More Pictures from Denver
 James and Kai
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Yesterday was a full day of skiing and skateboarding. It was the first time I’ve skied since I was here 5 years ago, and it was the best conditions I’ve ever experienced – plenty of snow, but warm, sunny, and no wind. It was a lot more fun than the snowstorm and frigid temperatures back at home in Philly! We went to Keystone – Yoko and I skied while Maria took the boys for inner tube rides. Kai was ready for more after we got back, so James took him to the Denver skate park so he could start learning to ride his new skateboard. Today we drove to Colorado Springs to visit a friend of Maria’s, and then to Manitou Springs to see the Anasazi Cliff Dwellings. It was ok but I wouldn’t recommend it. It was overpriced and commercialized – the gift shop was about 4 times bigger than the museum.
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More Pictures from Denver
 Santa and Frosty’s Christmas Truck
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 “Dispensaries” are legal and very common in Denver
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 Kai, Bam Bam, and Yoko
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 Kai and James making cupcakes
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 Not something you see every day
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We’re in Denver
We arrived in Denver Tuesday night, to spend Christmas with Maria’s mother (Michiko) and sister (Yoko). So far we’re mostly hanging out, which is actually perfect. We had a nice dinner last night at Marco’s Pizzeria (they cook the pizza at 1000 degrees, so you get it just a few minutes after ordering). Today Maria had a brief visit with her friend Andrea, the boys spent some time at the Denver Aquarium (which has 4 tigers in addition to the fish, which is odd), and tonight we’re indulging the boys with a trip to Dave and Busters. We’ll spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with friends of Yoko and James (her husband). After that we’re planning to get in a day of skiing before coming back to Philly. I haven’t been skiing since we were here 5 years ago, so I’m looking forward to it.
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Kai’s School Activities
 Kai showing off his creation at the Haverford art show for all the district’s elementary schools
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 Kai, learned scholar of Islam
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Kai is having a busy last couple of months in 3rd grade. Last month he was in a recorder concert with his music class. The video below is a small group within the class playing the song Steppin’. In the video it’s hard to understand what the teacher is saying at the beginning – he’s explaining that Kai and a few other kids found the song on the teacher’s web page and started teaching themselves how to play it (the teacher intended the song for his 5th grade class). The teacher spent a small amount of time guiding them through the trickier parts of the song, but they mostly learned it themselves.
 Video – Kai and his 3rd grade classmates perform Steppin (Kai is right next to the microphone stand)
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Today Kai did a presentation on Egypt for his class, which is why he’s wearing a jalabiya in the picture above (Maria covered herself up and took him to an Islamic store in West Philadelphia to buy it for him). He also brought in a prayer rug, drew a map of Egpyt, and made a desert diorama with legos (with a combination of pieces from a SpongeBob set and a Prince of Persia set).
In April, Maria spent a lot of time and energy planning an Asian culture day for his class, and took a day out of work to manage it. Several of her students and another Villanova professor also participated. Unfortunately she was too busy to take pictures, but they had the kids:
- Learn Tinikling dancing from the Phillippines
- Create Mali mud cloth
- Make Vietnamese spring rolls
- Learn some basics of Islamic etiquette, and learn how to write their names in Arabic
- Do an international trade simulation. Maria put this together and it sounded amazing. She had the kids break into groups and pretend to be different countries. Each country had to make various shapes out of paper, as a way to represent their economic output. Some groups got a lot of tools like scissors, rulers, etc, others got a few tools, and some got none at all. They then had a time limit to make as many high quality shapes as they could. I’m forgetting some of the specifics at this point, but they then had a way to pretend to sell their creations, and use the money to expand their tool kits. A key point was to illustrate that it’s hard for a country to grow it’s economy (especially in relative terms) , even when it tries hard, when it starts from a weak position. While it’s a simplified exercise, it’s also an impressive way to get kids to begin comprehending a complex topic.
Relocating to Planet Hoth
 The boys enjoying planet Hoth
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The new skill I acquired these past few days is how to participate in a snowball fight and shovel the driveway at the same time. After getting pelted mercilessly for several minutes, it finally dawned on me that I had a shovel full of snow (I can be a little slow sometimes).
With all the wind, we lost a 6 ft. long piece of metal flashing where the back wall of the house meets the flat roof. No sign of leakage so far. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed while the snow melts.
The word is this is a once in a lifetime snow event for the Philadelphia area. As you can see in the pictures, the boys are making the most of it.
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Mike's Tweets
- Looks like there is a "Mr. Toppa Toppa" who is a reggae producer - Toppas are everywhere ;-) http://t.co/H4yzmK9r #fb 2 days ago
- @speno for the kids we kept it simple - some onigiri had shiso salt and others had green tea salt. For the teachers, we used saury fish in reply to speno 5 days ago
- The boys & I have been re-watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. I mean the amazing anime series, not the awful movie http://t.co/ZQkYkpmQ #fb 5 days ago
- Just responded to another batch of Shashin support requests. I deserve a prize, or some donations (cough, cough) http://t.co/1Orx8brr 6 days ago
- RT @jtsternberg This video made my day! http://t.co/p3hM8Ny7 #fb - mine too 6 days ago
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Random Pictures
A store on Kappabashi-dori specializing in plastic food displays
Retail crab for sale outside Tsukiji
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Flotsam
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