Just wanted to say thanks to everyone we had the chance to see in Canada for making our short trip a good one and sorry to those we missed. Next time will definitely be longer than 7 days.

I will post pictures as soon as I have enough energy to.

That’s all – I’m going to bed.

On Saturday, after a long day of shopping, we headed to one shop on our way home to check out the bikes they had. Layla picked out the first bike she saw. It was blue. That was enough. She didn’t even need to try it out for size. I told her that we’d come back the next day after checking out a few other shops in the neighbourhood and she was, thankfully, satisfied with that.

Sunday came and we eventually headed out to a second shop. Layla immediately grabbed a bike and said it was the one she wanted. I asked her if she was sure she could ride it and she nodded. I chuckled as I took the bike off the shelf and put it on the floor, asking her to ride it around the small area we were in. She sat on the 14″ bike and finally realized there was no pedals. We got a sales guy to get some and she rode it around the store for a bit only to find it was a bit small for her.

She tried the 16″ bike and it was too heavy – try as she might she couldn’t move it. It wasn’t that big of a deal, though, because I don’t think the baby blue colour was her first (or second) choice. The 18″ bike the guy recommended was orange with Winnie The Pooh all over it. Surprisingly, she not only could move it but got around pretty good. I asked if she liked it and she said yes. I then asked if she wanted it and she said no. So off to a third store we went.

This time, we found a couple bikes of acceptable colours and sizes, but before our hero even tried the first one she saw something more interesting. Bike helmets! Who needs a bike when you can buy a spiffy blue bike helmet? Layla wanted to try on every helmet there, and I think she did, before finally settling on a sporty blue helmet that anyone would be proud to wear. Luckily, we also found a bike – an 18″ black one with a basket and a hand-brakes! What more could a kid ask for?

The store is about a 20 minute walk from our home and I wasn’t sure how well Layla could ride, especially after seeing her shakily get around the store. As we paid for the bike and helmet, I couldn’t help but imagine a tired, hungry Layla asking to be carried while I had to push this bike all the way home… luckily, my imagination runs wild sometimes. Once we were outside, Layla was off like a rocket. She handled that bike like a pro, flying around corners and down sidewalks – I had to run to keep up. We made it home in record time! I was impressed!

This morning she was so eager, I let her ride the bike to daycare. Even after getting off the bike she refused to take the helmet off, wanting to show everyone her cool new hat. I’m sure if I didn’t take it back home with me, she’d have worn it home when Tamie picked her up (even without the bike!).

What a kid, eh?

The next day we hit up a nice breakfast, checked out the on-site aquarium (which turned out to be pretty decent), splash around in the water for a bit, summit the mountain and then get a good lunch on the lake. The sun was hot on the ground but on top of the mountain it was foggy and windy, which translated into a chilly (or refreshing, depending on who you ask) experience.

Layla fell asleep on top of the mountain, shivering in my arms. I wrapped her in my shirt, for whatever that could offer, and we took a look around while she slept. She was out for quite a while, not even waking up when we got on the cable car. It wasn’t until we were almost back at the hotel that her head popped up, eyes wide open and she said without missing a beat “Not windy anymore! No more chilly!”

Pictures from the trip are here:
Click Here

Got our tickets finally – we’d been scouring the internet and travel agents for weeks looking for a decent price. Ended up finding the least indecent. Can you believe it costs more than double the airfare to travel in August than in December! That’s ridiculous! But what’s even more ridiculous is the airfare fluctuates in price, thousands of dollars at a time every couple of hours.

A couple months ago we decided to head to Ottawa in August and started doing the usual probing online and found prices were pretty steep. At the time, the thought was that not all tickets were issued to travel agents and the price would eventually come down. It didn’t. In fact, it got as high as $9500+(!) CAD for 3 of us to fly from Tokyo to Ottawa. The cheapest I ever saw it was ~$6800. To put this into perspective, last year at Christmas we paid between $3000 and 4000. We didn’t get the cheapest fare, but we didn’t pay the highest either. On the bright side, the fuel surcharge has gone down.

What really gets me about the whole airfare game is it really is a game. I’d log into the Air Canada server to check prices in the morning and it would be one price, log in not 12 hours later and it shifted up or down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. It got so bad, I’d be checking three times a day to see what the lucky number was. I wasn’t able to find any pattern, but it got me wondering what factors are actually driving the radical prices changes. Regardless, the whole thing feels like a bad casino game – no matter what happens, the house always wins in the end.

But the tickets are booked and paid for (thanks Tamie, I owe you one!) and we’re now in the midst of planning what we’re actually going to do on the trip. We’re only going to be there 7 days (get in on Friday night, leave the following Saturday morning), so I already know it’s going to go by too fast. In any case, we’re all looking forward to going… especially Layla who, after chatting with the grandparents that showed her a shiny new bike waiting for her in Ottawa, she’s raring to go!

So we’ll see you in a few weeks, Ottawa. Hope the heat waves and earthquakes are over by then.

…

oops.

I almost forgot! The big news!

Tamie’s pregnant again.

Baby’s due in December, thus the August quickie. We’ll be in a delivery room around December 28th and I don’t think it’d be prudent to leave my waddling wife in Japan to celebrate Christmas in Ottawa.

As I often do, I offered Layla a sip of beer to which she always tells me “NO! I’m not old enough yet!” and laughs. As usual, she gave me her canned response but this time I asked how old she had to be.

“Five!” she replied emphatically. “When Layla is five, Layla drinks beer!” (she speaks in the third person all the time. I think it’s because Elmo does.)

I laughed, and asked back “What can you drink when you are four then?”

You could see the wheels in her brain were working overtime until the mischievous grin on her face that revealed she had an answer. “Mom’s drink!” she answered, proudly nodding her head. “If Layla is four, Layla can drink Mom’s pop!”

Pop at four, beer at five. I had to ask. “And six? What will you get when you are six?” I asked, unsure what she would answer.

“Hmm…” she pondered, her brow wrinkled in deep thought. Finally an answer had come to her. “When Layla is six, she can have a chinchin!” she grinned.

“A what?” I asked, laughing but unsure if the Japanese in my head was working or not.

“A chinchin!” she answered again. Tamie’s giggling reassured me I knew what I heard.

The game ended there for I didn’t want to know what she got when she turned seven. For those who don’t know, chinchin is not a double-chin, it’s a penis.

I’ll put up some pictures as soon as I get that software moved over (and working) on the new server. It shouldn’t take long, but the laws of procrastination and a lack of time mean it might be a day or two.

For now, I’ve been playing around with the gallery code – click the gallery tab. It should show the latest updated pictures. Is this more useful than my writing a post linking to the latest gallery? It’s certainly easier for me