Hamamatsu Kite Festival - May 2013

If you are a FB friend, I already summarized this trip:  "Best Festival... Ever".

This festival is held in Hamamatsu, Japan in the Shizuoka prefecture.  Here is more information about the festival.

For us, it was an EASY two hour Shinkansen ride to reach Hamamatsu.  We stayed at Sorriso Hotel Hamamatsu - which our friend, Trish, found.  It was perfect - a block from the train station, so it was easy to get to with our luggage.  It was clean and really reasonably priced for a Japanese hotel.   Unfortunately, I didn't book a family-sized room, so we were a bit packed.  But, that was totally my fault, not the hotel's.

After we checked in on Friday, we meandered around the hotel and saw food stalls being set up, and some examples of the wooden sculpture floats set up near the mall right near the hotel.  Our friends, the Carrothers, were returning to the festival for their fourth year, so we let them tell us what we should see and do.  They did not steer us wrong.

We then caught up with them at the International Food Festival.  There was a DJ playing 70s and 80s dance rock and the kids loved running around.  We got a bit of food to eat.  When it started to get dark, we headed up to the road to find a place to watch the parade.  Hundreds?  of neighborhoods were donning matching happi coats and pulling their beautiful floats through town, while women and young girls would play music from the float.  It had such a nice community atmosphere.

After a while, we headed back to the hotel, for a not-so-restful night sleep and John and Pat headed out for a night on the town.

The next day, we headed out to the Nakatajimi Dunes.  The city provided buses for ¥500 to get out there.  As soon as we got there, we were blown away.  There were over 100 (very large - 3 meters long) kites in the air.  It was a really windy day, so there seemed to be a lot more "kite fighting" that day.  It was a little unnerving sometimes and in some areas as these large kites were coming down.  But, there were always people from the "neighborhood" who were running after the kites - to reduce damage to their kites and I think protect bystanders.

We went to the beach, but it was really windy and the sand was blowing everywhere, so it was hard to stay out there for two long.  Lola was fighting a cold and a nasty fever blister on her tongue, so she was a bit fussy.  Around lunch time, we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon rest.

After that, we ventured out again for some (more!) street food for dinner and to watch the parades.  First the parades started out as more traditional parades with bands and baton twirlers and then the floats came back out.  It was great to see little kids walking by their town elders and just thinking that these kids will be participating in these events for the next 70 years or so.

On the last day, we went back out to the dunes.  It wasn't as windy, so there wasn't as much fighting, but there were still many, many kites in the air.  We spent a lot more time at the beach and the kids had fun playing in the sand.  When we went back up to the field, we just hung out on a tarp with the Carrothers and let the kids play while we picnicked.

Soon we were back on the Shinkansen heading home.  It was an amazing trip.  We will definitely return next year!

Here are more pictures of our trip.

Maximo's Conference - KA 2013

In the Spring of each school year, students share their work and learning with their parents.  It is a nice conference time as it is totally led by students.  It's amazing what a 5 year old can share and all the amazing things they did this year!

Sharing work with Dad

Showing off his class's bean plants

Showing his class's Very Busy Spider presentation on an iPad

His "animated" spider debut

Here's the actual video made by @shigetasensei (Ms. Shigeta, the AMAZING ES Tech Teacher):

The Very Busy Spider from KA-B on Vimeo.

Maximo showing off his class's garden

A Wacky Week with Super Cute Kids

Maximo with his artwork

Handsome boy before the concert

As far as work was concerned, this week was insane.  John traveled to Beijing with the badminton team and I was busy with work with "my normal kookiness"  and two visitors this week at school.

But, as always, this was balanced with amazing kid stuff.

Thursday was absolutely insane.

It started with an Opening Ceremony for the APAC conference our school hosted for high school girls' soccer.  The younger grades acted as "Spirit Clubs" for the visiting schools.  It was Maximo's favorite thing to dress up in blue and red to support SAS - Shanghai American School and then get to ask questions to the team with his classmates.

Later in the day he had his KA concert.

Maximo & his classmates

Here are some highlights:

the day ended with his Swim class.
Actually, we ended it with Happy Meals and ice cream at McDonalds.  Because it was a long day and I was single parenting.  But it was a great, long, FULL day.

Living Things & Earthquakes

Spring is here, and even though we had a bit of a cold snap last week, the weather looks a bit more stable this week.  I hope now that the temperature will continue to rise.

We were shaken awake yesterday by a 6.0 earthquake (epicenter Awaji Island).  This is the first time we've been in this apartment for an earthquake.  The apartment building was built to withstand large quakes, so it is on rollers.  Our 11th floor apartment was rocking and rolling at 5:22 am!  I almost felt sea sick.  The kids slept through it and we're glad there was no major damage and no accompanying tsunami.

At school, Maximo is learning about living things, which has given us some interesting conversations at the dinner table.  We've been talking a lot about life and death and we have been talking about what makes something alive.  Maximo claims that:

"It grows" or
"It has a Mommy" or
"It poops"

Interestingly enough, this criteria actually do identify most things as living or not living.

Here are some pictures from him at school this week:

KA students using iPads at the Tulip Festival on Rokko Island

Maximo's KA Class

It's April!

We have a hectic month starting with O-hanami (picnicking under the cherry blossoms) and ending with Golden Week.  The weeks in between are jam-packed with a tech workshop, an overseas badminton tournament, conferences, Personal Project exhibition that John is leading, Maximo's music recital.

And the best part is, we've started counting down to our visit to the US.  We can't wait to see our families and fix up our new house!

Rokko Island Tulip Festival

Yume Club End of Year Celebration - March 2013

This was Lola's second to last "graduation ceremony" at Yume Club.  Unbeknownst to her, her BFFs will all be going to Canadian Academy in the Fall - Yuto, Kohei and Toma.  We hope Sam may still be there with her next year, though (no pressure, Taylors)!

It was amazing to see her both understand and communicate comfortably in Japanese.  She loved to sing and perform and was not shy at all.  She ran over a few times to give us hugs, but always went back to perform with her friends and senseis.

As always, the senseis made great paper decorations and props for their songs and performance.

After watching this about five times with Lola and Maximo, Maximo asked to see his video.  Thanks to YouTube, it was easy to find it!

Another Trip to Oji Zoo

We are on Spring Break this week.  It's about ten degrees too cold for us me to really enjoy being outside.  But for the children... of course we'd do anything ^_^

We went back to Oji Zoo with some friends.  It's super close and cheap, and a great place where I can manage both kids by myself.

A really great thing about Oji Zoo is that it has hundreds (don't quote me on that number) of cherry blossom (sakura) trees.  Even though it's still not peak time in Kobe for cherry blossoms (as many of you know, there is a published cherry blossom forecast), there are still many trees that are in bloom right now.  There are many different varieties, so they all bloom differently.  In many places, including Rokko Island, the sakura trees were planted in a very well thought out way, so different areas have different things blooming for maximum nature enjoyment/viewing.

We had our first picnic of the season under the warm sun and cherry blossoms.

The kids were great and had a fantastic time.  Maximo fell asleep sitting up on the train ride home:

And here's the start of the Spring 2013 photo album.

Hey... Stretchy Lady

We are enjoying Spring Break right now.  This is giving me a few extra minutes to enjoy our coffee while the kids watch cartoons in the morning.  I need to spend time this vacation, organizing stuff: winter clothes and photos being most important.

I hope to post a few times this vacation, but I'm now keeping up 4 (I know, this is crazy) blogs.

The kids love to dance.

You'll often here Lola singing, "Shake your bum bum, shake your bum bum, share your bum" (to Ricky Martin's "Shake Your Bon, Bon" tune).  While shaking her rear end  - super cute now... maybe not so super cute when she's 13.

You'll also hear Lola asking for "A.. A... A... A..." or Maximo asking for "Woopum Ganghem Style".

Here it is.  My favorite part is where Maximo is trying to replicate the elevator scene with Lola.

Here's the real one for reference:

Celebrating Peru in Japan

As most of you know, there are quite a few teachers at Canadian Academy who once worked at our former school, Colegio Roosevelt - the American School in Lima, Peru.  Some of them we worked with before, some worked there before our time.  Among us all there is only one true Peruvian, Carlota, but we all have Peru in our hearts.

Cusqueña beiru and a pisco sour

Carlota introduced us all to a Peruvian restaurant last weekend, called El Trujillanito in Fukae, in Kobe, Japan, which is only a few train stops away from us on Rokko Island.   I didn't want to get my hopes up and just figured it would be a nice night out with a group of friends, especially since Aimee will be leaving us in a couple of weeks.

We were pleasantly surprised.  Although the restaurant was small and the kitchen was made up of a few hot plates and jammed into a bar area of the restaurant, the food was delicious and brought us back to a very special time in our lives.

Since we knew we would be ordering and sharing a lot, we sent our orders to the restaurant on Thursday.  From the clams to the aji de gallina, to the roasted chicken to the lomo saltado to the ceviche right down to the Pisco Sours, everything tasted like it was straight out of Peru and it was DELICIOUS!

Lomo Saltado

Ceviche

 We will definitely be returning to El Trujillanito with our little peruano and japonesa.

Living in Japan Outing: Oji Zoo

Maximo and Anya talking about something big

John had a badminton tournament with his students all day Saturday, so I decided to take the kids out for the day.  I find it a lot easier (usually) than taking them around island or taking them to run errands with me all day.  Despite the bit of pollution blowing in from China, it was GORGEOUS outside.  It was at least 60 degrees F and the sun was shining.

Lola and Sam, walking around hand-in-hand
when we didn't have them strapped into strollers

It's probably the easiest "kid" place for us to access off Rokko Island, as it's only a few stops away.  The Taylors joined us and we checked out the animals, had lunch, rode a couple of rides, then checked out a few more animals.

Maximo and Anya on the swings

It seems like a fairly humane zoo and the animals look healthy.  The cost is only ¥600 per adult (kids middle school age and under are free) so it was truly a bargin, even after buy lunch and a few ride tickets.

Anya and Maximo on the slide

It's supposed to be a "place to go" during cherry blossom season, and you could see the buds on so many trees while we were there.  I'm sure it's so packed full of people, it probably wouldn't be that enjoyable for us, wielding two kids and a stroller.

Max and Anya excited for the gorilla stamp