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...

Summer holidays

K's kindergarten finished for summer on Friday. He has just over 5 weeks off, and the first few days back will only be half days. We don't have any big plans; no overseas trips this year! On the other hand, we have surprisingly few completely free days. K will still have swimming class most Mondays, and I'll have a class each Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon. The Wednesday morning mother-and-toddler group will meet twice in August and I've still got 2 more weeks of classes at university too, so that's the next two Fridays taken up. T will go to nursery then as usual, and K will go back to kindergarten! They offer 9-6 childcare in the holidays, at the princely sum of 800 yen a day.

Despite all that, I'm determined to do some special holiday things. K will spend 2 separate days at day camps run by the English pre-school he went to last year. We're planning a little overnight trip to Tottori city in August, and tomorrow we're going to go to the small amusement park in Hiruzen. I'm hoping we'll get some beach days too, and time to do some projects at home. Lately, since the summer heated up, T has been having a nap each afternoon. With a bit of luck this will continue, giving K some time to play without infant interference...

I've got a couple of little challenges set up for K too. He eats well, in quantity and variety, but he is such a slow eater, especially at dinner time. I've made a little arrow to Blu-tak to the clock to show when dinner time ends (40 minutes after we start). If he finishs his meal within that time, he can add a sticker to a special summer holiday calendar I prepared and if he gets enough stickers he can get a present. I know, it's pure bribery, but it's working well so far :-)

I'm also keen for him to get some writing practice in. Now that he's at kindergarten every day, and not going to the English pre-school at all, K rarely writes anything. I'm hoping to fit in a few minutes of writing every day throughout the holidays, whether it's a workbook (he loves those), a postcard to Gran and Grandad, my shopping list or a little holiday diary I made for him (inspired by this one).

I love the things that small children write in their diaries. Yesterday's journal read 'I did go to the airport. The pilots waved to me.' Today's said 'I did go to by singing grasshoppers.' Then he dictated 'I went with Daddy to clean the shrine. I went to a show for schoolchildren. I liked the oni. Hide and Keiko came here.'

And of course we phoned, and later Skyped, my Dad to say Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!

Summer time

This year's rainy season seems to have dragged on forever. Weeks have passed under grey skies, clouds preventing the sun from easing the stifling humidity. The heavy downpours bring some relief and cooler air, but opening the windows to take advantage of that also allows the rain to come in...

If I were writing haiku, hydrangeas and frogs would be suitable (if obvious) symbols for the season. Instead, here's the photographic version, from our garden on Saturday:





Tiny little frog on a camellia leaf

 Late afternoon on Saturday, the clock/weather station in our living room reported that it was 27 degrees and over 80% humidity. Not comfortable.

Yesterday brought a sudden change though. The sun came out, the clouds disappeared; the temperature rose and the humidity dropped.... well, a bit. Our living room hit 34 degrees, with a mere 55% humidity, and today has been similar. For both days, a heat stroke warning was issued. At least yesterday there was a breeze and, in the late afternoon in the shade of the big tree, it was lovely in the garden. T was napping upstairs, H was preparing dinner in the Dutch oven, K was reading and I was relaxing. I just lay on the grass, watching the swallows in the blue, blue sky and enjoying the breeze and the absence of mosquitoes.

Today was Marine Day (海の日、umi no hi), a public holiday in Japan. With no wind, we couldn't bear to be outside and finally started using the air conditioning. I always try to put it off as long as possible because of the Pringles effect; once I start, I won't be able to stop using it until autumn.

We didn't really do anything special over the long weekend (see above). I worked most of the day yesterday, K had swimming today and we went out for lunch a couple of times. I also finally finished a little sewing project I've working on for ages, but I'll tell you about it later. Mainly we just had a bit of a rest and tried to stay cool, unlike the participants in yesterday's triathlon here in town. They swam for 3km in the sea, cycled up Mount Daisen and back and then ran a full marathon, all in temperatures in the mid-30s and under blazing sun. Impressive? Of course. Insane? Maybe...

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!

Musical Saturday

On Saturday we all went to the city-run Children's Culture Centre to a little concert for kids. A pianist, violinist and trumpet player introduced their instruments and played for about an hour. As well as singing along and clapping to the music, all the children were invited onstage to have a go at the trumpet. I was surprised at how many of them managed to get a note out of it, but not that K didn't. He still struggles to blow out a candle...



Later the trumpet player brought round a wind chime for all the children to have a go at. In theory they were accompanying the violinist, who gamely kept on repeating the song until all the children had had a chance to try it.

In the evening we went along to a little party to celebrate Tim, Zac and Vivian all racking up 20 years in Japan. Tim and Zac had a little jam/performance session, with K on drums...

By the way, did you notice the appropriate T-shirt?

A busy week

*** Now with photos! ***

Last week I had no classes at all and there was a public holiday but despite that (because of that?), it was A Very Busy Week. Everything of note was photographically documented of course, and I had great intentions of writing in detail about each event. But a whole week has now passed and my complete failure to write about our summer in the UK is haunting me, so here's the brief version.

Last Sunday was the annual festival at the kominkan, our local parish hall equivalent. There were displays of bonsai and matched vegetables, handicrafts and photography, children's calligraphy and paintings. We watched the children's paper aeroplane contest, had some free food and tea and biscuits, won a mini Christmas tree and a box of tissues and had our photos printed onto comical postcards by the Computing for Seniors club. Truly something for everyone! K had a sit in a fire engine and then we came home again, in time for a visit from Yukari and her daughter Yurara, featuring more tea and biscuits and a couple of rounds of Greedy Gorilla.



On Monday K went to school and, for once, I had nothing scheduled while he was out. Somehow though, just looking after T took up most of the day and before I knew it it was time to collect him again. The token non-busy day.

Tuesday started with a walk to the (regular, Japanese) kindergarten to enroll K for next year. Can you believe a year has passed since I was last wondering whether to enroll him or not? The international preschool has been just what we needed this past year but I think that K is ready for kindergarten now; he's keen to go to school for more than two days a week and he's interested in speaking Japanese now too. So we wandered over, signed him up and then played in the playground for a while. In the afternoon H came home early and we all bid a fond farewell to our old car.


After more than 12 years of loyal service, the Pajero Io has gone... And after all that, Vivian came to visit!

Wednesday was another school day since it was their Sports Day. We all met at the park and the children enjoyed various races and games while we Mums photographed madly ;-) It was pretty laid back, not like the Japanese-style Sports Days which are rehearsed to within an inch of their lives and unfold with military precision. K took part in an obstacle race, a running race and a sack race. Oh, and I did that last one too... Then it was time for packed lunches followed by playing in the playground until the Mums had had enough.




We got back in time for Visit From Vivian Part 2 (this time with Noboru too), since K complained that she didn't stay long enough to play with him the day before. In other words, more Greedy Gorilla.

Thursday was Culture Day, a public holiday. We didn't do anything particularly cultural, but we did take K to the local shrine for his 7-5-3 ceremony. It's traditional to take children to be blessed at the ages 3, 5 and 7, usually around the middle of November. We looked into renting a kimono for K for the day but were quoted 30,000 yen! Photographers will let you use one for free if you're having portraits taken afterwards but that can get very expensive too, so in the end we went to Jusco and went the 'modern' (ie practical and cheap) route, buying a suit set for 7,000 yen. As well as a jacket and short trousers it also included a shirt and tie and even braces!

So after our visit to the shrine we went out for lunch (conveyor-belt sushi, K's choice) with H's parents and then it was time to go and pick up the new car! It was the first time I've had a *new* new car and it was all very exciting. We took it for a little spin up to Sakaiminato and had dinner out too.

On Friday I took the boys into town for a 'mini-concert' for preschoolers, which K enjoyed a lot. We joined some other Mums and kids for lunch afterwards and then hit the supermarket.

Saturday brought the end of the lovely weather we'd been having; it's been rainy ever since. In the morning we all went to the library for the annual giving-away-of-old-books free-for-all. We came home with bags and bags of books: picture books, travel guides, craft and sewing books, a few English language novels, some history books and more. There was also story-telling and colouring for the children and bag-making from old book covers. After that it was lunch out and a bit of shopping before coming home to a visit from Hide.

Which brings us round to Sunday. There aren't many places around here to take children to play when the weather's bad. In fact, we could only think of one, so we went there - the Children's Culture Centre. They have a little planetarium so H and K went there first, and then we all watched a little puppet show for a while before heading off for all-you-can-eat pizza. Later in the day I helped out at a Hallowe'en party for a few hours while H had the unenviable task of staying at home with The Boys Who Want Mummy. Still, no-one was screaming when I came home...

Wow, did you really read all that? To think, this was the abridged version! I'd like to add a few photos later but I wouldn't hold your breath... I did it! I actually added some photos! And I finally got around to looking up how to cross things out in Blogger, yeah...

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...

Back to the usual routine

Tomorrow K and I will finally be getting back into our usual routine. H started back at work last Tuesday, but my 2 classes last week were cancelled due to the snow so I've been on extended holiday-mode. Tomorrow though, K will be off to preschool for the first time this year, and my usual schedule begins again tomorrow too.

With the heavy snow over the New Year we haven't really done anything of great interest lately. In fact, in a week I only left the house twice, both times on foot, to go to the supermarket and post office. The rest of the time I've been at home here with K.

So what did we actually do with all this free time? As always, I seem to have frittered it all away. K and I have been sleeping quite late in the mornings, although poor H has been getting up earlier than normal to take a train to work. Luckily the buses are now running so he should be back to normal tomorrow too.

We did manage to do some useful things over the holidays: I tidied up my office and filed class notes, we caught up on the mountain of laundry, got a new TV, shoveled snow...

Mainly though, there was a lot of lounging about at home. I crocheted a few more squares for the baby blanket, read an entire book (that's good going for me nowadays) and caught up on some blog reading.

Today was a public holiday so we had a three day weekend. Now that the roads are pretty much clear of snow, we went out! Two lunches out, a bit of shopping (including a diary for me - I love buying a new diary each year) and a little cinema date for H and I (Tron, my first 3D cinema experience). Today was Tondo-san, marking the official end of the New Year festivities, so it really is back to work for everyone now...

Anyone need a step machine? Going cheap, barely used...

On Sunday Lisa and I became shop-keepers for the day, selling our old stuff at a flea market, the Japanese equivalent of a car boot sale. Most of the things for sale were mine - clothes that no longer fit, odds and ends from around the house and, yes, unwanted gifts (nothing from any of you though of course).

We had a prime corner spot and, after an unsure start to the day, sold quite a bit. The veteran flea marketer next door to us bought several clothes from me and I wouldn't be surprised to see them on her stall at the next one! I did learn a handy trick from her though, for when you can't try clothes on for fit: your neck is about half the size of your waist so try holding the waist of trousers around your neck.

I enjoyed the day, cleared some cupboard space and made a bit of money - yeah! Maybe this time next year I'll be back with maternity wear and newborn baby clothes...

At the weekend

Things that were on the list, but didn't get done...

• Cleaning the house


• Lesson planning


• Going to an exhibition of stained glass

Things on the list that we did manage to do...

• A nice uninterrupted chat on the phone with Mum and Dad


• A one-off Italian cooking class (yes, all 3 of us) organised by the local International Friendship Association. We made meatballs in tomato sauce, shrimp in pink sauce and rolled aubergines and then ate our fill. K's main contribution was entertaining everyone, and eating...
  

Things we did that weren't on the list...

• Tea and cake with a friend and his little boy on Saturday morning


• Pizza-making! Someone gave me some fresh basil the other day so the bread machine came out on Friday morning to make pizza for lunch for K and me. When H heard about it he fancied some too, so we did it all over again on Saturday night...

• Sewing! I made a start on 2 different projects over the weekend. One is a toy dinosaur for K which I got fabric for ages ago, and which will be finished... at some point. The other one must remain A Mystery for now. It's almost finished and I'm very pleased with it so far. I thought I might be able to get it done yesterday, until I realised that I was running out of thread... Details and (hopefully) completed photo coming soon!

Tottori Burger Festival

I love autumn in Japan. The days are sunny and warm (well, unless you're planning a barbecue...), the evenings are pleasantly chilly and there are a total of 5 public holidays in September, October and November.

Monday was one of those holidays - Sports Day, but we did nothing even vaguely sporty. Instead we headed to Mount Daisen for the 2nd Tottori Burger Festival. We did intend to go last year, but that didn't quite work out. Anyway, this year's festival was bigger and better, with 60 different burgers on offer, spread over 3 different sites. About a third of the burgers available were from restaurants based here in Tottori prefecture, and the rest were from all over Japan. As well as all the types of burgers you might think of (beef, pork, chicken, fish), there were also a lot you probably wouldn't think of: venison, ostrich, deep-fried octopus croquettes...

We went to two of the three sites. The first one didn't have such a great choice of burgers, but it did have our prefectual mascot, Tori-Pi...



Tori-Pi is a cross between a bird (tori in Japanese) and a pear. That's why he is green and round and has a black stalk sticking out of his head. Obvious, right? 'Bird' is in the name of the prefecture, Tottori, and the area is famous for its pears. So that all makes sense now. Every place and every event in Japan seems to be required to have some odd mascot. Do you remember these bizarre characters (scroll to the bottom of the post)?

The second site we visited was much better; better burgers, more people and it wasn't located in a car-park.

Most people seemed to be in the 2 hour queue for Kobe beef burgers, so there wasn't long to wait for any of the others. In the end, I had a chicken burger, a pork burger and a really good American-style beef burger. H just had a pork tendon burger (?) and a beef burger; I think he was still recovering from excessive curry consumption the previous day. And K? He had that octopus thing...

The un-barbecue

Lisa, Cian, Gray and Holly came over for a barbecue on Sunday. Unfortunately the weather had been bad for the previous few days and early that morning it still looked like it might rain, so I wimped out and made it an indoor lunch instead. Of course, it turned out to be a lovely sunny afternoon....


I made a couple of curries, a chilli and a big pot of rice and my guests brought assorted doughnuts, cakes and drinks. It turned into one of those lovely relaxing Sunday afternoons where lunch carried on until about 4 o'clock... After that we just about mustered enough energy for a game of Scrabble. K was quite interested in the game and came to have a look sometimes, but playing with H and Holly was obviously much more fun and we managed to finish the game without any tile-scattering disasters.

Holly is 9 and K loves her. All morning he was asking after her, waiting for her to arrive. She made a great baby-sitter for the afternoon!

I think everyone ate their fill at lunchtime, but there was still enough left for lunch on Tuesday for K and I, and several portions went in the freezer too. In the evening we couldn't be bothered to cook again and nipped out in the car to a nearby noodle shop.

Here was K's summary of the day, at bedtime:

Did you have a nice day today K?

Holly-chan! Holly-chan! And cake. Eat cake. And ABC (I'm guessing that's the Scrabble).

(Quiet for a minute. I thought he'd finished)

And Cian. And Gray. And Lisa. And Mummy. And Daddy. And K!

(Quiet again)

And rice. And noodles. And car. Dark.

At the weekend

On Saturday we went to visit some of H's relatives and stopped off at a small park on the way, to have lunch and play. As you can see from the picture above, we were the only people there!

The park used to have an admission charge but it is now free to go in. However, there is still a sign announcing that it is closed on Tuesdays. Seeing as there was nobody working there on Saturday, closing the park seems to consist of putting a chain across the car park to stop anyone going in. Not quite sure why...

We had our lunch at some covered picnic tables at the end of the park, where it was shady and cool. K only ate half of his so I decided to save the rest for later. I put all the bits and pieces back in my bag, tied up all the rubbish in another bag and placed them both on the picnic table next to K's noodles, in their own container with a lid. Before I'd got more than about 5 metres away from the table, a crow swooped in and grabbed the noodles, pot and all, and was away again. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it!

Anyway, K still had enough energy for some parent-scaring climbing, and some more gentle swinging too. But the highlight of this park is their giant roller slide, visible in the background of the photo below. You used to have to pay for this too, but not anymore. In fact, the one time before now that I went on it I didn't pay for it either :-) When H and I were dating we drove to the park one night and snuck in, which simply involved stepping over that car park chain. It was rather unnerving going up all those steps and then down the slide in the dark, but great fun!

It's actually two slides, one after the other. The top one starts at the little yellow roof at the top left of this photo, and goes down to the clock. There, there is a little landing and then the second slide sets off, going out of the shot to the right and winding all the way down to the ground. At the foot of the steps were two blue baskets holding mats to protect your bum from the rollers - needless to say, they weren't there when we snuck in in the middle of the night!

Sadly, only the bottom half of the slide is in operation now. The top half is fenced off and is being reclaimed by the vegetation. I thought it looked like something that they might discover on the island in LOST...

Anyway, K loved it and went down three times, although he only climbed the steps once...

Sunday was cooler and overcast, and H had to work at the polling station all day. K and I went into town in the morning for a show put on by the city-run daycare centres. Children from the daycares performed little songs and dances and staff did a play based on a traditional Japanese tale. It was the first time for K to go to a proper theatre with fold-down seats and all, and he seemed to really enjoy it - watching transfixed, standing up and dancing around, smiling coyly at the woman next to him and playing repeatedly with those fold-down seats...

Next Sunday it'll be my turn to work again. That'll make 4 weeks in a row that either H or I have been working. The week after that though we have a 3 day weekend with no work, and then K and I head off to the UK for the whole of August. Yeah!

***Editor's Note***

Diane's got her weekends in a muddle. Next weekend is the 3 day weekend (although she will indeed be working on the Sunday) and the following, non-working, weekend is of the common-or-garden 2 day variety. We apologise for any confusion or inconvenience that this oversight may have caused.