My Lame Non-existent Travel Blog

I've been traveling in Japan for the past week, so I've got a few good bad English shirts for you. The shop was crowded, and my rental cell phone refused any attempts to set the camera shutter sound to silent. This meant my photo opportunities were quite limited. I suppose this is great practice for our new reality, though. After all, Stow is four now, so soon, there will be no one to carry on the good bad English tradition for me. Once he learns to read, the probability of me getting a kid to wear one of my bad English acquisitions out of the house drops down to zero. I hope you enjoy these. They might be your last!

I hear a voice of the delight.

Wildly peaceful mind...It's your turn to shine. Futuristic.

Chain stitch. The world sea is lucky luck.

Good round pace step...

The English is okay, but that's way too optimistic for this early in the morning.

I don't know. You tell me.

Alpaca!

A rational and ritzy kid.

These pants are a party in the front, and...

...a party in the back. I'm so happy lucky!

Since our good bad English time is limited, I've been toying with the idea of showing you actual pictures from my trips. If I did that, they'd include things like this:

Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto

Or, this...

Kyoto skyline...

Or, even this....

Leaves changing at Kodai Temple

But, the thought of putting together a travel blog of the famous sites of Kyoto or Tokyo bores me. Besides, I hate throngs of tourists and all the famous stuff shows up in travel guides, anyway.

So, instead, here's a little glimpse of how I spend my kid-free time in Japan. 

Mostly, I go to books stores. Lots and lots of bookstores. 

But, I also have some favorite places to hang out and window shop. In Kyoto, it's Nishiki Market, a traditional marketplace that has been running in one form or another for 400 years. Here are some of the sights I saw as I walked through this morning. 

A fabric shop selling fabric for obi.

Tamago-yaki (rolled egg) shop.

The only place to go for all your fried fish cake needs.

Knife shop that's popular with tourist because they engrave their high quality knives with any name you choose. It's popular with me because it's been around for over 400 years, and they claim to have made knives back before the samurai were tamed.

Tourists getting their knives carved.

Fish flakes.

All of these shops are pretty cool, but none of them have my heart like the pickle shop does. If I could figure out a way to keep them refrigerated for the long trip home, I'd have a whole suitcase full of these:

Unfortunately, I can't take any pickles back with me. No worries, though! I spent most of my morning sampling. Mmmmm...