still be there if we hadn't run out of popcorn :-)

 Haruto - aged 2 - this is the first temporary housing we visited from the CRASH Sendai base.

 In Kobe.  These two are cousins.

This is K.  The son of my friends Kihei and Amelia.

I Don't Do Mornings

This is the Vegas shirt as you can see from the front.  The back says "I Don't Do Mornings."  Makoto asked me to translate it for him.  The closest I could come was "I have a big hate for mornings."  The funny thing was that the next day when he got up, it was clear that he did have a big hate for mornings.  His eyes were barely open and his voice when he said "Ohaiyou gozaimasu" was tired and gruff.  I reminded him of what his t-shirt said and we had a good laugh about that. :-)

Using the Timer

Makoto kept juggling the cameras and running back and forth to set the timer.  I love the smile on Kaiou's face :-)

Row, row, row your boat!

Makoto was the only one who knew the right way to row the boat. Everyone else kept going in circles :-)

 

Haruto

Our first day at the temporary housing.

Haruto loved the cool frisbee Lorna brought.

Off the charts on the cuteness scale!

Haruto liked the jelly on the table :-)

At Takasui



 Captain Nagano's new boat

 The office (note the famous arm on the right :-)

 I love the stained glass windows in here.

 It was gardening day.

 

Captain Nagano's name on the wall.

K. the cute

Working on a project with Mom.

Taking a break with Papa at the gardens.

He likes the Hot Wheels I brought him - well, he likes the box :-)

Finished this afghan a couple of hours before I left Kobe :-)

Riri takes a reading break

Sasuke Training

Kanzen Seiha!

That ice cream was tooooooo cold!

Kaiou and Papa

Video of my jet skiing debut

Tsunami Relief

I was fortunate enough to spend 5 days at CRASH Japan's Sendai base helping out with tsunami relief.  The main thing we did was to try to provide encouragement to the people living in the temporary housing.  They had had their lives devastated by the tsunami and had lost most if not all of their possessions.  When I asked the CRASH staff if I could bring something with me, they suggested a small gift for about 40 people, such as quilted coasters.  Things like that would brighten up their temporary houses and remind them that they are not forgotten.  What the CRASH staff told us proved to be true - just being there was often the biggest encouragement.

CRASH Japan's website: http://crashjapan.com/

I found some quilted coasters online at http://maplewood-farm.com/  They were kind enough to rush the coasters to me so I could take them with me.  I gave them out when our team went to Soma to help out with an ocarina concert.  The vast majority of attendees were ladies and they loved the coasters.  Here are the pictures of that event.

 Tin welcomed everyone and entertained the kids with his Australian hat, boomerang, and platypus.

 Ocarina

 The ladies spent a lot of time looking through the coasters to make their selection.