Every summer, each public daycare in Tsukuba organizes a quaint activity called “natsu matsuri,” which means “summer festival.” Summer in Japan is marked by festivities of this type, celebrated with much pomp and fervor in practically every city and prefecture. Tsukuba’s version of natsu matsuri is held around the first week of September, with intricately designed lighted floats made of paper called “nebuta.” The public daycares hold natsu matsuri as an imitation of these summer festivals – albeit on a “kiddie scale.”

At the Takezono daycare, this year’s natsu matsuri was held last Friday, July 14. It truly was like a kids’ version of the traditional matsuri. Actually this is really the first time for me to attend the matsuri. Last year we missed this activity because we were in Singapore. The year before that, Aya was still in the 1-year old class and did not really get to participate.

Parents were advised to clothe their children with yukata (a Japanese kimono traditionally worn in summer) or happi (a robe worn by livery workers), all in the spirit of celebrating the matsuri. I didn’t want to mess with the yukata (although Aya has one) because I thought it would be too cumbersome to make her wear it. Initially I didn’t know what a “happi” was all about. I did a search on google and found my answer. I went to Akachan honpo (a children’s store nearby) and was surprised to find “happi” robes of various colors and sizes. I found one which is right for her size. It was kind of pricey (about 1300 yen, or 10$), but it would also make a nice piece of souvenir!

Unfortunately, although it was sunny and bright in the morning, right about the time when the matsuri started, it began raining heavily so the principal decided to hold the activity inside the building. What a bummer! I could see the disappointment on the children’s and parents’ faces. Anyway, the children still had their fun dancing, strutting their stuff, banging on the taiko drums and buying from the o-mise (stores).

My impressions? Honestly, I’ve never been amused by matsuris, except probably for the expensive floats and fireworks. But at the daycare’s matsuri, I saw the parents and even grandparents of almost every Japanese child taking pictures and videos of the whole event, as if it was like a grand occasion such as a wedding. As the children passed by with their floats, they waved frantically to their smiling parents, as if to say, “Hey, look at me! I’m in the parade!” I had to remember that this activity was planned with Japanese children in mind. I imagine that this is like a cultural immersion for them. And for us non-Japanese, too!

Aya, on the other hand, loved it. Like the other children, she waved frantically at me and gave me the biggest smile as she strutted in the parade with her class. She shouted “Wasshoi!” as fervently as her classmates did as they were strutting around with their omikoshi. All the children were given tickets to purchase (for free) some goodies at the stores. I made her buy her own frankfurt, bread, juice, and yo-yo omocha (toy). In two years she would be banging on the taiko drums – just imagine that! Now that’s amusing. I am watching my child grow in a different culture, an entirely different environment from the one I grew up in. I’m practically experiencing those things like a first-timer myself, just like Aya does.

Needless to say, the children at the daycare loved it. There were shouts and shrieks of laughter – signs that they thoroughly enjoyed their day. From what I heard, the children designed and worked together on their floats themselves.

Kids – truly it’s their world, we’re only in it.

Here’s Aya wearing the happi.

Omikoshi. The children chanted, “Wasshoi!” alternating with their sensei’s whistles.

Pabili po ng frankfurt! By the way, the kanji character on Aya’s happi – 祭 – means matsuri, or festival.

The only true measure of one’s scientific output is for it to be published. Publish or perish – it is so very true. As doctoral students we were pressured to publish in order to graduate. After we graduated, guess what, we are pressured all the more to publish because that’s what we are supposed to do. Got a paper published? Great, now work on another one. It’s a vicious cycle. The goal is to publish for the sake of publishing. If your work is not peer-reviewed and published in an international journal, it goes to waste. No easy way about it.

How many papers does it take to establish a career? How much of an impact factor is necessary to make a dent on the churning machinery of science? I know people who have published more than 100 papers ever since they started, nevertheless when their names are mentioned to other people, they respond, “Huh? Who?” Quality over quantity, ladies and gentlemen. Do a Bednorz-Muller or a Paul Chu, and your name will be remembered forever. An alternative is to be an adviser to a large group of students, and be a co-author in all of their papers. I personally know of a professor who had so many papers (about 500+), authored and co-authored combined, such that in order to simplify his resume, he only had to mention the number of articles published for a particular journal.

For those of us who have barely started (yes, 7 years in this treadmill is not long), we publish to stay afloat. Who know, maybe one of these days we can hit the jackpot and publish groundbreaking papers that will change the world as we know it. All it takes is one grand idea.

Oh, by the way, here’s a forthcoming article that may interest you. Online publication will be this month, hopefully. I don’t know when the printed edition will come out.

Another one down, just 1000 more to go. 😀

Ok, first let me say that I absolutely agree that parents are head-over-heels in love with their children, no matter how absolutely ridiculous they look. To parents, their children are the best looking tots in the world. So forgive me if I am too biased. Second, children do have that uncanny ability to make heads turn; just watch out the next time you meet someone walking down the street with their children or pushing a stroller. Most likely you’ll ignore the parent; most of the time your eyes will be straying to check out their kids. We all have a tendency to smile and wave at children, or even make faces at them to make them laugh.

Aya and her “takaramono,” Bea the Bear (go figure where she got the name).

Anyway, that’s how it is with Aya. You could not imagine the kind of attention she attracts, even when she was just a baby. For example, when she was about nine months, I took her to Osaka. While we were riding the Hankyu line, a group of junior high school kids were completely smitten by her. Japanese kids usually leave us alone (can you say gaijin, hello?), but with Aya, there was only so much they could do to avoid touching her cheek and blurting out, “Kawaii!” For some reason Japanese love those big eyes – “Ningyou mitai,” which means “like a doll.”

When she was only a year old, we took her with us to Italy. Well, she was this scrawny-looking one year old (she was teething, so she lost some weight then), but still she attracted a lot of attention. At the hotel where we stayed, the guy at the reception desk literally “ran” after us to look at her. He said, “Wait, wait, I want to see.” We were surprised to realize that he just wanted to get one good look at her. He said a lot of things in Italian, and while I could not really understand what he was saying, I did understand one word he said, -“Bella!” You’d think that was the only time he saw an Asian baby. Apart from this, there were also many instances when Italians we met on the street would stop and look at her, and say, “Ciao, Bella!!!” and then touch her chin or ruffle her hair. I had to restrain myself from smacking their intruding hands. Go and find other kids to pet, you! 😛

In Vienna, when Baggy and Aya were out taking a walk, out of the blue somebody asked permission to take a picture of Aya. I wasn’t with them when that happened, so I don’t know the details of that incident. We were kinda worried about a stranger taking her picture, but decided later that it was probably harmless.

In Florence, while we were taking a breather along the steps in front of the facade of the Duomo, a young lady suddenly approached us and shyly asked to take a picture of Aya. Aya does not warm up too easily to strangers, and so she promptly snubbed her. Disappointed, the lady walked back to her group. Not giving up so easily, one of the guys in her group took her camera and tried his luck. I think he took more than a few shots at Aya. He must have caught Aya with the slightest hint of a smile, so he returned quite triumphantly to the young lady with her camera. I wonder now if that picture will surface on the internet somewhere.

In most of the restaurants where we ate, we could not be left in peace by the waiters and waitresses who frequently waved to Aya, called her attention, made faces, and remarked on how “beautiful” our little girl was. At a gelato shop at Ponte Vecchio, the storeperson asked us where we came from. Hearing that we were from the Philippines, he added, “She’s beautiful.” Aya, oblivious of the ruckus, just went right on ahead eating her gelato. We smiled casually and said thanks, but deep inside we were oozing with pride.

Let’s just hope that when she grows up she would really be “bella,” unlike someone I know. Heheh!

Our little girl just turned 4. Parang kailan lang na nag-rush kami sa Shoji for the delivery, now she’s totally different from that red, bawling thing we took back home. 🙂

Our celebration for her 4th birthday is nothing fancy. Just went to a restaurant nearby, her favorite. Then we gave her a birthday cake, courtesy of the local bakery. Just for fun, we picked out an Anpanman character cake. Aya heartily ate Anpanman’s “brains.” Is it no wonder that Anpanman’s brains is nothing but sponge? Hahaha!

Anpanman cake! See that big smile on her face.

Happy birthday to our dearest one, li’l Princess Aya. You make everything worthwhile. Keep your light shining for the rest of the world. We will always be here for you.

Always proud parents,
Nanay and Tatay

Have you ever seen a red juice? Well, sure, as in “red” tomato juice, like the ones from Kagome. But a red-colored orange juice? Well, we sure haven’t seen anything like it, until we visited Italy.

Careful not to spill any on your shirt!!!

We were at this restaurant for lunch, and for Aya we ordered orange juice. When the guy brought it, we were so shocked to find bloody red juice instead of the usual orange color. We thought that the guy made a mistake, so we called him back and asked, “What is this?” The guy probably looked at us in a weird way (my back was turned, so I couldn’t see his face), and said matter-of-factly, “Orange juice!” We couldn’t contain our laughter. Wait, I told Aya, let me taste it first – we were still skeptic. I tasted it, and it did taste like the orange juice I know.

In this picture you can see Aya sipping a large wine glass with the red orange juice. Bottoms up!

I’ve got a nasty ear barotrauma that hasn’t been relieved by 1000 yawns and 1000 gulps. Plus an equally nasty cold. And a bit of a sunburn. Burned by the angry Tuscan sun.

At the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio. This David statue is an exact replica of the original one by Michaelangelo, to be found at the Accademia.

But I swear it’s all worth it, all worth seeing Florence for the first time. I’m still on Florence time, and I could feel the fatigue in every inch of my body. Florence is, simply put, a feast for the eyes. If seeing Botticelli’s La Primavera and Birth of Venus is not enough, then seeing the glorious naked body of David sculpted by Michaelangelo will surely be worth all the earaches in the world. It was a childhood dream fulfilled for me. When I was a child, I saw Daddy’s book containing pictures of paintings and sculptures of the Rennaisance masters, Raphael and Michaelangelo among them. I saw the David statue in that book, and was extremely fascinated by it. When I finally got the chance to see the original statue in the Accademia, I basked in its presence for several minutes, almost unbelieving that it was right before my eyes.

For sure I will be writing more about Florence in future blogs. I had wanted to blog while we were there – but who could possibly find the time? There was simply so much to do in so little time.

I hope to post pictures soon. Antabayanan!

About four years ago, one of my cousins, Kuya Jojo who is currently based in LA, came with his family to visit us. It was one of those rare opportunities for a family get-together. When they visited Daddy and Mommy were also staying with us in Tsukuba, so it was really a very rare chance for them to meet up with Kuya Jojo, who barely went home after residing permanently in the States. Indeed, most of my Mom’s relatives are already based in the US, so the only time we get to see them is if they go home to the Philippines (like if somebody died, how grim), or in our case, in the event that they get to visit Japan. Actually I did see most of them in 1999 when I went to LA for the first time. Our grandmother was still alive then (she died early this year, at age 93!) I practically saw all my long-lost titas and cousins, including their little tots whom I’ve never seen before. And although I’ve been back to the States a few times after that, I always ended up on the East Coast, and so far there has been no opportunity to visit the West Coast.

Anyway, about two weeks ago, Tita Bess and her hubby Tito Robert finally visited Japan. The last time my Mom saw Tita Bess was around 1993. And since my Mom has never been to the States (thanks, immigration officials!), that’s about 13 years since they last saw each other. I find it rather amusing that they will meet in Japan after all these years. What a unique convergence point. And to top it off, Lai finally arrived, fresh from Manila. We immediately took her to meet Tita Bess in Tokyo. And it did seem surreal, all of us together again, not in Tondo where we once were. Not in Manila, not in the Philippines, but in Tokyo, of all places! We went to a nice shabu-shabu tabehodai (eat-all-you-can) restaurant in Akihabara to “celebrate” our reunion.

Whenever I think of it, I am simply amazed at being an instrument in bringing people together. 🙂

With Lai and Tita Bess enjoying shabushabu in Akihabara.

My evil little sister is back. Welcome back, Lai! Kampai to us!

Living in Japan allows us to meet a myriad of persons with different personalities, many of them becoming our closest friends. Sadly, long-time residents like us are left behind while most of our friends move on, for various reasons. One of my dear friends, Joey Santos, who eventually became Aya’s Ninong, used to say: “People come and go, but you stay. Kumbaga sa jeep, kami ang pasahero, ikaw yung driver.” What a nice analogy. 🙂

I wonder — is it the transience of our stay in Japan that makes us cherish those friendships more than others, knowing that the time we could spend together is limited? Is it just coincidence that many people actually find their life-partners here? I think not.

Joy, who used to work at GSJ in AIST, was one of the first persons I met when I first came to Tsukuba. She left after one and a half years. Two years ago she came back for a visit together with her family – Rolf, and their lovely daughter Sinta. Nakakatuwa kasi mga dalaga pa kami noon, ngayon mga doting mothers na. We still keep in touch, after all these years. I imagine that we would still be updating each other once in a while way until we are old grandmas, if we would ever be so fortunate. 🙂

Epong, one of my kumpares, also used to work for Intel in Tsukuba, but has moved to Singapore together with his family about two years ago. We visited them there last year, and it was like a family reunion of sorts. It truly was heartwarming.

People come and go, but the trick is in never letting go of the bonds we’ve made. Only then are the friendships truly made special – like wine with age. 😉

Hello from Germany – from Joy, Rolf and Sinta (front row)

Two years ago it was, when our lives were suddenly turned upside down. Two years after, my days are still filled with such poignant memories of my Dad. But, thankfully, the pain is slowly ebbing away. Time surely does heal all wounds; but with the passing of a dearly loved one, we are scarred forever.

Has it really been two years? Even my sister couldn’t believe that two years have already passed since. “Sobrang dami nang nangyari sa buhay ko…” she quipped. Indeed. If my Dad were alive today, wouldn’t he be so surprised or shocked to hear the following:

In the Philippines:
– GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) won the elections. Dad was already bedridden during election season in May 2004.

– Two of GMA’s opponents are already dead: Fernando Poe, Jr. (FPJ), and Raul Roco.

– Pacquiao, his favorite boxer, won his fight with Morales. His life story is now being filmed by bloodsucking producers and directors who want a piece of the fame and fortune. While in the hospital, Dad was actually watching a Pacquiao fight. In between gasps and pains, he would manage to prop himself with a pillow just to watch every round; during commercial breaks he would collapse on his bed in exhaustion. Fighter talaga. He loved boxing.

– Hundreds of people died when a mountain collapsed in St. Bernard in Leyte this year.

In our family:
– Our house in Cavite was finally completed, and finally turned over to us. During his sane moments he was avidly talking about visiting our new house as soon as he became well again.

– Cush, his favorite dog, died barely a year after.

– A Christian fellowship has sprouted right at our very home – through Mom’s efforts, the Word of Life Christian Fellowship was created last year.

– Karen already has a little girl named Ria. And oh, she’s on the family way again. Another “apo”! Dumadami na ang angkan namin.

– Lai is back to studying again. Marami pa kwento, but I don’t think I’m allowed to write ’em down here, hehe. 🙂

– I did pass the evaluation for tenure in my institute. Dad would be happy to know that I’m still doing the job that I love.

– Baggy is already in Tsukuba. The shinkansen love affair has finally reached an end.

– Aya wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. She loves Chicken Little (watched it a dozen times) and all Pixar-animated movies. Aside from Tagalog, she speaks Japanese fluently, it shames us who have been learning (or trying to learn) the language all these years.

These are just some of the highlights, in a nutshell. In my mind I talk to him, telling him these things – and more. He is always in my thoughts. I still read his letters. But – dangnabit (to borrow Lai’s expletive)! I’ve yet to update his website.

To the greatest Dad in the world – may your memory remain forever in our hearts and in those whose lives you had touched. We still fight our own fights, like boxers in a ring. We face our challenges with courage and determination. We carry on inspite obstacles that lie our way, because we know that that is the only way we can show the world that your efforts have not been in vain.

Baggy is sleepless in Seattle – literally! Pano 16 hours ba naman ang difference between Washington and Japan. He will be there ’till Friday, and will be back to Japan on Saturday. Balik Narita na naman kami.

True to our decision this year, we are now picky about which places to visit. We took one look at the Seattle tourism websites, and decided, nah. We’ll take a rain check. Not even Ichiro can make us. Hehe.

But that rain check may have to be used this coming August. By some weird coincidence, ASC this year will be held in Seattle, at exactly the same convention center where Baggy’s conference (ISMRM) is currently being held. Will I go solo then? Abangan. Masarap na mahirap na magtravel kasama ang pamilya. Pero sigurado enjoy yun palagi. 😀