yesterday was my dad's birthday. happy birthday dad! yesterday was also yoshi's brother's birthday. happy birthday takafumi! aaaa-and, it was my friend's birthday as well! my goodness, august seventh was a popular b-day! happy birthday J!

yesterday we went to visit takafumi. first we went to royal host for breakfast. then we recycled. then we drove to kitakyushu. it's basically along one road, from our house to takafumi's dormitory. (yeah, i was surprised. i thought he was living in an apartment. basically he has a tatami room in a dorm shared by co-workers. the rent is only 4000 yen a month, and i guess the small space forces one not to collect too much junk but man! what a small place!)

after we arrived we relaxed for a bit. takafumi hadn't eaten breakfast but yoshi insisted we were full. i wasn't, but hey. whatever. yoshi wanted to buy something at an electronics store, so we drove over to yamada-denki. yoshi spent for-ev-er deciding on the thingy he wanted while takafumi, hiroyuki and i waited. we had taken takafumi's car and forgot the stroller in ours. so, takafumi carried hiro all over the store. cool.

finally yoshi got the thing he wanted (MP3? i'm not sure...) and since we were near kokura-jo and the riverwalk shopping center, we went there. since i had gone to lunch at one place there with my parents, we looked around at other restaurants. we passed capriccosa and i noticed on their signboard that they had a special for birthdays. i showed it to yoshi and takafumi and we decided to have lunch there. we asked for a high chair for hiro but it didn't have a strap, and he's too young to sit on his own. since it's a shopping center, i said i would go and find a stroller. we were on the fourth floor, and i went down to the information center on the first. i asked the ladies where strollers were, and they said i could get one there. i had to show some ID, but since i thought any strollers would be available anywhere, i hadn't taken my bag with me. then they told me if i didn't have ID i could pay 1000 yen. well, i didn't have 1000 yen either. i went back upstairs and yoshi went down to get the stroller.

we had a very delicious lunch and dessert. the staff sang happy birthday in italian and takafumi's cake has a sparkler on it. i think that other customers thought it was hiro's birthday, but that's ok. it probably made takafumi feel less embarassed!

after that we walked around. baby gap was having a great sale so i bought some shoes for me and some things for hiroyuki. yoshi bought some sunglasses and with lunch, we were able to validate all of our parking. then we went to a festival in mojiko, but it was later afternoon and everything was pretty much winding down. so, we went back to takafumi's dorm room for a while before he went out with friends. we three drove home and went to bed.