Summery summary

Ah, September 1st. And in keeping with Japan's habit of matching its weather perfectly to the calendar, it has been cool and cloudy today. I know we'll have more hot weather before autumn truly begins, but it was a welcome respite today.

 

K's kindergarten started on Wednesday, although he's on half days until Tuesday. And of course, 'half days' means '2 hours after you dropped him off'. Still, this all points to summer winding down, and I thought I'd mention a few things from August which may otherwise drop through the blogging cracks.

 

Firstly, Katherine (and, briefly, her friend Dani) came to see us. K was very excited and was easily persuaded to clear up all his train tracks since it was 'for Katherine'. We (big K and I) had a good night out with Cian, and little K enjoyed playing his Olympic board game:

 

We didn't spend much time outside over the summer holidays, and completely failed to get to the beach. We did manage a couple of little park outings though, and even took the tricycle with us once. K tried his best to make a get-away, but T caught him and had a go too...

In term time T goes to nursery every Friday, while I teach at the university. He's very happy there and waves me off without complaint, and I am keen to keep it that way. So even though it wasn't strictly necessary, he's been going there once a week though the holidays too, to maintain the momentum. On one day, I gave a speech on the UK at an old people's home, and K spent the day at Daisen with his old English-language pre-school. For the last 3 weeks though, K and I have had a day to spend together and do Big Boy Things.

K is still very keen on trains, so we went for a little ride one week. We simply took the branch line from the station nearest our house to one near the centre of town, walked through town stopping for lunch on the way and then got the train home again. He. Loved. It.

Waiting expectantly

Riding the train

 Another day I took him to a play area in a department store, which he sees every time he goes swimming and which I've been promising to take him to since, well, he started going swimming. It's a 3 floored structure with a ball pool and slide at the bottom and a 2 floored playhouse above it. Can you spot K here, playing the piano right at the top?

It's a good thing I took him there when I did, because we then discovered that it was closing down on August 31st. Can you imagine the reaction if I'd finally agreed to let him play there only to discover that it had gone? Eek.

Other bits and pieces.... a day at Hiruzen amusement park back in July, a fair bit of Olympic watching and related activities, 2 visits to the paddling pool at the mother and toddler group, an afternoon with Lisa and Jason and his family, and the dressing-up box (and yes, K does have gloves on his feet as well as his hands here).

Oh, and last week was a big one - K was ring-bearer at Vivian and Noboru's wedding!

And finally, a few (shock, horror), non-child-based items. The perpetually lucky H won a ham gift set and the even luckier me got to share it with him. Hmmm, bacon...

I had a couple of evenings at the beer garden, a lunch with some of the new English teachers in town, taco night hosted by James and a great day out at the Daisen Beer Festival. Cheers!