Monday was a holiday for us, so we took advantage of it and did a little bit of packing and a lot of resting. The laundry had to be put on hold because of the weather – it was raining all day long. It is hard enough to get things dry in the humidity, but add rain showers and it is pretty near impossible.
In the evening we went over to Denya to meet up with the yakitori gang. Initially we had run into Yamashita-san and his wife in Okubo, and I had made plans with them to meet up. He got in touch with the other folks in the group, and we had full attendance. It was great to see everybody, and there was a new face – a new baby girl who was very curious. I held her for a little while, and she enjoyed eating my hand.
With all the kids running around there, I asked Yamashita-san and his wife if they were starting to think about having a child, and they told me that unfortunately they just lost one. I guess it had died just recently, and this was their first time meeting everyone since it happened. They seemed to be OK, a little sad, but they had a good attitude about it. They even had a picture of the baby on their cell phone, which gave me a jolt when they showed me. It’s sad enough without seeing a picture of the dead baby, but it was important to them.
Yamashita-san’s wife cried a little bit, and you could see that it was still fresh and tough for them. But it was a good place for them to be – with a bunch of good friends at the yakitori. Yamashita-san said that there is a good yakitori in Okubo where we are moving, so I think we will be meeting up there sometime soon.
Kuniko and I both drank too much, and didn’t eat enough, but that was because we were talking with everyone and having such a good time. Everybody there is so nice, and for them to drop whatever they were planning to come over and hang out together – it meant a lot to me.
