What we've been up to lately

March was supposed to be the time for Doing Lots Of Things but, between bad weather and my bad back/hips, not that much was achieved. We have done a few fun things over the last few weeks though, so here's my report...

attempting to pick up H's parents' cat...

• K and I went to a classical music concert, his first! It was a performance by the Kansai Philharmonic, designed for small children; the poster said 'It's OK if they cry!'. The music was great of course, and they also spent time introducing the different instruments and letting volunteers conduct. A lot of the children did get fidgety, or fall asleep (it was nearly 2 hours long including the intermission), but K was great and seemed interested during the whole thing. The concert ended with a rousing performance of 'Land of Hope and Glory' which was really quite moving, especially when K turned to me part way through and said 'I like this song'.
  
  
• All 3 of us went to the City Art Museum the following day (it was clearly The Monkey Household Week of Culture) to see a display of artwork from the children's books Lisa and Gaspard, and Penelope. K didn't really know the characters very well, but he enjoyed looking at the picture books on display... and then had a total meltdown in the foyer, but the less said about that, the better.

• K has been brushing up in his computer skills. The other day I came into the living room to discover that he'd switched on the laptop, opened Internet Explorer, was playing a CD and browsing photos. I suppose he's preparing to help Grandad when he gets here...
  
  

  
  
  

• We've had several visits to the play centre (usually greeted by some variation of 'Haven't you had that baby yet?), including a special one yesterday where all the mums had a go at some flower arranging. K enjoys jumping on the trampoline and looking at the Thomas the Tank Engine books, and I like chatting with the other mums and the staff.
  
  
  

  K wishes you all a Happy St Patrick's Day!
  
  
  

• Lunch with Chieko last week, while K was at pre-school, and then, very decadently, afternoon tea with Lisa on Sunday! We had crepes at Giardinos and they were Very Nice, although we agreed that we could really have done with 2...
  
  
• The cowboy blanket I won in the MADE giveaway arrived! Yeah!
  
  
  
  
  
• K's pre-school had its graduation and end-of-school-year ceremony. Only one girl was actually 'graduating' and going on to primary school from April, but several other children were leaving to go to 'normal', Japanese kindergartens. The children sang songs and put on a play...

... and then each child was awarded a medal for their particular strong point. In the little ones class, children were praised for being able to say their name and age well in English, for always tidying up well, and so on. And K's award-winning talent? 'He has the loudest voice in the class'. Hmmm...




And of course, there have been various preparations for the baby, and for Mum and Dad coming. I think now, we're pretty much as ready as we ever will be...

Hanging out with Vivian

My lovely friend Vivian has been keeping me entertained and out of mischief these past few days.

Earlier last week she invited me and a few other friends to a Thanksgiving-inspired lunch at her place on Friday. However, on Thursday she found out that she had to work on Friday morning... To cut a long story short, the party was still held and Vivian still cooked but the venue was changed to our place! H had a doctor's appointment in the morning and then took the rest of the day off so he was able to join us too, and K was in his best Charming Little Boy mode. In the end 'our' only other guests were Travis and Mio, but that did at least mean that we could all sit around the table! We had a lovely lunch, and as assistant host I got to keep all the yummy leftovers...

Then today Vivian and I had a booth at an international festival, selling toasted sandwiches. As usual, Vivian did all the hard work (shopping and making the sandwich fillings in advance) and I just showed up. By 3.30 we had sold all 130-odd sandwiches! When we had a bit of free time we checked out the other booths and sampled all kinds of tasty treats - spring rolls, spicy tom yan kun soup from Thailand, Taiwanese sausages, deep-fried bananas from the Philippines and more. Oh, I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it all!

There were also stage performances throughout the day. My favourite was a performance by a Mongolian exchange student who played a traditional 2-stringed instrument called (according to, yup, Wikipedia) a morin khuur. The music was hauntingly beautiful and the range of sounds that such a simple-looking instrument could produce was incredible. At times it was hard to believe that we were listening to just one instrument as it seemed to be harmonising with itself!

Of course, I forgot to take the camera with me today so no pictures I'm afraid. Instead, here's a bit of Youtube morin khuur fun for you (although I think today's was better...). Enjoy!