Farewell Party

Convention Day Three

Convention Day Two

Board Meeting

Last Minute Preparation

Kindies

Amy is doing...mmm...okay. She started with a bang but the noveltly appears to have worn off a bit. The big class does not do much for her need to be the leader. She is used to being the boss, the strongest personality in the class. She is eating up her lunches very well, hopefully because she is hungry, not because she feels she has to, though I think there is a bit of that in there, as she complained to me about giving her too much rice, and sometimes moans about the vegetables.

She HATES the afternoon nap, and I can only sympathize with her. Even if I have a rest after lunch, it's only for half an hour. And she has to be there for at least an hour, or more. And they won't let her talk, or read. She sometimes feels a bit lost with all the kids, she hasn't quite made her friends yet, still swapping around, and says that the kids won't play with her. I suspect she is trying to dictate the terms of the game like she does with Lena and her other friends, but the kids at kindy don't see any reason to stay and get nagged when they could be off doing other things! Poor Amy, she'll adjust, I suppose.

Meanwhile Lena is in kindy heaven. She volunteered the other day, not even in response to a question, that she had a lovely day at kindy today. When I drop her off, she runs inside with barely a backward glance, maybe calling out 'see ya' to me as she goes. When I ask her what she did, she almost always answers by telling me the songs she sang, so guess what she likes best? She is also doing well with her lunches, and I am getting into the swing of preparing them. She has sandwiches twice, a Japanese O-bento twice (rice, meat, veges, egg, fruit) and on Thursday I order her a fried chicken and rice-balls O-bento from a shop.

Sudden English Lesson

I must be getting a bit ahead of myself, as I totally forgot about a lesson I had scheduled today! Or rather, the English playgroup for Amy and her friends from Keio Academy. There I was, settling in for a relaxed afternoon, just checking the email before going out to pick up Amy, and the doorbell rang. I still didn't click, and Lena raced ahead to answer the door as she always does (she considers it her job, and gets extremely annoyed if anyone else tries to open it!) and there stood Mayumi and Maika. I still didn't click, and thought they had just come to drop something off, but they started to come in, and I realized my mistake - because I had had the Friday group scheduled (but cancelled) only a few days ago, I kind of thought that that must be it for a week, but now that I think about it, I do recall realizing that alternating Tuesdays and Fridays does mean that a Tuesday group follows on very quickly from a Friday.

Oh well, I recovered - I do have a lot of resources so it was not too challenging. We played Fish using the Dr Seuss 'one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish' cards the Greenwoods got for one of my kids a few years ago, and followed it with the Living Books CDrom version of The Cat in The Hat.

Amy's swimming lesson

My legs feel like I climbed ten mountains yesterday instead of just two. Must have been all that walking backwards to help them down, and careful stepping to help them keep their balance. Kanji is fine, but reckons he will feel it tomorrow. Nevertheless I went swimming, just a gentle 600, including 100 breaststroke, which I haven't done for ages.

Amy had her last 5:30 swimming lesson today, as of next month we are switching to 4:20. We only joined the 5:30 group so she could be with her kindy friends, who have now both left. It will be sad for Lena - who has made friends with a boy her age, another younger sibling forced to watch boring swimming for an hour. They both bring toys and play together.

But I will be glad to see the back of the annoying kid in Amy's class who teases us for speaking English! It was okay at the beginning, and I was patient, friendly and talked to her in Japanese, explained where I was from, and taught her a few English words. This method usually works to get bamboozled kids used to me. But this girl just wouldn't let up, mockingly repeating what we said, or going on about how she can't understand, and why do we speak English, and where do I live, and where am I from etc, etc, etc, so that last week, Amy finally whispered conspiratorially in my ear 'Don't speak English!'. She knew what would come if she did. And I don't want Amy to be ashamed of speaking English

The main reason we are changing is because the time is too late, I prefer the earlier time, then I can drive straight from kindy to swimming, then go home for tea, but I must admit an added extra is to say sayonara to that little pest.

Family Day Out

Kanji had Sunday off so we decided to do something. He mentioned a restaurant in Yamakuni that he had heard of that apparently had really great chicken - half a bird on a stick or something. So we drove the half hour to Yamakuni to try it out. (Well, it was an hour after we suddenly decided to go in and buy my train tickets for Friday, then go home to get the cameras!).

First of all check out Lena's nice clean teeth!

We didn't have the famous chicken. After coming in and sitting down, we realized we were supposed to buy tickets for a dish instead of waiting for service. So Kanji went back to get the tickets. We decided on a noodle and chicken set for the girls, and Kanji chose mushroom noodles, because, as he said, he was afraid that we would have 'eyes bigger than stomach' (he's never forgotten that picturesque English idiom). I decided someone had to order the special skewered chicken, which came in a set with soup, a big rice ball, pickles and raw jellyfish. But we were told it would take half an hour, and I just knew the kids would not be able to handle that and my meal would be punctuated by yelling at them to sit down and shut up. So I went back to the ticket machine and this time bought a fried fish set - only to find that too, would take 30 minutes. I was getting very annoyed by now - it seemed stupid to drive half an hour to go to a restaurant and then not get what you went there for. But I would not enjoy it, so I chose 'fox noodles' which is noodles topped with fried tofu skins. As it was, the girls didn't eat much chicken, so I had theirs, which was delicious.

Kanji had mentioned the temple Rakanji as we were driving, and during lunch we decided to visit it. It is set on a small mountain and is famous for having 500 stone buddhas. We drove, following signs, and got to a small car park, with a track nearby so we parked and started climbing. It was a rough climb - the path was somewhat overgrown and strewn with leaves, and there were some very steep steps. I held Amy's hand while Kanji alternately carried Lena and held her hand. We arrived at a broken, tumble down building set into the cliff, and almost falling out of it. We continued along the path, and ended up on top of the hill, where another temple was set into the cliff wall.

Here are Kanji and Amy standing at the edge of the shelf the temple was set upon. The path was no wider than this all along (photo is taken from the vantage point in the next photo). We had to squeeze under the support poles to get to where we are in this photo

Me and Lena on top of the steps above Kanji and Amy, from where I took the previous photo. The ridge was very narrow, so just behind me is a steep valley. The path actually continued around the edge - with a chain to hold on to! Not with the kids, thank you!

And then, after we gingerly picked our way down again, we decided to take a look through a tunnel going under the hill - and found the real Rakanji. We had just climbed an out-building, which is why the whole thing was in such a bad state of repair. There was a ski-lift on the real mountain, but we took the stairs. It took about 20 minutes, and we found two snails, and a big red spider on the way. There were lots of interesting statues and memorials on the way up.

The temple consisted of several buildings built under overhangs and in caves, with steps carved out of the rock, or in some places, built with stone. The gateway above the girls leads to the main areas.

The main temple building is about 80 years old, the one before it having been destroyed in a fire. It's set right into the cliff and has a large terrace with an overhanging balcony. There is even a house next door where the priest lives. It also has a carp pond, which used to have a waterfull but which has now dried up. Amy and Lena are disrupting a guided tour here.

Some of the 500 stone buddhas in the grotto. All of them are different - with some really original and individual ones. They are modelled on real people, who donated the statue.

Aonodomon

We came back down much more quickly, of course, much to the suprise of some of the people who had been at the top with us, and who came down the lift, but who only beat us down by a few seconds. We were given tea by the ladies in the souvenir shop, and interesting iriko and yuzu blend - iriko is dried fish and yuzu is a type of citrus. It tasted like soup and was very refreshing after the climb. We bought ice creams then moved on.

We went through Aonodomon, a local 'sight'. It's a cliff hard by a river with a tunnel carved out of the cliff to enable travellers to pass by without having to climb the mountain. In the past, many people were killed in accidents passing over the mountain with pack horses and the like. Then a man who had once been a soldier and had killed a lot of people, suddenly had a change of heart and became a priest. In penance for his many sins, he carved the tunnel by hand to save the lives of the travellers.

Carp feeding frenzy. The river by the cliff is teeming with carp. They have built a special area where you can feed them. Just our luck, a friend came along with some fish food and bread she had bought, and we all fed them. They thrashed about, climbed on each others' backs, and when they saw us approaching the water, then lifted their heads out and opened their mouths. Yes, I tried to throw food in, No, I didn't suceed

Onsen

We were very tired by now and more than ready for the hot springs. I wanted to go to Kanairo onsen, which is on Mt Hachimen in Sanko village. It's very popular in Nakatsu, but I haven't been there yet. I felt like I was missing out. It's quite new. We decided to get a family bath, so we could all go in together. We got a tiny room with a toilet and changing area, and what was basically a garden with a tub in one corner. It was just fabulous having a long soak with a view of the mountain. The water was just hot enough to satisfy us, but not too hot for the kids, like many onsens are.

Pizza for dinner - third time lucky! First we tried the onsen restaurant. We arrived at 4:40, and it opened at 5:00. The kids were happy in the garden, so initially we decided to wait, despite my being a bit concerned about it getting cold. We were hot from the bath and couldn't really tell the temperature. Then Kanji looked in the brochure and realized that the dinner fee was 5000, so we scrapped that idea and decided to go to Kisha Poppo, the train restaurant. But that too was closed for repairs! So we decided on the pizza place in Youme Town near home, where the kids had a spaghetti kids' set and me and Kanji shared a set menu consisting of salad, a drink, pasta, pizza and dessert. Here I am with my three-mushroom and bacon pizza