Touching the Hand of Basketball Jesus

This story has little to do with Hiroki or Michiyo, but it was a great family experience for Hiroki's grandpa, Papa Joe Fingerhut. On December 7th, my brother Mark and I took Dad to Indianapolis for a Pacers-Celtics game. Not only that, but through some crazy wheeling and dealing, I got Larry Bird to call my Dad at work, and invite us to meet him at the game. NO JOKE! Here's a few pics. For many more photos, and every bit of this interesting tale, go here.

12/7/08, Indianapolis, Indiana: Pacers vs. NBA Champion Boston Celtics

Mark and My Dad

My Dad and me

Score at the end of regulation after a Paul Pierce 3-pointer.

Final Score after Ray Allen owning overtime.

Dad enjoying T.J. Ford's head, and Roy Hibbert's arms.

Yes, Dad got to meet the Larry Bird, aka the Basketball Jesus.

Merry Christmas, Papa Joe! Thank you for all of our great memories, basketball and otherwise!

Once again, for more pics, videos, and all the details of this phenomenal road trip, click here.

Sayonara for now: The ride home

Wedding Anniversary

Michiyo and I had our Japanese wedding ceremony four years ago on November 20th, 2004. Our plane flight home was on that day, but a few days before that, we enjoyed some anniversary memories. We stopped by the restaurant where our ceremony took place, called Kiraku. Michiyo's sister, Masae, still works there part time, and the staff was excited to see us and the new family addition.

Sakae-san and his wife, Sayumi-san, are the owners of this family business. Sakae-san (left) was the Master of Ceremonies for our Japanese Wedding Ceremony, and did a phenomenal job of staying reverent while keeping things moving along. He threw in plenty of jokes, too, keeping the mood light and enjoyable. About 90% of the content was incomprehensible to me at the time. I told him about my own successful foray in the American wedding industry, and after I explained that I am a reception DJ in St. Louis, I told him, "You were my inspiration." Not entirely an exaggeration. He broke into a HUGE smile, stuck his hand out to shake mine, and said, "Thank you!" They spoke highly of our wedding ceremony four years ago and how much they enjoyed it. I wish I could say this was the room where we were married, but this room is brand new--they renovated a supply room, expanded a little, and debuted this spectacular room four days before we visited them.

We went up to "our" room, which looked quite sparse without any decorations. We posed on the same spot where we were married in 2004, before Hiroki was but a gleam in our eye!

Speaking of four years ago, have you heard about the pink bike lock? At the top of Mount Kinpo, which overlooks Kumamoto, and from which you can see Nagasaki, I proposed to Michiyo and used a pink lock on the railing to seal the deal. (That's the short version--I'm proud of the whole story, feel free to check it out here.) We took Hiroki to see the weather-beaten and discolored--but still solid--bike lock.

What a beautiful day it was, and what a tremendous four years it has been!

Just a bunch of cute Hiro photos

What can I say, I'm partial to this picture.

Hiroki is sitting next to Kyoko, Michiyo's former boss at Jelly Bean preschool.

This guy is Isaac, Kyoko's son and present owner of Jelly Bean. Hiroki digs the purple T-shirt, which says, if you cannot see it, "Cheer Princess." Isaac has an appreciation for odd English T-shirts in Japan as well.

At a local mall called Hikari no Mori, we went to the arcade and took some pictures of Hiro on some of the rides. I love Japan!

Here he is on the "AnPanMan" train. AnPanMan is a character made out of bread, with rosy red cheeks not unlike Hiroki's.

I don't know these other characters, but they're quite interesting.

Hiroki got to re-enact a scene in one of the greatest films in the history of man. You know, the scene where officer Jack Travin puts the throttle on the subway train to "Maximum" and runs it through a construction site, soaring onto a Los Angeles street, and saving his woman in the process. Give up? SPEED. Fortunately, Hiroki is all ready a better actor than Keanu Reeves.

Hiroki peeks between the seats on the plane ride home.

More fun people

Michiyo keeps in touch with some of her former students at the English-speaking Jelly Bean preschool. One day in Kumamoto, we had lunch with two of them, Mina and Nana and their Moms.
Mina is on the left, Nana on the right. Nana's English is very impressive, and she won first prize in the city-wide English competition. She herself calls Michiyo when we are in town. We encouraged both of these girls, like we did so many of our friends and family in Japan, to come stay with us in America sometime. Hiroki was showing off his huge baby biceps.

Nana's Mom Kazumi, on the left, and Mina's Mom Rina, on the right, invited us out to join them at a great Chinese restaurant in downtown Kumamoto.

Can you see the cockroach on the table? I brought this fake cockroach with me, and got a LOT of mileage out of it. Nana and Mina were disgusted, but could not get enough, constantly asking me in Japanese, "Where is the Goki buri?"

Michiyo studied in Eugene, Oregon for two years, 1999-2001. One of the friends she made there was Yoko. She and her husband Koji came down to see us from Saga on the last weekend.

We had fun meeting each other and catching up. They have been married four years, and really want to have kids. They had been living in downtown Kobe, and Koji was a 'salary-man' for about 18 years. However, the goal of having kids is so important, that they uprooted their lives to live in a less stressful, more natural environment. For the last year or so, they have been studying and preparing how to run a farm. They are now living in the countryside as farmers, evaluating exactly what to grow in order to make a living. Listening to their situation and their life choices was fascinating.

Yoko's hope is to have Koji do the main work of farming, and she wants to provide a place for people to experience a homestay in the Japanese countryside. She envisions foreigners, especially kids but families too, as well as Japanese kids from city areas, living for a bit in the country. She also wants to have foreigners teach English for short periods in exchange for meals and accomodation.

They asked what I did for a living, and naturally requested to see some magic tricks. Koji really enjoyed my world-famous finger-in-the-box surprise, which countless folks in the Midwest have been shocked by.

We met Aki, a former roommate of Michiyo for tea one day.

In the same cafe, unbelievably, one of my first co-workers in Kumamoto approached me and said hello. Fukuda-sensei helped me teach English for three years at Jonan Junior High School. She is retired now, and when I asked her for her email, she said she doesn't use a computer. Oh well. It was great to see you Mrs. Fukuda! I'll have to write her a letter.