a belated happy easter to those of you who celebrate it. we didn't do anything special this year. medea invited us to her house for dinner, but yoshi wanted to go shellfishing with coworkers on the same day. so, we didn't drive down to kagoshima. i also figure hiro's too young to understand easter egg hunts and too young for candy, and we also don't want him to have too many stuffed animals, so i didn't do anything for that. plus, my mom says she got something for him, i'm sure that will be enough.

so, on sunday we went to a river mouth in genkai to dig for clams. it was a lovely day though the stiff wind was chilly. there was a steep incline down to the river where people were digging for clams. we saw some of yoshi's co-workers, and after a brief walk along the beach, we joined them. i was afraid of shimmying down the bank because of my changing body and center of gravity, but i made it down ok. yoshi carried hiro. hiro didn't take a proper nap and soon enough he was fussy and crying. he wanted to walk, so we took off his shoes and socks, but he also wanted to do it on his own. so, yoshi took off hiro's jeans. it didn't take long for hiro to fall on his bottom--right into a tidal pool! yoshi basically took care of hiro while i started looking for clams, and that's how we divided our labor on sunday.

yoshi took hiro to the car to change his diaper, and his clothes, and spent a lot of time there. i was looking for clams with yoshi's co-workers, and i actually had a pretty good time. they didn't try to talk to me and ask lots of annoying questions (especially about our marriage). i was pretty good at finding the small clams (but those ended up being really sandy and not very delicious). the tide was going out and soon there were sandbars in the middle of the river. it was quite shallow so one lady and i waded out there. another co-worker joined us and showed us how to find the real clams (asari) and we had a blast! up to that point i had only found one asari, but then i found loads. i also found two really big clams, my companions were impressed. i ended up collecting about twenty clams, plus the two big ones, before i was tired out. plus, i wasn't having as much luck. yoshi and hiro had returned by then and we all decided to call it a day. walking back to the road i realized how badly i had to pee! haha, that amused me a lot!