Books and Toys Galore

It's Theo's 3rd birthday on Wednesday, the 26th of December, but since it will be a working day in Japan, we decided to celebrate it this weekend as a family by buying him his favorite toys.


But before that, he received a package full of goodies a few days ago from his Grandaunt Nalik in the U.S. In this photo above, you can see him in front of all of the wonderful books that his grandaunt sent him. He couldn't seem to get enough of them as he examined each and every page. He is really lucky to have a grandaunt who is also very concerned about his mental development.


This evening, we went to Yodobashi in Akihabara to buy our presents for him. But before heading home, we made him pose in front of this "Gundam" character just in front of the building. He doesn't seem to be interested though.


Theo and his birthday presents.


He has finished opening the first, and this one's "Spencer", a member of the Thomas the Tank Engine family of trains.


This is what's inside the red box, a railway system for his collection of trains. These toys, by the way, are NOT made in China, so we're fairly confident that they're not lead-contaminated. And given that they're made by TOMY, one of the biggest toy companies in Japan, we're sure that they're safe, even if he sinks his teeth on one of them, which he no longer does, by the way.


Mommy D took this photo of our little young man a few days ago. She dressed him up a bit for this pictorial.

Goofing around...again

Ever since he was an infant, Theo has always been an Energizer bunny, as if there's a built-in nuclear reactor inside of him that endlessly churns out his boundless energy.

In this video below, you can see him goofing around again in front of the video camera. He was particularly amused when this was taken a few days ago because he was able to see himself in the monitor. As expected, this video is crappy, but if you want to see it in better resolution, just click here. It's around 12 megabytes.



This afternoon, Mommy D took Theo to Ueno Park, and as expected, his trip there ain't complete without a ride on his favorite Thomas.

Walking around the shopping street

Our home is just a few blocks away from the Yanaka Ginza shopping street or local "shotengai" as they call it here in Japan. Last Saturday, Theo and I went there on our way to the Yanaka playground. Here's a video of Theo walking through the shotengai and climbing up the stairs at the other end. It's about 28 megabytes, so if you have a slow connection, it might take some time before you can view the entire clip. In the playground, I also took short clips of him running down a slope. You can view the combined clip by clicking here. This one's just less than 5 megabytes. In case you're wondering, I have decided not to use the Blogger video feature because the result is really crappy.

Anyway, happy viewing!

Videos Galore - 1

They say that a picture paints a thousand words. Now, let's see what video does...

Theo and I have been going to Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park for the past two Sundays to watch the wild ducks that have migrated from Siberia (and also to watch the people feeding them, hehe...). (Mommy D uses this time for herself and she also does some grocery at nearby Ameyoko.) Here are glimpses of what Theo did this afternoon. Note that he's trilingual: English, Japanese, and Hiligaynon.



After a few hours of running around, Theo became hungry and he asked me to buy him some small, brown cakes. Here he is savoring two of them. He thinks they're too big. Watch.

(If the video below is crappy or if you want to see the original resolution, click here.)



On the way back, we passed by a Shinto shrine, and before entering one, it is customary to wash one's hands and mouth. Apparently, Theo didn't know this, so at first, he just watched what others did. Then, see what he does next.



Expect more videos in the future. That's because we have recently purchased this digital video camera on installment from Yodobashi Camera.