Hot Pool

We had a fantastic day at the pool in Usa.

We're speckled red and white, have hair like string, are flat out exhausted and my left ear is still full of water. But now I feel like the summer holidays have really started and the fun has just begun!

We started out in the Nagare pool - I have no idea if there is a word for this in English! It's the narrow, long, river-like pool in the picture above, and the water is propelled round and round the pool, so that if you hop in with some kind of flotation device, you can just relax and get gently pushed around the pool.

I got in with Erica in her baby-ring (a smaller ring inside a large outer ring, and a harness underneath so she doesn't slip through) and we went round and round and round until we got bored then I sent her back to the baby pool with Daddy, while me, Amy and Lena went for the waterslides.

There are two, which Amy and Lena dubbed the long one and the short one, though I don't think there was really much difference. I was able to catch up with Amy, with a bit of pushing off the sides, but we couldn't catch Lena, who shot ahead of us both. It was great fun, but the stairs nearly killed me. I took a break with Erica in the baby pool while Kanji had a go on the slides.

Every hour for ten minutes everyone has to get out of the pool while they clean it. I'm not sure what they do, check the chemical level I suppose, but I've seen them doing that while people are swimming. Check for drowned persons? I don't know. But it was a good sign that it was lunch time, so we ate up curry, okonomiyaki, takoyaki and soggy french fries.

After lunch I left Kanji with the bub again and we went to the deep pool, where I taught my kids more swimming in 40 minutes than their damn swimming school has taught them in four years. I taught them to dive and do back flips and handstands. Hence the water on the ear!

We left for home just a little too late, and Erica was past the point of endurance, so we were treated to a screaming match on the way home. Luckily Amy and Lena were too tired to argue on the way home!

Oh, and why the HOT pool? After lunch the water in the waterslide was, no kidding, hot! It was like having a shower all the way down then falling into a bath at the end. After that, we didn't need to stop at the onsen on the way home.