When we last left the Hirano family, daddy had just arrived at their hotel in Korea in a less than sober condition. Both mommy and baby Kio were wide awake trying to figure out which magic switch turned the lights off...damn new fangled hotel rooms!
Sweet revenge was had the next morning when daddy was poked awake at 6:00 to get ready for their thirteen hour flight to Canada.
Needless to say, he was feeling less than perfect.
To be fair, it was his first holiday in two years, a night out was more than deserved.
Shin's friend, Lee, was nice enough to pick us up and take us to the airport. A great gesture as he was also suffering from their adventures the night before.
After a couple buckets of coffee and a fantastically firey Korean breakfast, we bid Lee farewell and began the next leg of our journey.
Before we left Japan people asked me if I was nervous about going on such a long flight with a four month old baby. My reply was always the same: it will be what it is. If its good, fantastic. If its bad, we'll get over it. Either way, I'm not going to stress it.
I am happy to report that in general the flight was a breeze! Kio was in good spirits, happy to sit in our laps and have the flight attendants fawn over him. I won't lie and say that he was perfect, babies cry and being a baby he did just that, but no more than usual.
I do have one complaint and that was the lack of a bassinet to put Kio in while he was sleeping. I mentioned in my last post that we didn't get one on the flight to Korea, but at the time I had assumed it was because the flight was so short. So when the flight attendant hooked one up for the family sitting beside us, but not for Kio, I got worried. Apparently, Korean Air asks that passengers requiring a bassinet call the airline two days ahead of time to reserve it. Our travel agent (who assured us that we would have a bed for Kio) didn't tell us the above fun fact.
Idiot.
Nevertheless, it was fine and we took turns holding / walking / wearing Kio throughout the flight.
Ok enough about the airplane, this is Shin's story after all.
As I said, Shin hadn't had a holiday in two years (the last time was when we came to Canada), so for the week that he was there it was 'All About Shin'.
One of Shin's customers challenged him to do three things that he had never done while he was in Canada. The 'rules' were that Shin could choose two of the deeds for himself, and the third was to buy a porno mag.
Hmmm, this sounds suspiciously like a plot to get some free porn. More about that in a bit...
Last time we went to Canada Shin got his international drivers license, but he didn't really use it. He drove once. It was at night and he was freaked out by the lack of streetlights out in the countryside where my family lives.
Sissy city boy.
Anyway, not this time! Shin took the bull by the horns and spent a great deal of time behind the wheel / handlebars during his journey.
My brother-in-law borrowed a motorcycle for Shin to ride, and on our first full day there, they were off! They returned a little over an hour later - Shin was totally frozen. Good old Canadian summer!
From that point on Shin was fearless; he drove on his own at night, he drove in Toronto during rush hour, he went on a an afternoon long bike tour (wearing a jacket this time) and he managed to stay on the correct side of the road. Most of the time!
I'd say that is challenge number one, done and dusted.
Before we left for Canada I asked Shin what he wanted to do while we were there, he had a simple reply...
Go fishing.
He may be a sissy city boy but man does he LOVE to fish! And fish he did. Although the act of fishing itself did not count as something Shin had never done before, the success he had at it sure as heck would!
Caught in the river at my mom's house.
This one too!
And Shin caught this beast on his last time out fishing. It was such a prize that he brought it back to the house for me to see. As you can see by the smile, he was pretty proud!
Challenge number two - check.
So, that brings us back to the dirty magazine.
In Japan, pornography in all it's forms, is pixelated. But with the wealth of it out there on the World Wide Web, I'm pretty sure that nobody really cares.
Except for Shin's customer.
Shin had been so wrapped up in biking and fishing that the magazine had slipped his mind. We were on our way to Toronto, to spend his last night with some of our good friends, when he remembered.
After treating us to a fabulous dinner followed by amazing gelato, we all went for a bit of a walk to work it off. During our stroll, Shin asked our friends if they knew where he could buy a porno magazine. Doing a fairly good job of masking their surprise at Shin's somewhat unusual request, they figured that he could pick one up at pretty much any convenience store.
Not true.
We must've walked for an hour and a half checking each and every gas station, 7 11 and little mom & pop type shop, but no magazine. It was getting late and we were heading into a rather dodgy area of the city, so we gave up and headed home. We did a final check at the airport the next morning, but sadly Shin had failed.
Not without passing the challenge on to me.
Unfortunately, I too returned to Japan without a dirty magazine. When I returned back to my mom's house from the city, we talked about the porno mag challenge and then promptly forgot about it. It wasn't until I was on my way back to Japan that I remembered.
Oops!
I guess the customer will have to settle for the Internet.
Generally, Shin's voice is not heard in 'The Hirano Family Blog' but he wanted to give a shout out to three guys that helped to make his short trip, a truly sweet one: thanks so much to Lloyd, cousin Gary and Brandon for the motorcycle rides, sunset fishing and Toronto convenie tour. ありがとうね!
