As you may know, Nyan’s been taking an art enrichment class at school — an hour or so per week where they do a variety of painting and drawing and coloring, experimenting with color combinations, and so forth. We also take him to a nearby art studio twice a week — an hour on Tuesday evenings for painting/drawing, and an hour on Saturday mornings for clay. He absolutely loves it all.
On Friday, we got a small package of photos from the school’s art instructor, showing Nyan in action in the class, as well as the teacher’s assessment of Nyan in class. He is, we are told, a skilled painter. a sensitive and sensible boy, well loved by classmates, takes pride in helping his classmates, and also “always full of wacky ideas.” Here, check it out for yourself (click to enlarge):
Proud parents, us? You bet.
Bonus: here’s Nyan at the art studio the other day. Hard at work on his latest masterpiece. At the end of class he was showing it off to his teacher. Daddy whipped out his camera and said to Nyan: “Give us a smile!” You can see the result. Yes, that’s our boy and his wacky ideas.
We missed the peak of the famed cherry blossoms by only a week or so, but our April trip to Tokyo was nonetheless fantastic. Mommy had to head up there for work, so Daddy and Nyan tagged along. Here’s some of what we saw and got up to.
Here we are at Narita airport, after our pleasant six-hour flight on a Singapore Airlines A-380. As you can see, we had a great view of the tarmac as we headed for immigration control, and we spent a *long* time looking at the planes. We finally made it out, and waited for a bus for the 90-minute ride to our hotel.
We stayed at the Prince Park Tower hotel, and it was great. Even better: when we arrived late on a Saturday night, our room wasn’t ready — apparently someone had been smoking in it and so it stank, or something — so they bumped us into a one-bedroom suite, complete with our own private Japanese garden. Here it is:
Not bad at all. Here’s more: the three of us at breakfast on the 23rd floor, overlooking Tokyo Tower, plus Nyan being Nyan, napping and drawing and whatnot.
Our first full day was a sunny Sunday, and we made the most of it. We visited a nearby temple, and also checked out a new year celebration being put on by the local Burmese community.
We also met up with Mommy’s Aunt Jessica and cousin Toru, who both live in Tokyo. We wandered around central Tokyo, had a nice lunch, visited the grounds of the Imperial Palace:
And this being Tokyo, we also came across a Godzilla statue:
As Mommy headed to work on Monday, the weather completely collapsed, and our poor tropical bodies were subject to wind, heavy rain and cool (cold to us) air for two straight days. We figured this might happen, so Nyan and Daddy’s first stop that morning was Uniqlo, the cheap Japanese clothes retailer, who have a 12-story flagship store in Ginza. The floor with the kids’ clothes has a big model train display, so Nyan was transfixed by that while Daddy shopped nearby and thawed out. We ended up with a nice thick sweatshirt, which cost us all of S$12 (GBP6, or about US$9.)
Then it was off on our adventure. We grabbed our umbrellas and hit the subway and then a monorail, bound for a science museum. We had a bit of walk once we got there, but Nyan did a decent job holding his own umbrella. (He eventually got tired of this, so Daddy had to hold the umbrella and try to keep both Nyan and Daddy dry. He managed to keep Nyan dry at least…)
The museum itself was pretty good, with lots of space rockets and the like. There were displays where you dropped balls and wathced them circle around, to show the effects of gravity or the Coriolis effect or something. (Daddy wasn’t sure.) This being Tokyo, the museum had a big focus on robots. One display allowed people to speak into a microphone, and the somewhat creepy robot heads-and-torsos would sort of respond. Nyan dug it.
The museum’s centerpiece was a show, two or three times a day, of a robot that emerges from its holding pen (cage), talks and walks and dances a bit, and then returns to its cage. Kinda cool and lifelike:
And on our last morning in Tokyo, we headed across the street to Tokyo tower. Nyan had to vamp around a bit before we headed up. It’s quite a structure.
The tower has a few windows set into the floor. This is not a video for those who are squeamish, but Nyan clearly is not squeamish or subject to vertigo:
Here are a few random shots in and around Tokyo. Some from the ground, some from atop various buildings, with mountains in the distance. (Behind some of those clouds is Mt Fuji.)
All in all, a great trip, with a lot of fun and a ton of great food. Here’s our final image of Tokyo, just before our flight out at Narita airport. Photo by Mommy.
We’re in Tokyo for a few days, and our first day here was full of beautiful spring sunshine, which brought out the best in Tokyo’s flowers. The colors must have inspired our young man, ’cause he grabbed Daddy’s Nikon and started shooting:
The kid’s got talent, eh? Or does he? Let’s see how his shots look. Here’s a selection, unedited:
A few technical issues with some of these, perhaps, but all in all pretty good. Especially for a three-year-old.
In which our hero finds a red balloon at the playground and proceeds to try to toss it and catch it.
As we can see in this video, he’s more interested in looking at the other kids than in keeping his eye on the balloon. But he comes up with a great excuse as to why it keeps getting away from him…
Most days after school, Nyan and Daddy spend a good hour or so down at the playground at our apartment complex – burning off energy, getting fresh air, socializing. There are a good number of kids around Nyan’s age who are usually down there at the same time. Here’s some of their recent hijinx: This is Nyan and Neil, a boy who also happens to attend Nyan’s school.
Here’s some fun on the playground equipment: This is Nyan with Justin, a very sweet boy who’s a year or two older. They have a blast together, and recently discovered that Nyan can sit on the back of Justin’s bike while they tool around the complex. (And yes, Daddy insists that Nyan wears his shoes while doing this. He just happened to get away with no-shoes this one time.)
One day, none of the other boys were around, but in one of the function rooms near the playground, someone had put a toy kitchen. So we hung out there, cooking (notice the exchange after he gives daddy some chicken rice. “It’s delicious. How did you make it so good?” “I put oil on it.” The kid is turning into a fine chef, even if just make believe for now) and bouncing around the room and being silly. Speaking of silly, here’s Nyan, being silly. And, at one point, being a dog. That’s our boy.
A few months back, we had a lovely family vacation, leaving the tropical heat and humidity of Singapore for the cloudy, drizzly and cool (to us anyway) environs of central Vietnam – Da Nang, to be precise, right in the middle of the country (and, as it happens, the place where U.S. Marines first landed way back at the start of what the Vietnamese call the American War). We didn’t get much sun, but we had a great time. And here, better late than never, a bunch of pictures and videos. Here we are at Changi Airport, checking out our plane and Nyan checking out one of the giant climbing things they have to keep kids entertained.
Nyan on the flight: The security lines at Saigon Airport. For travelers coming from Changi Airport – truly one of the best, and definitely one of the most efficient airports in the world – returning to the reality of a very average airport was a shocker! But we made it to Da Nang.
We stayed at the Pullman Da Nang resort. It was just lovely. Highly recommended. We were there a few days before Christmas, so it was relatively empty at first, which gave us pretty much the run of the house.
As you may know, Nyan is part Iowan and part Asian. You won’t find much of a better example of this than some snackin’ Nyan undertook the other day. Dried seaweed and corn on the cob. (Separately, that is.)
First, the seaweed:
And the corn:
The corn, by the way, comes from Malaysia. And while Nyan likes it just fine, Daddy has to report that, no, it’s nowhere near as good as Iowa corn. (In fact, it’s such a pale imitation that Daddy can’t bring himself to eat Malaysian corn on the cob. Nyan doesn’t seem to mind though.)
Also by the way: at the end of the video, you’ll hear Nyan whining. What he’s saying is “But later, the bugs will cry!” See, we were discussing how we were going to tackle a swarm of flies that had invaded the house (it’s a tropical thing, apparently) and Nyan apparently thought our methods were a bit too severe. Bless him.
A few weeks back, as part of the local Chinese New Year celebrations, they threw a big carnival-type thing downtown. Lots of kiddie rides, bouncy castles, food stalls, ice creams and other sweet treats, standard stuff. Among the kiddie rides was bumper cars, which Nyan, for some reason, became insistent that we go on. We figured why not, so Daddy and Nyan climbed into a bumper car.
How’d it go? Good! Here they are getting ready to rumble:
And live action:
Here are some still shots:
A good way to introduce the lad to carnival culture, we guess…
Nyan was his usual hot-and-cold self this morning: bright, cheery, happy and goofy when we first woke up. Daddy offered to make him some peanut butter and toast, and Nyan happily agreed. Fast forward three minutes later: the toast is done, the peanut butter is spread, and a hungry Nyan is in full-on raging a-hole mode. Cue the tears, the yelling, the 100% tantrum. Why?
“I don’t want the toast to smell like that!”
Okay…
Eventually we got him calmed down, tears and snot wiped off, food in belly. All good. Then, while Daddy was pulling together Nyan’s bits and pieces for school, the artist was sitting in the living room, merrily drawing trucks and rocket shops with his crayons. He picked up a brown crayon, gazed at it, and said:
“I love you, brown crayon!”
That’s our boy, ladies and gentlemen, in all his glory.
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