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Beijing Trip

May 8, 2012 By Chie Leave a Comment

From left top: 1. Street of Beijing, 2. Hotel room, 3. Electric bicycle I saw all over the city, which goes up to 30km/hour! 4. Tricycle 5.&6. Restaurant I ate at

Quick post to show you some pictures of Beijing. Sorry I don’t have a whole lot of interesting pictures. I didn’t take my camera for fear of loosing it so I only had my iPhone. Also I was there on business so I really didn’t have much time to hang around the city.

China never ranked high on my travel dream list in the past. This is mostly because my sister did not like it there (Beijing). Hearing her talk about the city, it made me not want to go. To my surprise, I really like the city and told Andy that we have to go back there for vacation! I’m not sure what the other parts of the city are like, but at least in the central part of Beijing, it made me feel like I was in NYC. I was quite surprised. Things were cheap, and people were nice. Sadly, the only recreational activity I did during this trip was to get a massage. The massage places are open 24/7, and cost less than 10 bucks, I had a nice hour long massage:)

Filed Under: blog, blogs, every day life, travel Tagged With: beijing, photos, travel, trip

Me Made May ’12 Week 1

May 4, 2012 By Chie 7 Comments

So for the first time, I’m participating in the Me Made May ’12 challenge! I was hesitant at first, but why not, I like to reflect upon what I’ve made in the past and take that to improve my wardrobe to be more practical. My goal is to wear something I made at least 3 days a week for the month of May. I would like to wear some of the thrifted and vintage items I’ve acquired over the years, plus, taking outfit photos more than 3 days a week is probably too much for me to pull off but I’ll give it a tr. Here you go!

Day 1 (5/1)

Knit top: made by me, Dress: second hand Abcrombie, Shoes: bought in Japan, Bag: Forley + Corrina

I made this top about a year ago using the cotton knit fabric I bought in Nippori. It was super easy to make, since the sleeves are dolman sleeves and I did not have to set in the sleeves. Literally it was a 30 min project. It turned out the top is quite versatile too. It’s funny, I end up wearing a top like this much more often than dresses that I spend a couple of hours to make.

The dress was from some blog flea market, this girl was selling her old Abcrombie dress for $10, so I bought it. The thing I like about this dress is that it does not scream “I’m wearing Abcrombie and Fitch!”. I don’t really go to that store because I don’t feel welcomed unless I’m a Vally girl – also the strong smell of perfume when you step into the shop overwhelms me.

Anyway, I ended up wearing this outfit on a Spring rainy day to work, run errands and rest of the other stuff I do daily.

Oh, do you like my polk-a-dot nails? I love them! I did it using Sally Hanson’s polk-a-dot nail stickers.

Day 2 (5/2)

Dress: made by me, Cardigan: thrifted for 200 yen

It rained all day today. I needed to be comfortable. So I picked this dress I made about two years ago yet still love. Andy is not a big fan of this dress, he said the floral pattern is too much. I wore this dress a lot while I was pregnant, it is so comfortable as you can see!

Day 3 (5/4)

Skirt: made by me, Top: forever 21, Cardigan: H&M, Bracelets: bunch of friendship bracelets made by me, Shoes: Bought in Korea last summer, Bag: Foley + Corrina

This skirt is one of my favorite right now. It’s so trendy, and I guess I like anything that’s trendy..I’m so vain. The top is from forever 21, which I bought on sale for $7 a while ago. I’m certainly getting my moneys worth, since this is so versatile. It’s white, it’s long, and loose. I wear this at least once a week and I’m sure you’ll see it again in upcoming MMM’12 post…

Filed Under: blog, blogs, creation, today's outfit Tagged With: dress, made by me, mmm'12, outfit, personal style, skirt

Daddy’s Diary 8: The More The Merrier!?!?

May 3, 2012 By Andy 25 Comments

Hello VV internet confidantes. I should have had an update recently about my sewing progress but……there is none and there has been no sewing as of late. Ooops!

But in any case, Chie asked me to drop in and update you all with our parental lives. A magazine contacted recently and asked to speak with me. Apparently my skills as a father have become well known in the community and they wanted to just come talk with me and bask in the glories of my fatherly care. Ok, that isn’t entirely true….but I do think that myself and Chie have done a respectable job raising this here piglet. So my thought on the matter is this, since #1 child is good let’s push our luck a little and try adopting.

Personally, I have felt adoption was a good and necessary thing for years. It upsets me that it is not done more and astounds me the rarity of adoption here in Japan. I will let Chie take you through some of the cultural Japanese stuff with adoption at some point but basically in Japan adoption is weird, scary and to be avoided ( a little like me I guess). Thankfully, Chie does not fall into the standard category and is all about the adoption process. I don’t remember when we first started talking about adoption but I don’t remember her ever putting up much resistance to the idea. I would be uncomfortable with pulling the trigger on adoption if I had to force Chie kicking and screaming. It is probably a hard enough venture without having one of the parents opposing the idea.

So, 5,6 months back, Chie and I could see that Kiko was turning out ok with no foreseeable ( as much as one can foresee such things) major physical/developmental problems we started to get that famous parental itch for more children. With Chie swearing off the idea of child birth ever again and literally crying at the mention of doing it again we figured now is the time for adoption. We had always sort of planned on the structure of our family being like this; make a baby, buy a baby, make a baby, buy a baby. 4 in total, 2 conceived and 2 acquired.

So we started contacting local agencies about adoption and foster care (I am interested in doing both but that is a little different and might require its own diary entry). In any case, we contacted 3 agencies to begin with. The first was the local governmental adoption agency. The second was a private group called ISSJ and the third was a private agency named Ai No Kesshin.

The governmental agency is hard to figure out. We first met with them a few months back. We went in for an interview, brought Kiko and were immediately told that our baby was beautiful, growing beautifully, being raised well and they had no interest in working with us for adoption/foster care. They said we had our own baby so would not want some orphan. In their opinions the other child would never be as attractive and wonderful as our child. Needless to say, I was taken aback. 1) I love my daughter but unless I’m missing something she has no angel wings and was not at the time of her birth brought into the world surrounded by a singing chorus of cherubim. She is my daughter and I love her but she is just like the other normal little baby girls born to mothers in the same hospital on the same day, nothing better nothing worse. 2)What in the @#$$%%^?!?! How could these government workers talk so flippantly and cold heatedly about orphaned children in their care? Long story short, they told us “NO”. I told Chie in my particular vernacular “Screw that and screw them who are they to tell me no!” After a few months of back and forth, we are now in the adoption/foster care classes offered by the government. They are still telling us no but in Japan I am pretty sure that “No” is the default answer to every request. Japanese people say no first and ask questions later. The easiest way to deal with this is to ignore them, say “Yes” and usually if your patient you will win the starring contest.

The other two agencies are great. Ai No Kesshin is a Christian org based in a prefecture named Shizuoka. They are not the quickest moving individuals but they are busy so I will cut them some slack. The other org, ISSJ is a Tokyo based social services agency. Both are very easy to work with. We received numerous application forms from Ai No Kesshin this week and have a meeting on Monday with ISSJ. You want to know the highlight of both these agencies? They both are English based services!!!! God bless them. My Japanese still isn’t winning any awards and sitting in the required meetings with the Japanese govt agency is a supreme stretch of my Japanese abilities.

The adoption process in general has been interesting. My parents are cool with the idea. Chie’s parents are coming around to the idea. As I said earlier, the idea of adoption for Japanese folk is weird. It is especially weird to want to adopt when (like Chie and I ) you are physically capable of making your own children. I forgot to mention that earlier, the other really weird comment from the Japanese govt agency people was that they told us how the adoption agency and the adoption process was “for couples who could not have their own children or for older couples who wanted to give back to society.” That’s weird, I thought adoption was for, you know, the orphan and for the love of this child here and now.

The adoption agencies keep asking us what “kind” of baby we want. That’s a weird question to answer, as though I’m at McDonald’s ordering a #4. The questionnaire literally has racial, gender etc criteria that you can check off as ”Yes, I want” or “No, I don’t want”. What kind of ridiculous S.O.B conceives of adopting but then thinks to themselves “No, no a black kid just won’t do.” or “I want his baby to be a male child born of rich parents and genetically predisposed to towards professional athletics.” Ultimately, I am cool with whatever. Chie is also up for anything but seems to really be hoping for a Halfanese. she wants half black/half Japanese or half Filipino/half Jap. The more I think about it the more fun that would be. A few years from now, we all as a family go out to the store, me (very, very, very white), Chie (obviously Japannese), Kiko (some kind of weird mix but looks like me), and then a couple mixed kids who look nothing like Chie or me and are black, dark yellow or some other shade in the rainbow. People would be really confused.

I’m looking at the post, I’ve run a bit long. Sorry about that. I hope to fill you in more soon. What are yours guys’ thoughts on adoption? People usually have strong feeling and would be curious to know what this little global group thinks. If anyone has been through the process and/or been adopted and wants to drop their opinion I would love to hear it.

Filed Under: Adoption, blog, blogs, mama series Tagged With: adoption, fatherhood, foster care, japan, kids

Three New Sewing Books

May 1, 2012 By Chie 10 Comments

Andy’s grandmother surprised me with these three new sewing books for my birthday. She spent more money on shipping than the cost of the books themselves, sending them all the way from the U.S. I’m so thrilled to have finally gotten these books that had been on my wish list for a while!

The Colette Sewing Handbook by Sarai Mitnick

First off, The Colette book! Who doesn’t know about this book in the home sewing world? If you don’t you have to check out the Colette blog, which is full of tutorials and inspirations. This book is full of pretty pictures and illustrations, and I think it’s great for beginners. It comes with a couple of patterns, and I’m excited to get my hands busy working on them. These patterns seem perfect for the upcoming warm seasons.

Next up is Make Your Own Dress Patterns by Adele P. Margolis. If you are interested in drafting your own patterns, this is a great reference book. Even if you are not particularly interested in pattern making, knowing about pattern drafting basics will transform your sewing experience! This is kind of like a text book for me, where I sit down with highlighter and make notes like the good old college days. I’ve read one amazon review that said “the illustration of the book is old”, but I love the retro feel of the illustrations! There are no pictures, but plenty of vintage-ish illustrations through out the book.

The last one of the 3 is Design-It-Yourself Clothes Patternmaking Simplified by Cal Patch. This is last on my reading list just because the book seems very basic and the contents might overlap with the Colette book and BurdaStyle book. The book includes a section on sewing pants, so that’s a plus!

Besides these sewing books, I recently finished the last Steig Larsson book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. I was relieved to finish it. It was long. Right now I’m reading The Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It is a rather sad book, but I’m really enjoying learning about the lives of women in Afganistan.

What are in your reading list? Any recommendation for both sewing and non-sewing books?

Filed Under: blog, blogs, every day life, patterns Tagged With: books, pattern making, reading, sewing

Sagami Ono Arts & Craft Fair

April 30, 2012 By Chie Leave a Comment

Right now, Japan is in the midst of”Golden Week” Golden Week is a bunch of national holidays in a row. So some people have an entire week off from work or school. Because of Golden Week, there are some events, festivals and fairs going on in the city. Last Sunday, we stopped by at Sagami Ono Art & Craft Fair, where our friend, Taren was a vendor.

Taren and I met at the Love Handmade event hosted by Etsy Japan. I was selling Vivat Veritas clothes there and she stopped by with her friends. She has an etsy shop, Oslo and Alfred. Check out her shop, her illustration is so cute. I bought some post cards, and now I want this pretty necklace.

There were close to 200 vendors. I love strolling around checking out little shops. Below were my favorites…

The second from the top picture above, is an illustration by Minoru Takenaka. I bought his post card – I just thought his illustration was so cute, and the fact a man was drawing it was kind of unique. The illustration is so feminine and sweet! He is having an exhibition in Shinjuku from 5/21-27. More info here if you are interested.

The last picture, the macaroon cases were made by another etsy seller, Yecco. Aren’t they so amazing? Although I sew, I have no patience to make such a delicate thing like this!

Filed Under: blog, blogs, every day life Tagged With: craft fair, etsy, illustration, japan