family

We were able to fill a short three day trip to Hokkaido with some of the interesting sites of the North Island.

Leaving Fuji in the distance

After leaving the warm morning clouds of an early autumn Tokyo, we arrive in Memanbetsu to an overcast and quite cool mid-morning. Once we collected our bags, got the rent-a-car, it was off to the World Heritage Shiretoko area situated in the North East of the Island. It was great to be heading to see some mountains, though the weather was leaving a lot to be desired. The closer we got to the Shiretoko peninsula, the heavier the rain became. Not a good sign for the few days we had on Hokkaido. It was interesting to see the Hokkaido farm houses and the large open fields of green, just a little different from the Tokyo urbanscape.

After arriving srounf Shiretoko, the rain onslaught began. When ever we attempted to venture out of the car, the heavens opened up with an even fiercer downpour. The three days that we were to spend there were looking fairly glum.

Awaking to the sight of blue skies from the hotels fourth floor was a welcome relief. So after tucking into as many of the breakfast buffet croissants it was time to head off to Shiretoko. We went to the area around the Nature Center, grabbed some information and then headed off for a short 1.5km trek from the center to the coast. It was an easy walk along some well trodded path… though made a little challenging by the fact that we had Emma in the pram.

After passing group after group of senior citizens making their way back along the trail we arrived at the coast. It was great to see the place where the cliffs met the sea. We didn’t see any wildlife, but just after we leisurely arrived back at the nature center around two hours later the walking track was closed due to the sighting of a bear in the vicinity. It would have been good to see.

To Continue with Part II… later

Emma’s growing up

The first signs of two small teeth are pushing through her lower gums and causing a lot of dribbling. It’s just the beginning, but it hasn’t stopped her making lots of little six month old noises and sounds at all hours of the day or day. Her particular favourite at the moment seems to be around 5:00am, much to the delight of both mum and dad. All signs of a healthy kid they have also heard.

She continues to keep it cute and keep everyone busy in her ever expanding little world.

Rina on a walk

Rina has developed in a very friendly little girl around the neighbourhood. She greets everyone she has met at least once with a very loud Ohayo gozaimasu (good morning). The catch is that she uses it at all hours of the day and night. She sees some man dressed in a security/safety style uniform and she’ll greet everyone of them. The ladies in the kimono shop nearby – she opens the shop door to greet them.

After missing the Golden Week crush, we made a short trip to Hakone admist the rain and the foothills of Fuji-san. The Golden Week break, one of the biggest breaks – which also means one of the most crowded breaks, where you can experience 40+km traffic jams getting out of Tokyo – the “Official National break” was full of sunshine and warm weather. We chose to go away the week after this period, to rain and cloudy weather. Though the crowds were none existant. Well except for the occasional school trip crowd.

We went to Hakone. Just a few short hours drive from Tokyo, or a few short hours train ride. In the foothills of Mt Fuji and surrounding Lake Ashino. It was good to get away. A short visit to the Hakone Open Air museum was also unexpetently timed with a visit of the Emperors brother, and the head honcho of Fuji TV. Along with visits to the Little Prince museum, where Rina was fascinated by the bubble machine that they had out the front of the place producing an endless flow of bubbles into the air.

We also managed to see the Hakone Aquarium where they had an interesting collection of aquatic life, huge “live” Hokkaido crabs, sting rays, fish from the Amazon, penguins and seals, along with the occasional bird and other mammal.

It was good to get away from Tokyo for a few short days, now only if there was more of it.

The sping breeze and weather has blown in during the past few weeks. One day raining, one sunny, one raining, also being hot and cold all the time. It’s been good to see the cherry blossoms about the place, along with all the other flowers of spring.

Rina started a new school last week – she is already ruling the roost of sorts there. This time she is not the youngest, and with all her experience doesn’t need (or possibly want) to say goodbye to Mum or Dad once she is in the school gate. Rina finds her friends and she’s off.

Emma is getting bigger all the time, nearly the ripe old age of three months now. She’s also beginning to interact more with the surrounds – if you talk to her she will goo and gaa, particularly in the morning. She also loves to show off her smiling gums. Like in the footsteps of her big sister, Emma much prefers to be moving and be out of the house. SO Mum and Dad are kept busy with her and her very active big sister all the time.

Another little girl joined the family yesterday at around 3:20 in the afternoon.

Emma is her name.

She even has her own little information page “Emma & Everything“.

Apparently the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 began on October 10 in order to avoid the Japanese stifling summer humidity. It has been touted by the Japanese media as Japan’s coming of age and being reaccepted as part of the global community, after the defeat of WWII.

October 10 is now a public holiday, and is called taiku no hi roughly translated to sports day. SO what happens now on this day, or around this day, is that all the schools have their particular sport festivals at this time. It is usually held on a Saturday or Sunday (weather permitting – as the tail end of the typhoon season can sometimes cause havoc).

Since Rina started at her pre-school recently, she was also involved in one of these days. We arrived at the sporting ground around 20 minutes before it was due to start – and were very late. It seemed like some people had camped out all morning, with their food and all… in order to get the best spot. Have to remember that one for next year. Every little event is turned into a huge deal here… and this was no exception.

There were well drilled performances for the parents by the different year groups… one with five and six year olds building their own nine person human pyramid. Running around with parachutes. The youngest class danced with their parents. There was also a tug-o-war competition between the parents of the different classes. Rina’s class lost their only outing. Everything was greeted to quite appropraite applause. Parents moved for the best photographic position.

This moves onto the next minor topic cameras… I’m sure that the Olympics, the World Cup Football final or any other major world sporting event has nothing on the ratio of cameras and video cameras that were at this event. BUT that’s something else.

Rina seemed to have a good day, though she was a little confused at times to what all the fuss was about. I think that she was glad to leave just before midday when the threatening rain finally materalised and opened up on the event. It was an interesting eye opener…. now to make sure we get the place next time.
Take care….

Well almost a month has gone since the last entry and there are things a plenty happening here, keeping us away from updating this too.

Rina’s right into her new pre-school. She asks both mum and dad every morning that she wakes, is she going today – not in those words – but more like Panda bus iko. Which basically means, lets go to the Panda bus. Panda ? You are possibly thinking. The bus is a 24 seater bus that has a panda design on the outside, hence Panda Bus. She also gets really excited when she gets close to the busstop. As soon as she sights the other kids at the bus stop, she yells out konnichi wa and tries her hardest to run there. Not very shy at all.

Today we were out and about the place… and Rina runs up to a boy around her age and yells out his name. Neither Mum nor Dad knew this kid. It turns out that she goes to the same pre-school as him and they had a little two/three year old discussion, only in the way that two/three year olds can.

Apparently it is supposed to be Autumn, however the weather is trying to show the last strains of summer. It was 30+C today. But it has definitely become a lot cooler and looks like that time of the year is slowly hitting us. Ahhh for the summer days. Though it’s been kinda good not sleeping every night with the fan on to keep the temperature down.

That’s about it for now. Until the next time, which will hopefully be a little more consistent.

Take care…..

It’s been another few hectic weeks here. We again went to Izu just over a week ago and this time we got to go swimming. It was great. We played in the water for near on two hours and the time passed faster than we imagined. Rina was terrified of the water at first, she would only sit near the shoreline of the beach and wouldn’t even dare to venture out to get her feet wet. But after doing this for about ten minutes she got the courage – and Mum’s helping hand – to go out in the water. Once she was there we couldn’t stop her. She was in and out in and out screaming with excitement. She even managed to get out in the deeper water, that was at times over Dad’s head.

 

SO we finally got our summer swim, right on the last weekend of the “official summer”. It has still been summer like here in Tokyo though, thirty plus degrees everyday. Cool biz (Japanese Only) officially ended on September 1st, now we are approaching Warm Biz (Japanese Only), which begins on October 1st. A few weeks without any biz one only has to imagine. Getting back to it, we finally got that swim in and it was a great day. Dad even managed to catch a few waves attempting to body surf and avoid the throngs of Japanese with various forms of floation devices. He had more than a few near misses and one direct hit – from a body board. Though the young lad was very apolegtic, in both English and Japanese – his friend just slapped him over the head and called him a fool. To be fair though it was not his fault… just the overcrowding on the beach.

The other BIG happenings around here is that Rina has started going to a pre-school again. She started on Sepetember 2nd. Mum took her on her first day, just to settle the nerves. Apparently that must of worked really well as Mum talked to the teacher after the day and Rina was a little shy at first but soon moved into her more forward ways. Apparently as it was the first day back after the summer break, each of the kids in the class got to go to the front of the class and say something about their summer holiday. The were given a mic to speak into. Rina, being Rina, loves using mics. She got up in front of all the other kids and told them about her summer – or something else as it was quite uncompreshensible, the teacher said. No backward steps from this girl.

The other thing is that they wear a uniform to the pre-school. SO Rina looks really grown up when she puts it on. She seems to love it as well. Mum and Dad hid the school bag and other things when she came home as she just wanted to keep wearing them and cried when she had to take them off – it’s only early days right – she’ll want to take it off asap soon enough.

 

So that’s all from here for the moment….
As always…. take care

Just arrived back from a few days down South Westish… in the heat, but not really in the sun. Both Rina and Shaun had a summer cold and that kept everything quite low key. It knocked two out of five days into sloth like, recovery mode. Though the trip back was great – if driving anywhere near the vicinity of Tokyo can actually be classed into that category.

We took the more scenic road back through the middle of Izu, taking in Shuzenji, and passing though Mishima, Susono and Gotemba, before finally hitting the mountains around Fuji and finally seeing another one of it’s five famed lakes. We headed on into the vicinty of Yamanaka-ko, which really means the Lake in the middle of the mountain(s) – your choice or not as to if you place it in a singular or plural.

While the area around the lake is quite scenic, the foreshores of the lake have been scarred with the ever present swan/coffe cup paddle boats, which you can hire for a nice 30min exercise, setting you back a cool ¬•2000. It is all rather tacky/cheezy/(add your favourite adjective) to see… and a bit of a rip off ta’ boot. I’m not really sure what the attraction is to these particular things and I’m not particulary fussed to find out.

The highlight, for Rina at least. It can get a bit testing being forced/strapped to a baby seat in the car, when you have a huge bundle of energy that is always bottomless… but anyway the highlight would have to have been stopping off at Doshi – on our way down the mountains back to the Kanto sprawl – was paddling around in a small mountain stream, with fresh -read really cold – mountain water. Rina didn’t want to leave and protested heavily when Dad was carrying her back to the car.

Summer Vacation

That’s what everyone around here says it is, but three days off work is not really a vacation – or more correctly a holiday. It is like a short breather where you can forget about the daily routine for a brief moment in time… only to be jolted back into it before you have a chance to settle into anything else. Maybe it stemmed from the thinking that anything longer and the ones doing most of the carrying about will totally foget what they were really meant to be doing.

Take care…