First SURF & Baby Shiori's Bday

Saturday marked the first day that my good friends Mitsuru and Reiko would actually try surfing. They've talked about it for a long time and things just kinda keep poppin' up ...... like for instance, a baby. Brian met them during his first season at Hakkoda Mt. and we've been friends with them ever since. Mitsuru and Reiko are amazing snowboarders. If you have ever seen them snowboard in real life, you could attest to their ultra smooth, graceful style that comes from their dedication and love for the sport. So I was super stoked when I heard they were gonna finally try it!

Since Brian and I started surfing 5 years back, we kept telling our mountain friends to try surfing........ but no one ever did. Everyone was content with just snowboarding in winter. Ha, this is exactly how I was when my friends asked if I wanted to surf! Slowly, our snowboarding friends have started creeping to the ocean and I couldn't be more happy. Seeing their faces filled with the joys of surfing reminds me of my first unforgettable season. I couldn't paddle, sit nor stand on the board, or duck dive....in fact I couldn't even swim! Now wrap your head around this for a minute.....it takes a baby infant anywhere from a year to two years to walk. It took me almost 4 years to catch waves and ride on a regular basis!!!! I was a 25 rears old then! Sure in my first 3 years I was able to catch waves and ride, but not constantly and continuously like I can now. It's a big learning process and I can't wait till they start finding their groove as well. It's gonna be so much fun to surf with them later.

On the day Mitsuru and Reiko tried surfing, it was their baby's 1st birthday. So years from now, this day will definitely be remembered and not just I got pics...."Baby Shiori, when you turned 1 years old was the first time your daddy tried surfing!" - AWESOME!

Surf or Sports day?!

My boss, Yuya, is a good friend of mine and over the course the last 2 years I've become close to his family as well. He has a cute little 5 year old son by the cool ass name of, Yuzen. I like the name cause it's got the word, zen in it ;).

Anyways... Starting from March I've been teaching English at Yuzen's kindergarten. But before my first trip to osh-kosh-land, I remember a time when Yuya and I were having dinner at a restaurant and I was playing with Yuzen before our food came.
He tugs on my shirt and says, "Why can you speak English?"
Yuya, laughed and so did I. Kids will be kids and they say the cutest, innocent little things huh?
I responded with, "Well I'm an English teacher."
He said, "No you're not, your just a normal old man." Yuya busted into tears.
"What? I'm just a normal old man?" I replied holding back my laughter.
"Yah you're not a teacher because you're not a woman," he said with a chip on his shoulder.
I guess up until now, Yuzen's teachers have all been female and no matter how much Yuya and I tried to convince him that night he stuck to his guns and full heartily believed that I was just a 'normal old man'. That was until.......... I took my first step into his classroom. I never saw a kid's eyes so bulging big. They were like golf balls.

Anyways, to make a long story short...the kids at Kanariya Kindergarten rock! They rock so hard in fact that I skipped half a day of surfing to go and watch them at their sports day (I don't like skipping out on surfing...ever!). Sometimes you gotta make the exception and just have fun doing something other than surfing.....Of course it was very cute and tons of fun. The kids were trying soooooo hard that most of them didn't know I was there until the last half hour or so. The beauty of it all is that kids are so natural at posing. They want to have their picture taken and love it. Gotta love kids!