The Family Boyd

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…

With summer right upon us here in Tokyo and the weather hitting a sweltering 35C+ for the better part of the last week or so, we’ve been able to enjoy a few of the summer festivals about the place. Summer always seems to be so lively with all the fireworks and local festivals that occur.

We’re looking forward to a few days of our own summer holiday from this coming Saturday. Heading down to Izu peninsula once more, with millions of others no doubt. To enjoy a few days away from the heat of Tokyo and take in the ocean air.

As for the changes, which are happening around here. We’ll have another little member join our family soon. The little one is due to arrive sometime in early February next year. I’m sure that there’ll be another chance to document this little one as much as we’ve managed to do for Rina up to this stage.

The other big change that has already occured, is a big job change. No longer am I working as an English teacher, but I’ve moved in a mutli-facet role of web, video, photography, design, service and a host of other jobs for a new place. A chance was presented to me and I jumped at it as I was looking for something new. While it’s all new and interesting, there are a few quite possibly more interesting things on the road ahead with the job. All will come to light as it happens. Though I have managed to meet the CEO of DaimlerChrysler (think Mercedes), here in Japan. We interviewed him for an upcoming publication of “Club Life”. This executive magazine which is really exclusive. We were given the grand tour of the Maybach, a car in the same league as the Rolls Royce. It costs about ¬•55 Million, which is more money than I can imagine. I put it in perspective and I’d have to work for the next twenty five years, not spend a cent, not have any tax taken out of my salalry and maybe I’d be able to afford one of these. In other words a total excess. Though I did manage to see an actual one on the streets a few days after we did the interview. Still thought it was nothing special. Beauty in the eye of the bank balance.

So other than that alls well here at the Japan Boyd household.

Take care….

A further addition to the bhoid range of sites. This one is an attempt to be a more general family one with the other two focussing on other things.

Or it’s just another excue to write some more words that somebody may of may not read. More likely the latter than the former it would come down to.

So have a look around… there is also a Japanese site, if your up for reading some Nihongo… it’s something that we have want to add to the site for a long while… but have been a little slack in doing so. There a few links to some other places – which you’d expect right… that’s what this world weird web thing is all about right.

Take care…