Trip to Tottori - Part Two

After a good night's sleep, T was up and raring to go (wearing Daddy's sandals and carrying K's bag)...

After breakfast we left the hotel and went to the toy museum. Downstairs they had an area set up as an old-fashioned school-room, and a display on traditional songs. A lot of popular children's songs were composed by people from Tottori, or at least have some kind of connection with the area.

There was also a room full of instruments for children to get their hands on...

Next we headed upstairs, to a large room filled with toys to play with. If we lived in Tottori city I think the boys would want to come everyday! There were lots of lovely wooden/educational toys and games, more musical things, an area for little ones and a workshop area for crafting.



There was also a very uncomfortable-looking ball pool!

K soon discovered a room with a huge collection of train tracks which he could play with. H and K stayed there for ages a while, but T and I returned to the main area to prevent Godzilla-esque railway destruction.

Finally we went up to the third floor, which houses an exhibition of toys through the ages, arranged thematically. H and I enjoyed spotting things from our childhood, and K found more trains!

After that it was time for lunch. H's brother lives in Tottori but unfortunately was busy that day. However, he did give us a great recommendation for a place to have lunch: a buffet-style restaurant where we most definitely got our money's worth :-)

In the afternoon our adventures continued - and that will be Part Three...

Tanabata

July 7th is Tanabata, or the Star Festival. There are several versions of the legend, originating in China, but all involve a pair of separated (star-crossed?) lovers. The princess Orihime (represented by the star Vega) and her lover Hikoboshi (represented by Altair) are separated by a river (the Milky Way) and can meet only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, and only then if the weather is fine.

Sadly for them, it was a rainy Tanabata this year. On the evening of the 6th K's kindergarten held its summer festival. The boys put on their jinbe and went to enjoy some typical festival fun, such as fishing; firstly with a hook for a bag of snacks...

...and then with a spoon for little bouncy balls:

The main Tanabata activity nowadays is to write wishes on a strip of paper and tie them to bamboo decorated with paper/origami ornaments. The wishes are generally about self-improvement or goals for the future. Children often write wishes like 'to be good at baseball' or 'to be able to eat all my vegetables'. K's class all told the teacher what they want to be when they grow up, and she wrote all their wishes onto paper strips for them. K said he wants to be the kindergarten bus driver...

Even at the little nursery where T goes once a week, they had a little Tanabata celebration. T came home the previous week with some origami paper for us to make decorations with and some paper strips to write his wishes on, all to be taken back and tied to the big bamboo branch at nursery. So what do you think T wished for? Well, H and I did our best to read his mind and wrote 'to be able to talk soon' and 'to be able to play together well with K'. We brought home a section of the bamboo with his decorations on...

Finally, on the 7th I made Tanabata Curry. OK, so it's basically just curry trying to look pretty...

The rice in the middle of the plate represents the Milky Way, separating the two sections of curry. In Tanabata Curry world the weather must have been good, because there's the (shredded omelette) bridge joining the two sides. Then we have some carrot and omelette stars and some sliced okra (conveniently naturally star-shaped) for added celestial goodness. The only snag was that K didn't want to spoil it by eating it...





A trip to the hospital

T gave us a bit of a scare last night, but worry not, he is fine now.

While happily eating his tea, his whole body suddenly went stiff, with his head back and his eyes fixed and staring at the ceiling. At first we wondered if he was falling asleep (which has happened before), and then we worried that he might have something stuck in his throat. He was breathing normally though, and his colour was good... he was just completely unresponsive.

H called for an ambulance, which came promptly, luring all the neighbours out of their homes. Before it arrived though, T gave a little cough and slowly began to come around. Carrying T, I went outside to meet the ambulance-men and there, in the parking area, he was sick. The ambulance-men's main reaction was 'Wow, he eats a lot!' and mine was 'Well done for not doing it in the house or in the ambulance'.

T continued to improve after that, but they still took us to a nearby hospital. The siren and running of red lights felt rather unnecessary! There the doctor decided it was probably a fever-induced seizure. Apparently 1 in 10 children under the age of 5 experience this type of seizure and it has no harmful after-effects. It's caused by a sudden fever; indeed, I didn't realise T had a temperature until I picked him up during the seizure. There's a 30% chance of reoccurrence but it stops as children get older. T had had a slight trembling in his arms, but none of the convulsions usually associated with seizures. And the cause of the seizure-causing fever? Doctor: 'the common cold'.

The doctor ran some tests to rule out other causes (all clear) and gave T a drip to replace fluids lost from being sick. By 10 o'clock we were all done, and H came to pick us up, while K stayed at H's parents' place. T fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep while H put him into bed, sleeping right around until morning. Today he has been playing happily; a little under the weather with his cold but eating well and generally happy.

The silver lining to all this was the reminder of how good the medical system here can be. The ambulance came quickly (they even phoned us on the way to check how T was doing) and the paramedics were calm, friendly and reassuring. The doctor and nurses at the hospital were also very good, taking the time to explain things well and checking that I understood, without being patronising or panicking that they had to deal with a foreigner... And the cost, under public health insurance, for the ambulance, various tests, treatment and prescribed cold medicine? 530 yen.

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.

The littlest monkey

T turned 1 back at the end of March, and will be 15 months old tomorrow. He's such a little sweetie. He's like K in many ways, but he is a lot more physical than K was at that age. T is never happier than when he's being carried; he loves to be kissed, and will press his face against my mouth so hard that I can't breathe; if he wants me to look a certain way, he will use his hands to turn my head in the right direction. He likes piggy-back rides, and will try to climb on when I'm sitting on the floor, putting his arms around my neck and walking his legs up my back. Even before he could walk, he would crawl over to me and rest his head on my lap.

K only just started to walk at about this age but T, the typical second child, was walking before 11 months and now enjoys running off and climbing furniture. Lately, we see a lot of this sort of thing...

...and this...

...and even this. Look carefully - he's pulling himself up in a chin-up!

T is a keen eater and, despite photographic evidence to the contrary, is actually quite a tidy eater. He rarely deliberately throws food on the floor and in fact gets rather upset if something gets dropped. He uses his cloth (for wiping hands and face) to wipe up any bits on the table around him. Most foods go down well, but he's a particular fan of rice and bread. Oh, and meat. And bananas, mini-tomatoes, carrots...

Recently T figured out how to open the living room door, so we've had to put up the gate again. He can also open the living room cupboards, so I had to quickly move all K's 'don't let T touch this' stuff. On the other hand, we can now store all T's toys there, and keep the living room tidier :-)

I used to lament that K stopped napping just after his second birthday. T hardly ever naps even now, except maybe in the car. He generally sleeps well at night though, from around 8.30 till 7.

You're probably not surprised to hear that T loves to get his hands on the computer...

...or, indeed, his bum...

T is still not terribly enthusiastic about being left with H's mum while I work, but it's definitely getting better and it's only a couple of hours a weeks so I think she he should be able to cope with that. I've been teaching at the university one day a week since April, and T has been going to nursery then. Of course he cried when I dropped him off at first but the teachers assured me that he always recovered quickly. Nowadays, he reaches out his arms to the teacher, smiles to me and waves goodbye!

I could carry on with this oya-baka (doting mother) stuff for hours, but I'm sure that's quite enough for you for now. A final picture, of T spotting something of interest out the window...

Yup, still here

I'm not sure how it happened, but it's been more than 2 months since I last wrote anything here. If you're still here, then thank you and worry not, all is well in the Monkey household.

In the last 2 months.... K has started kindergarten and swimming class. Mum and Dad visited for a month and we took several day trips together. T had his first birthday and started going to nursery one day a week. I started teaching at the university again (that same one day a week). H turned 40! In amongst all that there have been barbecues, visits with friends, a stomach bug, some light gardening and all those little everyday things that keep us busy...

For today, a couple of lovely pictures of the boys taken by our friend Marvin at a barbecue here last week. It is Very Good being friends with a professional photographer who specialises in portraits, don't you think so? If you're in the market for some great pictures, or just want to look at some, check out Marvin's page here, or his Flickr here.

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!

Happy Birthday K!

free printable bunting available here

We celebrated K's 4th birthday on Monday. It was a busy and fun day!

The day started with a few presents and cards and, of course, the birthday crown, which I found just in the nick of time...






While K went off to pre-school, I made his cake. I baked it the day before, but it was the decorating that took the time. It's actually made from individual cupcakes (you can see the silicon liners reflected in the foil), placed together to form a train shape. I'm afraid I can't take credit for this great idea; I found a (reduced-price) kit like this one at Jusco!




After school, it was party-time! This was the first time K had had a children's party for his birthday; until now it's just been family. Since there are 'only' 10 children in the older classes at K's pre-school we thought we'd invite them all. With a few siblings coming along too we ended up with a guest list of 15 little ones, plus some mums, although in end illness brought it back down to 13 (including T!).

From what I hear nowadays, kids' parties back in the UK can be major events. I, on the other hand, had the advantage that no-one here really does kids' parties for birthdays and so there were no expectations. I kept it very old-school, just the kind of party that I had when I was little. We had the classic party games (pass-the-parcel, musical statues, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, balloon-between-the-knees relay...), cake and juice, and goodie bags at the end. Pretty much all of this was new to everyone concerned, who I think were just expecting the kids to be
running riot
playing freely.

thanks to A's mum for this pic - I completely forgot to take photos...

The day before the party, K announced that he wanted to play the planet game. No, I didn't know what that was either. He informed me that it involved me (the Sun) standing in the middle and everyone else holding a balloon and walking around me, in the correct order according to a list of planet roles composed by K.

So H and I spent Sunday evening blowing up balloons (he hates to blow up balloons and I cannot tie them. What a ridiculous pair), and the game was duly played at the party. It did prompt one older girl to ask 'Is this a game??' but K later declared that it had been his favourite part of the party.

Anyway, the party went well and I'm pretty sure everyone enjoyed themselves. Once all the guests left we had a quick Skype chat with Mum and Dad and then, seeing as I couldn't be bothered to cook, we went to Joyful for dinner, a treat in K's eyes. Back home again there was another cake, a gift from pre-school...

...and then yet more present-opening. Everyone who gave K a gift obviously knows him and his current interests so well. Presents included 2 space books and a set of space stickers, an inflatable globe and a couple of little books on geography and flags, workbooks for English and math, and a Chuggington annual.

K finally headed off to bed just after 9, but was still awake reading the afore-mentioned Chuggington annual at 11. I thought (hoped!) that this might mean a little lie-in the next day, but at 7:15am, K was up and in our bed - bringing the Chuggington annual with him...

So happy birthday little K! The past year has been a big one for you, becoming a big brother. This year brings many changes too, starting with Japanese kindergarten next month. The night before his birthday K said that he was looking forward to his party but was sad about not being 3 anymore. I think this means we need to dial down the 'you're a big boy now' phrases, however positively we intend them. Perhaps, especially with T around, K feels pressure to be 'big' and on his best behaviour.

Don't worry K. You can still be my sweet little, planet-obsessed, book-loving, photograph-taking, cutting-and-gluing boy for as long as you like. I love that you love to share things, that you're (generally!) so kind and gentle to your little brother and that, like me, you love to get out and about and see people. I even love it when you come into our bed in the middle of the night but shush, don't tell Daddy I said that ;-)