My Brother, Yoshio

Life can throw you lemons, but sometimes it sends guavas instead.

I've been a little silent to pretty much everyone about this situation, mostly because there was Family Drama (tm) attached for a while. Jen and I returned late Monday from a long weekend in Honolulu after attending my father's wedding. The short version is that he finally met a wonderful lady in Hawaii to move on with his life after my mother's passing three years ago (rightly so). He is an impulsive man, however. Although they just met in January, they were engaged in March, and would have essentially eloped two weeks later if some folks hadn't wanted to attend a ceremony. Thus, Drama from some circles. I'd have been content with visiting Tokyo for one of the reception-type parties.

Since I figure the man knows what he is doing and whatever makes him happy is fine with me, I didn't really have any major issues with this. The whole situation comes with added fun, too. His new wife, Reiko, is Japanese with two sons from a previous marriage. Nobuo is older, around my age I think, and a computer engineer of some variety. Yoshio, the younger one and near Cate's age, is a yoga and "animation dance" instructor. Both speak very little English. Nobuo and his wife couldn't make it, but Yoshio flew in for a whirlwind 96 hours or so.

We all had a good deal of fun together on this trip, I think. Jen and I stayed in a hotel room for the first time, rather than cram into my father's apartment as we've done on all previous visits. This allowed us to chill out as necessary. The newly extended family went to a cheesy club on Sunday night, so we got to see some of Yoshio's moves, too. It's a mix of hip-hop dancing and other freestyle stuff I have little frame of reference for. Searching google for "animation dance" was useless, but I did find a few decent examples on YouTube here, here, and here.

There is talk of possibly doing Christmas in Tokyo. That is the awesome.

(Jen took better notes.)