I think all he needed was a little motivation. After all, there’s no doubt crawling is safer – and in his case much faster!

Witness these historic moments as he embarks on the next leg of his adventures:

Next up: running, dancing, jumping and pretty much anything else that can be done upright!

Stay tuned.

Making a lot of progress on my geocaching stats is exceedingly difficult in Tokyo. There’s just too many people around, the caches are very spread out, and well – lately I simply don’t have that much time caching. Once I get Naoki into it – I’m sure that will all change!

Some shots of my day caching with Viking43:

NB Geocaching - February

12 in one day – definitely a record for me, but pocket change for the vikings!

As always – my cache map is up to date with the latest finds.

Japanese food engineers to the rescue! Introducing: Bean Stalk Liver Biscuits!

Yes that’s right, kids. Now you too can enjoy that same great taste that Fido has been relishing all these years. Liver Biscuits are chalk full of meaty, chicken liver goodness in a convenient, “mess free” format that’s sure to please! I know I for one have a hard time resisting anything with liver in it. *

… but what about Naoki?

Will it make his fur coat shinier than ever? Or will it leave him with unsightly doggie breath?

Naoki reviews.

* Lie.

On the way out the door I grabbed my camera to snap a few snowy pictures during my daily commute for your viewing pleasure:

Our street – watch your step, no sand or salt here.

Not enough to require a snow brush / ice scraper… but plenty for snowballs!

More snowball supplies.

Japanese house with a dusting of snow on the roof.

With my visit to NB just a little over a week away – this is a timely reminder of exactly what I’m going into…

Naoki’s got a whole new bag of tricks – capturing them all on video is proving more and more challenging! So, I’ve thrown together a few of his latest moments into another collection for Naoki Playtime 3. If you’re new – yes, there is a part 1 and part 2, but you’d swear that’s a different kid!

We hope you enjoy!

On another note – our fearless video editor is back on his jet-setting ways. In the course of the next few weeks I’ll be in KL, Orlando and Saint John, New Brunswick. If you’re near one of those locations and feel like buying me a beer, please drop me a note!

UPDATE (1/23/10 – 10:17PM JST) – Yes, for those that noticed (and something to spot for those that didn’t) – that is indeed Alf on TV @ 1:56. If you thought he was funny 20 years ago – you should hear him in Japanese.

Yet as short as it was, our Christmas was great – nice and relaxing with lots of downtime at home to properly enjoy the time off work.

I captured a few of our holiday moments to give you a sense of what life is like for us lately. No real adventures or reviews this time around – just a glimpse of what’s going on.

Happy New Year – and look forward to more videos in 2010!

Man, how priorities change.

Naoki’s new bike is pretty sweet: it’s the Ides Cargo Trike (アイデスカーゴ三輪車). It wasn’t a gift from Santa this year – it was actually his main birthday present a month and a half ago. I figured he may as well skip the whole walking thing and jump right from crawling up to riding a bike! After all, walking is for suckers.

So how does Naoki like his shiny new red trike? Will it make him the next Lance Armstrong?

Naoki reviews.

More videos are well on their way – but until then how about some more of that never ending Engrish?

It seems it doesn’t take a break, even during this festive season!

Holiday Engrish

A couple months ago I placed two new traditional caches around our neighbourhood: Haikyo Stairs #1 and (un-originally) Haikyo Stairs #2. As their names imply these caches were made to highlight a couple of haikyo (urban ruin) type structures in our area; the “stairs” in this case being pedestrian overpass bridges.

Both of these overpasses were completely unnecessary. They provided those on foot the option of a gruelling stair hike over a very quiet street with plenty of simpler un-elevated cross walks as alternatives. Why did Kitaku (our local ward) bother constructing them? Who knows. Clearly they had been there for several decades and their lack of use and maintenance was evident.

So is it purely coincidental that after just a few weeks of placing said caches at these locations that the city decides to take the overpasses down? The timing is unbelievable. If you ask me, it’s a little too coincidental.

Indeed – I am taking credit for this. Kitaku is a cleaner place thanks to genfab.

Now I need to find some new hiding spots…

Haikyo Stairs Caches RIP

In other geocaching news:

You may (or may not) have noticed the new menu item up top labelled cache map. I’ve put together this nifty WordPress plug-in that will map geocaching finds onto Google Maps! Pretty cool, eh? Take a gander at all our finds and see where we’ve been doing our geeky little hobby.

Should there be any interest in distributing the plug-in, I may be persuaded.

It was a pretty big year with many accomplishments:

• learning how to eat and drink
• travelling overseas (amazingly three times!)
• meeting tons of friends and family
• soiling over 2000 diapers
• … and shooting over 50 videos in the process!

With all these great feats to celebrate, a party was well overdue! We held one in the party room (appropriately enough) of our building last month with lots of friends and family in attendance. Lucky for you, my good buddy Mike was kind enough to play cameraman while we looked after party related matters. (Thanks Mike!)

Watch & join us in the celebration!

… and in case you missed it, my friend Okumura-san also has a write-up and pictures of the party. (Thanks Okumura-san!)

On to year two!