A weekend away

The 4 of us recently spent the weekend at Tamatsukuri Hot Springs, about an hour away from home. H's younger brother got married that week but didn't have a ceremony, so the 2 families gathered for the weekend at a traditional resort to celebrate and get to know each other.

The ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel) we stayed at was quite big and very fancy. The entranceway (pictured below) overlooked a lovely garden and there was a roof-top open-air bath as well as the 'ordinary' hot spring baths on the ground floor. H's brother had said that it would be a casual weekend, but I knew that his parents would ignore that and dress quite formally, so I didn't want to turn up in jeans. For the boys I appliqued matching neck-ties onto plain T-shirts for a bit of smart-casual fun. K is very proud of his ability to hop and stand on one leg lately, hence the Long John Silver pose...



In the evening we ate dinner in a huge banqueting hall, rather over-the-top for our party. The happy couple sat at the head of the room, in front of the gold screen, and the 2 families sat in lines facing each other. It's a typical setting for this type of party, but not really very good for getting to know each other I think. H's brother is the youngest of 3 brothers and his wife is the youngest of 3 sisters. All the elder siblings are married and have at least 2 children each, so it was quite a lively get-together. Oh, look, there's H's dad in a grey suit and his mum (only half in the shot) in a black lace dress - I knew it!

In traditional fashion our meal was served on individual tables and brought out little by little, although not in 'courses' in a Western sense. There was sashimi, crab, steak, deep-fried goodies cooked in the room in front of us and all kinds of little dishes of who-knows-what. This photo is of K's meal - I think he got the best deal actually, especially as he got an adult portion of crab from his allergic cousin.

Once the meal was over, the children enjoyed running riot around the room, and I was happy to let H's mum be on T duty for a while...

After taking the waters, it was time for bed. The hotel provided yukata, light-weight cotton kimono for wearing around the hotel and as pyjamas. They even had K-sized ones...

While we were downstairs, the maids laid out the futons for us. H had a headache and soon fell asleep. K and T, however, were very excited and didn't settle for a long time. It was the first time for T to spend the night out of the confines of his cot and he continued to explore the room long after K had fallen asleep. Actually, I fell asleep before him too! I woke up a few times during the night, and found T fast asleep in a completey different place every time. I got up first in the morning, while the other 3 were still asleep, and here's what I saw:

I forgot to take a good picture of the room, but it was big! The screens in the top-right of the photo above opened onto a view of the gardens. It was a corner room and behind me, as I took this picture, was a small seating area in front of windows overlooking the town. There was a full bathroom, a large entranceway to the room, and a whole other small room, which we simply used to put our bags in.

Down on the ground floor there was a small courtyard in the centre of the hotel, where you could sit and dangle your feet in the hot spring water. K and I tried it out after a big breakfast, back in the banqueting hall again.

Everyone went their separate ways after check-out at 10am, but it seemed a shame just to go home. A 20 minute drive brought us to a small aquarium, mainly featuring aquatic life from the 2 nearby lakes. These lakes are actually joined to each other and finally open onto the sea, so the water in them grows increasingly salty as you head east, creating interesting and varied eco-systems.

Both K and T enjoyed looking at the fish, especially in this 'bubble-head' tank!

After lunch we drove further around the lake until we got back to Matsue. I'd heard there was a nice park there for young children so we stopped for an hour and K had a good play, before heading home again once more.

St Patrick's Day Parade

So none of us are Irish, and St Patrick's Day isn't until next weekend.

But that didn't stop us going to Matsue yesterday for the St Patrick's Day Parade and Irish Festival. Actually I went on Saturday night too, to enjoy a few drinks and some live music at 'The Shamrock', an Irish pub set up for just 2 days a year!

Then yesterday the whole family headed out to watch the parade. It was pretty cold and there was even the odd flurry of snow, but we had a good time. We got there early in order to eat our way around the food stalls before the parade began - it's always about food for me. There was everything from Irish broth, quiche and green beer to chicken satay and Thai green curry and we did our best to sample it all. K also enjoyed playing with all these guys who were waiting to walk in the parade...


It's not really a terribly impressive parade, but a bit of fun nonetheless. Led by St Patrick himself (and some boy scouts)...

...there was a marching band (K's favourite part - instruments!), some people juggling and yo-yo-ing, a tin whistle group and more.

The balloon guy surprised me by presenting his heart-on-a-stick to me, not K. I'm very easily pleased :-)

Once the parade had finished, the various music and dance groups performed and were judged(and Vivian's dance crew won, once again!). By then though we were keen to get in out of the cold so we went up to The Shamrock again and had, variously, hot tea, Irish coffee, apple crumble, ham salad, scones and mango juice. Yum!

I drove us back home and on the way all 3 'boys' went to sleep, even when I stopped at the supermarket on the way. Mind you, I fell asleep putting T to bed, and then slept right round to this morning...

Oh, and we did all wear green for the day, but unfortunately it was all hidden away by extra layers of coats. So here we all are! Happy St Patrick's Day!

December days

Not surprisingly, the times I have lots to tell you about are the times when I'm too busy to post. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that December was busy. I composed lots of blog posts in my head, usually in the shower, but never actually got around to writing anything. So here's the Reader's Digest version, just to give you a little taste of the days leading up to Christmas here in the Monkey household.

The month started like this...


... and went on to cover things like this...

...and increasing amounts of this:

One of our advent calendars this year was made up of activities to do with K, such as this...

and this:

There was quite a lot of this sort of thing...

...and this too:

We made flowers for the concert guests...

...and then it was finally time to hang up the stockings:

There were lots of things that didn't make the photographic cut too, like our annual potluck party (topping last year's, with 42 attendees), a couple of Christmas concerts and school parties.

And of course Christmas Day itself, and the all important concert; but they are stories for another day.

The New Car

Our new car is a Nissan Serena. Apparently that is basically what Dad's van is, which is rather embarrassing, but we're pleased with it nonetheless. Apart from the fact that H had had the old car for more than 12 years, the main reason for changing cars now was one of space. The Pajero Io (known as the Shogun Pinin in Europe) was great for H as a single guy and for us as a couple; it was OK for a family of 3 too but it just wasn't cutting it for 4 people, a pushchair, shopping...

So now we've gone to the other extreme and got a car that will seat 8. It'll be useful to be able to take H's parents (or mine) out with us sometimes, or give a friend a ride without having to take out a carseat and leave a small child at home. Most of the time though, those back seats will be folded up, leaving a lovely big boot. There's a lot of head-room and, unlike the Pajero, the floor is low too, making it very spacious and easy to get in and out of. The floor of the car is completely flat throughout, and the seats can move in interesting ways :-)

The area between the 2 front seats (where you might expect to find a gearstick and handbrake) is completely empty, so you can easily walk through to the back. Or, you can fold down and slide the middle part of the back seat forward into that space, and walk through to the boot/extra seats. Then, you can also slide one half of the back seat sideways into that space, making it easy to get into the third row of from the doorway. Phew.

K's favourite feature is the automatic rear sliding door at the passenger side. Just press the button and it will open. He also likes the fitted sun blinds. H's favourite things are the way the seats move and the amount of space there is; we can even fit the pushchair in the footwell of the back seats if we need to. I must admit, I like the geeky data available on the fancy digital dashboard...

On the left is the rev counter and the big '0' is the speedometer. So far, so ordinary. But the main dial on the right measures fuel economy. It lights up to show your current km/litre at any given moment, encouraging you to drive in a more efficient way. This is further supported by the 'Idling Stop' feature, which cuts out the engine anytime you are stopped in traffic. As soon as you take your foot off the brake or move the steering wheel the engine starts again, virtually instantly. It's fun at traffic lights to watch the 'Idling Stop' data in real time, seeing the millilitres of petrol saved gradually creep up. Thanks to the all-knowing dashboard, here are the vital statistics after one week, consisting entirely of pootling around town...

Distance travelled: 186 km

Time the engine has been running: 10 hours 6 minutes

Average speed: 18 km/hr (I did say we'd just been pootling round town, right?)

Average fuel economy: 9.3 km/litre

Time spent in Idling Stop mode: 54 minutes 8 seconds

Petrol saved thereby: 591 millilitres

*** If you came here looking for photos of cute little boys, or stories about life in Japan, or fabric/sewing/crafty goodness, worry not; normal service will soon be resumed :-) ***

Toy Kingdom

H went back to work on Monday, after nearly 5 months of paternity leave. He didn't seem to find it too hard to get back into the working routine; I suspect that he'd had enough of being at home with his nagging wife...

Anyway, last Wednesday we decided to make the most of our work-free weekdays, and went to Toy Kingdom in Okayama for the day. It's a fair way from here, over 2 hours on the expressway, but the boys were really good in the car and it was definitely worth the drive. The park was open from 10 to 5; we were there from 10.20 until it closed!

Like our trip to a closer amusement park back in May, there was hardly anybody there. As it was a weekday and not the summer holidays, parking was not a problem..

All 4 of us went on the Big Wheel and admired the view of the Seto Inland Sea and its lovely cone-shaped islands. We also had a good view of the empty car park and the deserted park itself. See if you can spot a single person..

Entry to the park was 700yen for adults and 500yen for children. This included entrance to lots of different play areas including Wooden Toy House...

... Story Book House, Game House (I had fun playing Pop Up Pirate) and Train House. If he hadn't already seen what else there was in the park, I think that K would have happily spent all day just playing with the trains...


It was a lovely sunny day and a little too hot in the middle of the day, so the air-conditioned Train House was perfect for a couple of little breaks (and breast-feeding stops). K was quite happy to play by himself for a while. Look at all those train-tracks just waiting to be laid out!

There were also lots of ride-on toys to play with freely...

... as well as a sand pit and a whole other area of slides and playground equipment, neither of which we even got to! We didn't make it to the Building Block House either, although we did admire the giant models scattered around the park.

But even with all that on offer for only the park entrance price, we couldn't resist the 'free pass' tickets. The rides in the park cost at least 200yen a time, but an unlimited pass was only 1500yen. With so few people there we didn't have to worry about queuing, and we were able to go on as many rides as we wanted to.

K soon spotted this one, and went on it twice...


Actually, he went on everything twice I think! Of the 17 pay-for rides at the park, there were only 3 which K was too small for. There were several he could go on by himself but he generally preferred to ride with one of us. We worked our way around the park, with H and I taking it turns to go on with K, while the other one waited with T. And then later, we went back and did them again the other way around. H and I are both pretty wimpy when it comes to rollercoasters and the like, so this park suited us all very well :-)


There were lots of classic amusement park rides: teacups and merry-go-round, tiny flume ride and flying elephants. K and I even went on a little rollercoaster, which was just about in my comfort zone! As soon as we set off K cowered into my side and made lots of scared noises, but he later declared it his favourite ride...


H and I both enjoyed driving the go-carts, and the bumper boats. We were, in turn, the only people on them, so there was no-one to actually bump into, but that was probably a good thing.

The free passes also gave us entry to the exhibition hall, which is currently hosting a display on insects; perfect for the boys (of all ages) of the Monkey family! As well as big beetles in cases to look at, there was a big box filled with compost to dig for larvae in, and a little pond to fish for gengorou (predaceous diving beetles).

Finally, we explored the play gym, with its tunnels, slides and ball pool. There seem to be a lot of this kind of play area in the UK now but H and I had just been saying that you don't see them in Japan. But in Toy Kingdom, anything is possible!

We all really enjoyed our day. Another advantage of going when it was so quiet was that H and I could play freely too, with minimal embarrassment. If you are anywhere within a couple of hours of Okayama and have a young child or two to entertain (or a couple in their 30s...), I would heartily recommend it!

Hair today, gone tomorrow

OK, so that should really be 'Beard today, gone tomorrow', but that wouldn't have been funny.

Unlike the title I wrote which is obviously hilarious.

And that last picture? No, it's not a super-long piece of streaky bacon. I'll show you later...

The boys

I thought that maybe those of you who haven't seen us for several months might like to see some pictures of the boys...

Lovely, smiley little T is almost 6 months old now!


He likes to roll over onto his tummy, but hasn't quite mastered rolling back again yet so I spend a lot of time rescuing him and turning him over. He's quite happy to have a cuddle with anyone, but really doesn't like to lose sight of me nowadays - definitely Mummy's Boy.


Just a few days ago we started him on some solid food - very wet, soft rice. The first time he looked a bit bemused; the second time he was leaning towards the spoon with an open mouth; the third time, he was grabbing the spoon himself and pulling it towards his mouth!



K is now 3 and a half, and is really into drawing and writing. Before we went to the UK he wasn't really interested in that kind of thing but now he's very keen and can write a lot of letters without any help. He does like to deliberately write 'strange letters' too though...



When he's concentrating he can do some quite good faces too...



I'm not sure if it's the current haircut, or just in comparison with T, but K seems to have suddenly become a Proper Little Boy in my eyes. He's definitely grown taller over the summer, and naughtier too I'm afraid...

Here he is pointing out a big spider in the garden:



Can you see it? Have a closer look...



And while we're on the subject of boys, here's H. He may look different to you too, because he's been cultivating a beard while he's been on leave. I think it was more of a 'I don't have to shave' thing than a conscious beard-growing policy, but I think it suits him...



When we had some hot weather in the UK he wore jinbei, traditional Japanese clothes that are often worn nowadays by artists and craftsmen. Along with the beard and sandals I think he looks as if he's just stepped away from the potter's wheel. I think he'd be too embarrassed to dress like this here in Japan, but I rather like the look - what do you think?