Dining Ichi

Below is a video of Ichi taking his dinner sumptuously while his Mama and Papa are watching the 7pm bilingual news.

Of Morning Sickness, Motion Sickness, and the Trips to Makurazaki and Kirishima

November 3, 2006, Nats and I learned that we are blessed with another offspring. Nats called it a subarashii (which he meant great and happy) news. Actually, it is 6 months ahead of our plan to have another baby – supposed to be in time for Nats to finish all his masters requirements and will not be very busy as he will just be starting his doctorate work. Anyhow, it is still a very welcome news. We are grateful for this additional blessing and are even sooooo excited to meeting our “Ni” (the baby's generic name as we don't know the gender yet).

No matter how subarashii this news, however, the following 2 ½ months was simply a challenge! My bout with morning sickness was terrible! Frequent throwing out and nausea were just too much to bear. Fortunately, Ichi seemed to understand that his little sibling is growing in my tummy. When I was dizzy and that I need to rest, and after explaining to him that I am not feeling well, he just played with his toys alone. Most of the time, I really laid in bed and fell asleep. When I woke up, he was already beside me sleeping soundly. Nats has been terrific too in ensuring my comfort amid his bulk of work in the lab. He managed to stay up late at night to do the house chores so that things will be lighter for me. He was also excellent to meeting my petty and serious demands, and soothed me in my little tantrums (wink, wink! hihi). Thanks to the ever patient and understanding hubby dearest (triple wink!).

To divert my attention, we made it a point to join various activities like the Makurazaki City Bus Tour sponsored by Kagoshima International Citizen Society (KICS). This city is about 1 ½ hours bus trip from our place. Ichi was very excited. He did not mind waking up two hours earlier than his usual waking time and walked from our apartment to the bus station (about 800 meters away) – his longest walk by then. His excitement was interrupted though by throwing out. We were seated at the back so we could really feel the abrupt movements of the bus in a zigzaggy road. We requested out tour guide to transfer us in front. We were transferred instead to an emergency car on the premise that smaller vehicles move smoothly and we can open the car windows so that Ichi can breath a fresh air. After several stops when Ichi was like throwing out, he finally fell asleep while hugging the big Doraemon stuff toy lent to him by the owner of the emergency car who was also driving us. Thanks to KICS staff for being so prepared and so helpful!

We rejoined the group at the Sochu (sweet potato wine) and Saki (rice wine) Manufacturing Plant where Ichi seemed to forget already his ordeal earlier. He was back to his old contagious happy self where he got every person he met grinning. We also visited a dried bonito (a kind of Tuna) factory and tasted a soup made out of this product and misu soup. Hmm...yum, yum! We also watched a performance of Makurazaki folks during the program with the city mayor. We even tried banging the drums.


By the way, our family paid nothing in this bus tour. We were just asked to bring one Filipino dish for the food festival (one of the activities during the tour). We brought menudo. This menudo is an instrument that our family was featured in a lifestyle magazine - plus, plus, plus, we were given a big framed family picture, photo album containing the pictures which the magazine's cameraman took when he and the writer went to our apartment, and a Y3,000 worth of tosho cards (gift checks to buy books) . Thanks to menudo, hihihi!

Moreover, one Friday night while we were chatting with our family back home, Dr. Da (a Filipino faculty member in Nats' college) viewed Ichi on webcam and dropped a message inviting us to join her and her husband, Rod, in a trip to Kirishima City the following day. They rented a 5-seater car from Toyota. Without so much ado, Nats said yes. And yes, we had a great time in Kirishima with all the awesome traces of autumn, yakiniku dinner, family (private) onsen, eat-all-you-can breakfast at Kirishima Kanko Hotel and a play in the park. Except for another show of motion sickness when we went astray in a zigzaggy road while looking for the children's park, Ichi enjoyed the trip too! We are sharing some pictures below. Thanks to Rod and Da for the hitch!