Happy Birthday, Miki!

We celebrated Miki's 4th birthday last weekend with a party for 10 of the students from her pre-school class. Ericka organized the whole thing, I made invites on the computer and, as per our suggestion, her friends brought gifts of flowers. Our apartment is now an assortment of white and pink roses and tulips. Miki absolutely loves the flowers and has begun to collect the various petals as they fall off.

It should note that we did not hold the party in our apartment, but rather rented a large, common (tatami) area on the 1st floor. As for decorations, the tables were covered in newsprint paper and crayons and stickers were provided for artistic impulses. Ericka said that she couldn't have decorated better; the kids made it look very festive indeed!

As for the cakes, there were 4 Milky Cake cream rolls, courtesy of a local pastry shop. We added blueberries, strawberries, a few raspberries and 1 chocolate swirl per child. Of course Miki loved it and wanted more.

We sang happy birthday in English and then Ericka broke into a spontaneous "head, shoulders, knees and toes" song and then read from a new book called, "My Heart Is Like A Zoo". Even after the aforementioned sugar injection, the kids were very keen on the book and listened intently to every word.

As our 2 hour party was winding down it began to snow. The kids and moms left in very high spirits and by 6pm that evening Ericka and I were exhausted. Needless to say, Miki was excited long into the evening but slept happily.

I have a feeling that she will remember this birthday bash for a very long time.

The Anpanman Museum

Earlier this year we took a day-trip to the city of Yokohama (you can read that particular posting below somewhere...) and the famed Anpanman Museum.

Anpanman is a legendary character here in Japan. He's actually one character (a sweet, red bean-filled pastry personified) but the whole animated series is referred to as Anpanman. Anyway, the animated stories began in 1968 and it's been going strong ever since. In fact, I think Anpanman made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the sheer number of different characters in a single animated franchise. Something like 1,700 characters have appeared over the years.

Anyway, the Anpanman Museum is in Yokohama and Ericka took Miki to check it out while I strolled around in the vicinity with a sleeping Sam.

M & S

Sam & her mug shot, Miki, her flowers & the much coveted Cheerios from the Grandparents.

Zzzzz...

Sleeping on the train.

Temaki Sushi

Hungry? Make it yourself.

Hence the title, "hand-made" sushi.

Last Thursday was a national holiday in Japan (National Foundation Day) and our good friends Nobu & Mihoko invited us and another lovely friend over for a do-it-yourself sushi party..

In addition to Miki's 4th birthday, the event also happened to coincide (early by a week, but close enough!) with Kumika's. Happy Birthday, Kumika-chan! Plenty of reason to celebrate with sushi, sake & cake.

Of course Sam & Haruka had fun playing together and Miki tried to play big sister to both of them.

Nobu and I polished off (no pun intended) 2 bottles of sake (really, they weren't that big, but they were tasty!) which made for our evening train-ride home in the pouring rain quite interesting.

Thank you once again, Nobu & Mihoko for having us over and for all the wonderful food. Let's do it again soon!

Gochisosamadeshita...

Yuki daruma

That's how they say "snowman" in Japanese.

Late yesterday afternoon the sky turned a cold grey and then it started to rain. However, towards evening it turned to snow and by 10pm it was really coming down.

By morning there was about 4 inches on the ground. A bit before 9am I headed out with both girls to bring Miki to school. Pushing the stroller thru the melting slush was no easy task since the city probably doesn't even own a snowplow, let alone something to clear the sidewalks with!

Of course Miki loved it. Here are a few photos from our walk home from school.

The Snowy World

Finally. These photos have been sitting on my desk top for weeks.

In early January the entire 7th grade took a 3-night, 4-day excursion to Nagano prefecture for Ski School. No kidding, that's how it translates directly and it's something the school has been doing for at least the past 20 years. Of course not all grades can participate; 4th, 5th and 7th grades only and usually sometime in January or February. Because I'm teaching the 7th grade I was able to go this year. My second time, in fact. I went once about 10 years ago when we were teaching at this school the first time around.

Anyway... we departed at the crack of dawn from school grounds in 7 tour buses. The original plan had us going by shinkansen (bullet train) but due to some new Japan Railways train rules, no single group or organization is allowed to purchase more than 100 tickets. Something like that. And as we had 256 students plus staff we quickly exceeded their limits so tour bus it was. Six long hours on the bus with 32 jr. high students, including some students from Hawaii as part of a sister school exchange & homestay program (the same school President Obama once attended as a youth). In fact, as the resident English speaker I was given the job of "taking care" of these guests from Hawaii. It was a real eye-opener for me as I haven't been around native English speaking teenagers in, well, ever! It was nice to be able to hold a fluent conversation with them and not have to "handicap" my vocabulary to ensure I'm understood. You get the idea.

I'm just going to wrap up here and put it all in a nutshell for you. The photos help tell the story.

It was snowing when we arrived and of the 4 days only 1 day was absolutely clear and crisp. Otherwise it was cold, windy and snowy. The food was good (a little short on the veggies) and the hot spring bath was splendid. As this was ski school and I haven't been on skiis since high school (I prefer snowboarding by far), I was a bit worried but much to my surprise and satisfaction, skiing is like riding a bike: once you learn you never forget and I had fun! Of course it took 1/2 a day to re-figure it out again but once I did I honestly enjoyed myself.

If I could sum it all up in 1 sentence?

I deeply and truly miss snow and snowy environments and I hope to one day share all that is the "snowy world" with my daughters.