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Mayu’s beloved pet toad, Kuromaru

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly two years already! In summer ’22, my wife Mayu brought home a baby toad from her work. A coworker had a batch of baby toads and gave one to Mayu. He was so tiny at first! Some toad species are hatched as toads rather than as tadpoles first, but I believe this species are tadpoles although he already had legs when we got him. This guy was tinier than a grain of rice! He was such a dark color, nearly black. When we put him in the plastic box with dirt, he was so dark and tiny that he was hard to see. You couldn’t see him unless you looked very hard. Ulan named him Kuromaru, which is a ninja-sounding name (kuro is “black” in Japanese). It was an appropriate name, since he was nearly black and could blend in with his surroundings, like a ninja.

A few years ago when I first started this blog, we had a Japanese rhinocerous beetle named Pun-chan whom we cared for for a very long time. She lived much longer than expected because of the care we gave her. Now we have this cute toad. He has grown so big since we first got him!

Kuromaru has such a big belly! Here he is posing with his bath. When we first got him, his bath was a bottlecap. Now it’s a big plastic container. Toads like water, but they are not good swimmers like frogs are. They also do not sing like frogs. He is always quiet.

He’s so cute!

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Ulan found a Slime hat

We were at a store called Chambre and we found a sort of beret that looks like a Slime from Dragon Quest. Ulan tried it on. Not something she’d wear regularly though.

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Ulan enjoyed drawing pictures

I was recently asked to prepare an activity for junior high-level English classes to have students use gerund phrases as modifiers for verbs. I took an idea from my coworker to have the students use whiteboards draw pictures which describe sentences that they put together by drawing cards at random. I made a stack of noun cards with pictures (Darth Vader, Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, a pencil, etc), a verb (enjoyed, started, or finished), plus a gerund phrase (baking cookies, talking to plants, reading a Harry Potter book, etc). The picture would depend on the verb, whether its something that just began, just finished, or is in progress. I played this game with my daughter Ulan. She used her digital blackboard to draw pictures. We played several rounds.

Bananas started swimming in yogurt.

Elmo enjoyed playing the drums.

My neighbor’s stupid dog started riding a dinosaur.

Gunma-chan (Gunma Prefecture’s mascot) finished wrestling an octopus.

Anya finished hunting a Totoro.

Sponge Bob started stalking AKB48.

My cat finished building a time machine.

A muffin started stealing cars.

My grandmother enjoyed punching Luffy.

Ulan likes drawing goofy pictures, so this was a perfect way to play with English on a Sunday afternoon.

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More Sega love from Shimamura, plus other game-related stuff for home

These are plush tissue covers I bought on discount at Shimamura, the Mega Drive and Dreamcast. There was also an SG-1000 tissue cover, but I passed on that because I have no emotional attachment to that old console.

One more Mega Drive bath towel!

This is a blanket of a pixelated Neo Kobe skyline from Konami’s game Snatcher I bought on Ali Express. My wife is holding it up for me to take this picture. It is so soft that Ulan got jealous. So, I got her a Dragon Quest Slime blanket from Ali Express for her as a Christmas present. Snuggly girl is snuggly.

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My new Sega towels from Shimamura

I went back to Shimamura a few days later and found Sega towels on sale! They were all discounted from their regular price. For each of the Megadrive, Saturn and Dreamcast, I bought hand towels, face towels, and bath towels. The hand and face towels are a two towel set.

Here are the hand towels:

Here are the face towels:

And here are the bath towels:

BONUS! Here is a set of Urusei Yatsura’s Lum-chan face towels I also bought:

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My new Sega cushions from Shimamura

Shimamura has come through again, this time with block cushions. This time I was late, as these were released in September. I learned about these by doing a web search. Like those Sega pillows I bought last year, these are detailed on the underside and since these are block cushions, the sides are detailed too.

Neat stuff.

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Pac-Man stuff found at the Can Do 100 yen store

A few weeks ago, a couple of students of mine alerted me to the 100 yen shop Can Do having plenty of neat Pac-Man crap in stock. On my lunch break, I had to go check it out for myself. I scored plenty of neat stuff! This photo is of my loot: clear stickers, zip storage bags, two sizes of masking tape, a keychain, stickers, a trading card, and a memo notepad. Score!

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Spy Family coffee

I dunno whether to call the show “Spy Family” or “Spy x Family.” I’Ve seen a lot of Suntory Coffee Boss Spy Family products at drug stores lately. The top picture is peanut-flavored café au lait. I bought this box, but I have yet to try it. I’ll show this in the next Japanese snacks video I upload to my YT and Odysee channels.

Unfortunately, the Spy Family movie won’t be out until December! By that time, it will have been a year since the 2nd season on TV ended. They’re making us wait a whole year.