Mum in Japan

Mum got here finally, after a long tiring flight and a major drama at Auckland airport when she lost her passport! It slipped out of its cover when she was shopping, and she nearly missed her flight. Luckily it was found in time!
Kanji went alone to the airport to pick her up, and they arrived back here by 11am. We had her favorite champon noodles for lunch, went to the park and then came home so she could put her feet up for a few hours, since she'd blown up like a balloon after all that flying and stress! We went out again in the evening with Kanji's mum to a barbecue restaurant, followed by green tea and ice cream at Baachan's.

Yesterday the kids were off from school for a public holiday, so we decided to go on a picnic. We spent the morning shopping - the most unproductive shopping trip I think I've been on, since we didn't get even one of the half dozen or so items we needed. We did, however, get tons of other stuff we don't need.

We came home and cooked a bacon and egg pie and made some sandwiches, then went up the mountain for the picnic. It was much cooler up there, with a nice breeze which made it much more like a NZ summer. It was very hot on Sunday, over 30 degrees, so Mum was really feeling it. Luckily just after our picnic finished, a thunder storm came over, so last night and this morning are much cooler.

Mum cooked a delicious chicken salad - a little different from the NZ version, I gather, since we could not get red wine vinegar or smoked chicken, but delicoius all the same. Today we are going to try to do the shopping again, and I hope we can make it to the onsen this afternoon!