Maia's Birthday

Well, I know the idea of this is that you post things right after they happen and so on, but life is hectic. And Maia has gotten interested in typing.

Lovely Miss Maia had her first birthday back in October. She started walking at age one year one day (now she's on the run).



Sam had been reading a picture book with a great picture of a birthday cake covered with fruit, including melon slices, grapes, and so on. We could not find that one, though maybe we'll find something like that for his birthday. I'm thinking we'll order something for him from the nice bakery near his bus stop where he waits to come home from Youchien. One day he took off his backpack and left it near their shop. We thought it had been left on the bus and so explored that option for awhile, and then called the shop using the number on one of the many point cards they have given us for our previous business. Sure enough when they went outside, now in the dark, to look it was still there. A similarly impressive lost and found experience was when I dropped my Foreigner Registration Card, which one is supposed to carry at all times and takes a month to get, in a taxi. I had not chatted with the driver at all, but he came to my office building where he had dropped me off and found me. He even bowed (as did I). In NYC I'm sure you would hand him a wad of of bills, but this would be considered rude here, implying he would only do things like that for monetary reward.

Anyway, after taking her for an outing to the Kitano Tenmangu flea market we shopped for some cake with fruit on it. I knew there was a Fujiya bakery near the station, and Fujiya is a classic Tokyo store that helped to popularize the ubiquitous strawberry cream cakes that are usually excellent. We picked out a few individual cakes of that sort and let her at it.



I only learned later that Fujiya is a bit in the dumps after a scandal last year over using expired cream and allowing too much bacteria in their cakes. Given what Maia did to it, I'm sure there was new bacteria in it anyway, but I felt rather guilty.



We got a really classy Christmas cake more recently.

Sam's Turning Japanese

Evidence:

When asked whether he would like pizza or oden for dinner he said oden. Oden is manufactured fish balls (sort of like fake crab meat, but not exactly), hard boiled eggs, and root vegetables simmered in Japanese stock. In fact, I think it's quite yummy with mustard, but still not what you would expect.



He also said that a curry donut (fried bread filled with sweet curry stew) was super delicious.



He makes lots of sentences in Japanese that reflect his quirky way of thinking. Such as "Mama wa shimauma da. Shimauma daisuki yo!" (Mama, you're a zebra. I love you zebra!)

Family and Tranquility

Today was the usual hectic morning getting out of the house. This is what I have to have installed (beyond me just being dressed and vaguely presentable) if I am taking them both:

Sam to wear: white underpants and socks, uniform shorts, short or long-sleeve uniform dress shirt, uniform jacket with name tag attached (since he tried to get lost in the bathroom on a museum field trip this is really important), white shoes put on as we are leaving, hat, plus any other items like an extra coat if needed for warmth or rain.

Sam to carry: backpack with items that have been washed overnight including utensil set, place mat, cup in a little baggy, towel, handkerchief, play uniform shirt(s), shorts, extra underwear and shorts for accidents. On Fridays a lunch. And sometimes other items like forms, smock or hat that needed washing, picture books that need returning (one is borrowed each Thursday and returned with a short report from me on Monday), etc.

Maia to wear: regular clothing and shoes. Backpack for wearing HER.
Maia to bring: refresh in changes of clothing, a cup with a drink (here usually barley tea, but water is OK), lunch and snack, notebook with a report of her sleeping times and morning body temperature, washcloths, and on Monday a small futon which has been aired over the weekend. And if I want to be kind to her caregivers, her beloved pacifier.

Then I walk with all this, plus whatever I need for my own work, on to the bus. We get priority seating with me having a baby attached. They have a nice easy to understand sticker with iconic figures of pregnant lady, lady carrying baby, elderly person, handicapped person. Maia always points at this sticker identifying which one we are (and also which ones the ladies cooing at her are). What I'm looking forward to is when she points to it when a sturdy high school student is sitting there... We take the bus for about 7 minutes and then walk of a similar length to Sam's school. Then Maia and I get back on a bus to go to Kyoto U. which takes about 40 minutes, sometimes longer if it is busy with tourists. I'm engaged in this launching activity from about 7AM to 10AM, at least on the days when I take both kids. Right now my husband's not here, so I've been doing it multiple days in a row.

Anyway, this is rather hard on the body, and the 20 minutes before we leave is rather hectic, involving repeated yelling of phrases like "put on your shoes" and "you CAN do it yourself!" All of this is certainly familiar territory for parents. I breath a huge sigh of relief when it is over.

Today my class involved going to see Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's gravesite at Honen'in Temple off the Philosopher's Trail. Compared to other temples I've been to in Kyoto recently this place was extremely quiet and calming (even with 12 students in tow who were pretty excited about the election results streaming into their cell phones.



It was a lovely spot to learn of Obama's victory in the election. Much better than sitting bleary-eyed on a the sofa looking at color-coded maps. ). We're reading Tanizaki's novels these past weeks, so it seemed like a good change of pace to hold class there. It's a peaceful site, and lovely grave. The previous day when I was scoping it out, a woman at a nearby cafe said she had modeled her own husband's grave on Tanizaki's though she was just going to see Tanizaki's in person for the first time. The grave site was of Tanizaki's design and includes a cherry tree he planted and two stones engraved based on his calligraphy. The characters are Jaku and Ie. Jaku means silence or tranquility, and I believe can also indicate entry to nirvana. Ie means family. Tanizaki plays with many pairs in his novels - east/west; kansai/kanto; man/woman, all of which get interestingly confused along the way. I am not sure of Tanizaki's intention with this pairing, but if they are opposite extremes I felt a bit like I was living it over the course of my day. But when I finish this and go sleep with them (minus any Sarah Palin-becomes-president midnight panic attacks!) it might all come together again.

Undokai

Well the combination of trauma and extreme cuteness kept me silent on this one for one week but here goes.

From primary schools on up schools in Japan almost universally have an undokai - I'll translate that loosely as a fitness extravaganza in the fall. This is where you have your three-legged races and so on, but this is so much more ambitious. Yochien undokai are pretty amazing. These teachers somehow manage to teach groups of 15-20 3-6 year olds to perform dances, make pyramids, race, walk on stilts, and stay with their group for about six hours! For the 3-4 year olds it is less ambitious, but at Sam's school they did a dance, running down the field, a simple obstacle course (go under a tarp, ride a ride on toy, put on a swimming donut, and run to the teacher), parent-child relay, throwing some balls, and then all the various lining up and sitting with their class all day. All the kids attempted all of this and were generally good sports on an 80 degree day.

Well, except Sam. He spent most of the day running off on his own or throwing a tantrum while people attempted to get him involved. He had been quite enjoying the practice leading up to this and showed us various gymnastic moves he was learning - pretty impressive. But some combination of the bright sun (it was unusually hot for October), mobs of people, and just plain stubbornness kept him from enjoying it much that day. I was impressed with how patient the teachers were. I was thinking he was pretty much a lost cause for the day, but a teacher's assistant who has been working with him a lot and his regular teacher when she could get a moment free just kept working to involve him and get him interested. This worked enough to get him into the obstacle course which he had enjoyed in rehearsal.



And he was willing to do the parent child relay with me. We had fun with that.



Daddy was roped into tug-of-war. They seemed to think they would win by having the tall foreigner. But one of the other team seemed to have the really young fathers (in red) who were pretty daunting and did in all the 30+ fathers on the other team.




Anyway, we felt really bad for the teachers who did everything they could to get him to enjoy the experience. Most of the kids really do seem to be having a great time doing all this stuff, and I expect if we were here a year from now he'd be joining in full steam ahead. While we were a bit upset by Sam being so difficult, all the other parents and teachers were very encouraging and supportive of him. The management of these group activities always seems to have built in a strong kids will be kids attitude - kids will do their own thing but they also really like structure and to show off sometimes. I thought the undokai gave most of the kids a chance to learn something new through the complex but coherent dances and tasks in a supportive environment and show it off to themselves and parents.

Walking Home

On most days we do the commute to Sam's yochien by bus. We take a bus from our corner, ride it for about 10 minutes, and walk about five minutes on the other end. Of course with a wandering three year old on a busy street, especially in bright sun or pouring rain, the walking part can be interminable, but it is not bad in part because the buses run on schedule and are frequent. Most of his classmates live a bit closer and commute riding on their mothers' bicycles (in seats) - most children wear helmets, no parents wear helmets. About 10% seem to use cars. In my shoes, most of the mothers would use bikes, but those who grew up in this city have been biking for their whole lives on these narrow and busy streets and so are not quite as nervous about it as we have been. Several carry two children on the bike, with a seat installed front and back. I haven't installed even one seat yet though I did buy two children's helmet and brought my own from home.

By foot it is only about 20 minutes for an adult, so sometimes we use our double stroller and walk both ways, usually with at least one child catching a nap. Last Friday I did this and took some photos along the way. They give a sense of some of the things one sees on a random walk in Kyoto.

Here's Sam walking up the path to school...



OK, his nursery school is not that imposing. This is really the center of the Honganji (Nishi Honganji) complex, the part where most of the tourists go. We made a bit of a pilgrimage on the way home. Sam wanted to go up inside and that would be fine, but there seemed to be rather somber praying going on in the hall, so I lured him back out and took a photo by the huge door. (He's just gotten a big haircut and so is a bit puzzled by being able to find his own ear.)



Heading out you can see the other side of Horikawa Street, most buildings on which are also connected to Honganji. Here are more modern buildings for the institution, including this large hall. The banners are about liberation from discrimination



Crossing into a smaller side street, we passed a place that manufactures o-mikoshi, or portable shrines used in Shinto festivals. This is not a museum - you can see boxes in back for shipping them off. I helped carry one of these in the mid-1990s at the Sanja Matsuri in Tokyo. It was only the smaller neighborhood shrine, but I ended up with some pretty impressive bruises and sore muscles.



I never noticed it before, but Maia seems to have her own building on Nishinotoin Street. And it has nice pink lettering.



I turned into a smaller side street because I had read that there was a good eel shop. I thought maybe I would buy some prepared eel - this would make a quick dinner together with pickles and rice. But there was a huge crowd in front of the eel place, and they were filming something there. In this photo a car is blocking it, but the shop and the one next to it seemed to be dressed up to look extra quaint. I'll have to go back for eel some other time.



Nearby there is the Kandaijin Shrine. I never see much tourist traffic here - it is one of the many, many, many rather significant shrines that does not stand out in a city with so many such places. The plaque says that Sugawara no Michizane, a great Heian Period scholar, was first bathed in water from here, and so this spot was devoted to him and is turned to by aspiring students.



Here's a typical moderate older house plot in the area.



A restaurant with an interesting name and very old Toyota (I think) in front.



A great idea for a cafe - get a pet shampoo and have crepes and organic coffee. Or just sit with your dog while you have a coffee. They also advertise "Dog Aromatherapy" "Dog Reflexology" and "French Goods." What dog owner could ask for more?





Turning off the busy street, here's a sign for our alley



and a peaceful look at one leg of our Z-shaped street.



I wish I could do this every day, but usually I'm dashing back and forth from the other side of Kyoto on some crowded bus...

We have been able to make some arrangements to help out with Maia's care, and I learned some more about Japanese daycare in the process. Through web searches, and even a PDF document on the Kyoto municipal website, I found a number of small daycare centers that are outside the system run by the Welfare Office. These might be considered unlicensed , or as an article about them calls them "unapproved"(muninka/ninkagai). Some places are in this category because they don't pass certain standards, but most because they want to operate outside the public system and provide services that the "approved" centers do not. Daycare operated by a company would also fall in this category, as they determine their own admissions and do not accept kids via the welfare office application system. Some parents don't qualify for the public daycare system if they are not both working or studying full time, and they may use this as an alternative. There is not a strong tradition of babysitting here either, so you can not usually hire a local high school student cheaply - this provides an alternative to that. The city posts the PDF of ninkagai centers, but did not mention them to me, even when I asked if there might be any alternatives for me while I waited to get into a registered hoikuen.

I visited a couple places on the list of centers that had registered with the city, and chose one with the nicely redundant name of Chiisai peti (Little Petit) near here. They have a lot of flexible plans, and I chose to buy a block of 50 hours for about 45,000 yen. Those can be used over the next three months. That's around 8/hour, so pretty reasonable by Boston standards, and the ratio is three children to one adult. The regular kids there are all close to her age, a lot from 12-15 months, so a nice fit. Though there was also one lonely looking boy about eight years old who must be going there after school.

In exploring this category of care centers, I avoided those marked as "baby hotels" (beebi hoteru). These are places that take babies overnight and have a lot of irregular users. They received a lot of bad press on low-end news and expose programs in the 90s. There were some injuries to children but the focus was on criticizing mothers who used them. I expect most of these have some useful role to play, but I am just a little too put off by the expression.

For October and November she can go to the Center for Women Researchers at Kyoto University which has a system to help women faculty and students who are waiting for spots for their children in the hoikuen system. It's only for two months, but I will use it. The location is halfway between my office and classroom, which is only a seven minutes walk total. I can pick her up three minutes after my LONG afternoon of classes ends on Monday at 6PM. And it's only 50,000/month (about $450) for full-time quality care, provided by one of the companies I researched for temporary care this month. That company runs the daycare center at the Hotel Okura and other such posh locations where there are many temporary and non-Japanese visitors (this is different from "baby hotels"! But since they provide quite late night babysitting at the hotels, they are rather like baby hotels for the rich).

You might ask why this is only for women faculty and students and not all parents. The Center's pamphlet provides some impressive and disheartening statistics about the percentage of faculty who are women at Kyoto University, which is one of the top few universities in the country. Women comprise only 4.2% of full professors, 10.7% of associate professors, and 8.7% of assistant professors. That means the percentage of women full professors at Kyoto University as a whole is half that of tenured women in the natural sciences at Harvard, ie not very high. This center is supposed to help improve that through daycare and elder care support, back-up care when a child is sick and can't be cared for in daycare, as well as research and analyze the obstacles for women scholars. I am not sure what services they provide, but I think the inclusion of elder-care is novel and important as that is a huge burden everywhere, and which women especially are expected by many to bear. This center seems like a pleasant and much-needed facility, so I hope Maia's short stay there will not be too much of a burden since I am only tangentially affiliated with the school. But since Gender Equality and International Relations are both listed among the top six priorities for the university I think I fit.

Kid Conveniences

It has been interesting to see what conveniences for kids there are and what are lacking. The biggest challenge with Maia has been restaurants and seating. Many places have a high chair type seat, and this is great. But they almost never have a belt of any sort, and so really are more for an older child who might stay put, along the lines of a booster seat. Luckily we had some experience with this back in Tokyo when we were staying with a belt maker - Mr. Nagata fashioned a cloth belt with big Velcro patches. This was meant just for one chair they were giving us, but we have ended up traveling with it at all times. Another option in a lot of restaurants is to use a zashiki room where you sit on tatami and she can crawl around.


There are sometimes some great things in bathrooms and so on. Anyone who has ever taken an infant to a public toilet can appreciate this product. These were installed in the bathroom stalls at a big electronics store, Bic Camera, at Kyoto Station.

Unfortunately these are not so widespread, but I've seen them here and there. The children's floors of department stores have great facilities for dealing with a baby. The baby care and nursing areas are separate from the bathrooms. They are large and have a big open area with cushioned changing tables, a microwave for heating up baby food (which is generally available for sale nearby if you want it), seats for feeding solid food, and some port-a-cribs. Both men and women can use that area. Beyond that there are double curtains into a private nursing area where men aren't allowed and the chairs are arranged for a degree of privacy from each other.

Our area of Kyoto seems to be low on outdoor playgrounds. The closest park seems to be getting a facelift and has a long way to go before anyone can go inside. But a long walk or short train ride away there is the Kodomo no miraikan, a wonderful free indoor and outdoor playspace. It's open every day except Tuesday from 9-5 or 9-6 and has great stuff for 0-6. Some things remind me of the Children's Museum of Boston and the space for smaller kids there. The pool of wooden balls was really popular with Sam. And Maia had some admirers as usual.

Week one Yochien - wakatta yo!

Sam's first week at yochien went pretty well all in all. But I doubt it will be forgotten soon.

This week three of the days were half days, so it was a pretty good way to ease in. Most of the stuff I had labeled was fine, though several new Mama homework projects developed for me by the end of the week as I am now on the "Game Corner" committee for a November 1 event.

Most things went pretty well. He seemed to basically understand what was going on, whether he followed directions or not. Each day he spoke a little more Japanese Every morning he said that he wanted to go to yochien and cheerfully put on his uniform, mostly by himself and was willing to pass up his favorite green Crocs for the white sneakers. Sam has an imaginary cat friend named Jiji. The name is based on the cat in the movie Majo no takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service), but he prefers his invisible one to any stuffed animal version of the one in the film. Jiji is the arbiter of all things for Sam and apparently he likes yochien too. He rides to school on Sam's hat. He reports that he "talked Japanese to the other boy" at school, and he is speaking more and more Japanese at home every day. He says "dame da" (no! no!) to his toy fish in the bath and used his first Kansai region tinged expression "wakaran" (I don't understand). And his favorite is an expression very appropriate for a 3-5 year old, or really for anyone with parents, "wakatta yo!" "I understood you!" (implied, "I get it, so leave me alone already!").

He said "wakatta yo!"a lot this week as I tried to correct any of his behaviors that seemed to be a problem at school - please don't forget use the toilet, please don't run around on the alter, don't spit, don't throw toys, and so on. Meaning that he did all these things. But his teacher and classmates were all very tolerant and said at least he seemed to be having a good time.

Usually the students wear their uniforms just for commuting and then change into a different exercise uniform for the day. Sam got the part about taking off the commuting uniform but resisted putting on any other clothes. He's supposed to be wearing white underpants, but he happened to be wearing red ones that he picked out in the morning. So just picture him tearing around the school in his underpants, like the nightmare people have about being at school in pajamas. I guess it was just not enough for him to stand out as the only non-Japanese child in the school! Some Japanese preschools practice something called "hadaka kyoiku" (lit. "naked education"), so I get he was after that? Everyone thought it was pretty funny, but also asked that I try bringing him to school in his play clothes for awhile...

Hoikuen

Now that Sam has started up school, I have had a little bit of time to work harder on finding some daycare for Maia. Chris can watch her a lot, but he is supposed to be doing some research this year too. He's doing all the cooking and most of the cleaning so we'd like to find some help with the increasingly mobile and mischievous Maia.

The good news is that daycare in Japan falls under the department of welfare and has regulated pricing. The cost is based on income, but even in the highest income bracket it is considerably cheaper than Boston. And many facilities have options of extended hours when needed for work reasons (not for going out to dinner and a movie though). In Kyoto the officer in your ward is supposed to consider the severity of the parents' need for help and find a spot for those most needy, putting those with, for example, a sick parent ahead of someone who might have happened to sign up earlier. It's open to any resident of the city where both parents are working or otherwise unable to care for their child full time. All in all, this seems great.

But how to get in---

Since this is well regulated you have to fill out a lot of forms. I spent several evenings working on this and then submitting forms to my ward office. Staff at my program tried to inquire about this before we came. They had luck with the yochien and found Sam's. But with daycare officially you have to be here and fill out these forms yourselves before you can arrange anything. Since the centers have to report their spaces to the City, I had hoped that once I submitted materials the Kyoto could tell me where there were spaces, and we could find one for Maia somewhere. But it turns out that it is not that simple. First, there are almost no spaces at this time of year. The school year is from April and most spaces open then when daycare students move into yochien or elementary school. August and September are lousy times, especially if you haven't been here to arrange it earlier. Also, although you are allowed to used centers anywhere in the city, information about them is held only at the ward office where that center is located. I registered in my own ward office, but they don't think they even will have information about where there are spaces until October. They suggested I ask at the other wards, so today I went to three ward offices, making a sort of non-scenic bus tour of Kyoto (it was a little scenic, but not very!). Chris mapped out the locations and a bus route for me, so that after dropping off Sam at Youchien I could make a loop through the central wards of Kyoto (any places where we could actually commute to a daycare). Mostly what I learned is 1.) they are pretty full everywhere 2.) the ward offices don't really have as much information or control over the centers as it would seem. In fact what people seem to do is to call every daycare center they might be interested in and convince the center to help them out -- and THEN ask the ward office to enter that one. So as much as convincing the ward office of need, I have to convince the few daycare centers that have any spaces that they would like to have Maia there -- based on the questions asked on the phone, I need to convince them that 1.) I am actually willing to do the commute to that place 2.) not being Japanese won't be a problem - i.e. that my Japanese is good enough for them to deal with me 3.) that I really need help. Anyway, a system that is potentially very fair is not quite working that way. They all think the commute is too inconvenient for me, but since I've only found two places that admit to having any spaces, that hardly seems a concern. There is also an occasional care system, but any given center only has three or so days a month. Maia has gone for one day to a center under that system and is signed up for three more days there next month. Tomorrow I'm going to try to convince one center that they want to take her, but they usually only take students longer term, keeping them right up to elementary school.

Kyoto University has just set up a facility that is designed to help women students and researchers waiting for public daycare slots, so hopefully that will work out.
They have at that center something I've always thought we needed at my own university - a space on campus where graduate students and professors can have a babysitter watching their child. Especially on a college campus where there a large number of willing and well-qualified caregivers, it's too bad not to be able to use them (unless you want your baby crawling around a college dorm room and getting premature intro to college life. Since Maia already seems to have an uncanny ability to find empty beer bottles in any space she visits, this would be pretty frightening).

Anyway, for now Maia is always with us exploring our home and flirting with people on the street. With baby in tow, her father is quickly picking such Japanese phrases as "ningyo-san mitai" (she looks like a doll) "tenshi ya na: (she's an angel - in Kyoto speech), matsuge ga nagai (what long eyelashes), and so on. We hear these all day, along with the usual "kawaii" (cute).
She has just learned to clap and wave -- kawaii indeed!

Yochien

Well, I've been pretty busy. I should have been busy getting ready for the teaching semester the impending start of which I am trying forget. Instead I have been preparing Master Samuel for the beginning of HIS semester which was Monday. Sam is attending the nursery school at the Nishi Honganji temple. Nishi Honganji is the center of the Nishi Honganji sect of Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land) Buddhism. Within their huge complex is included a yochien, Nishi Honganji Chuo Yochien.

Youchien is sort of preschool and kindergarten combined for ages 3-6. Sam is young by a bit, but they let him in. Most Japanese people my age that I have talked to are quite nostalgic about Yochien, including the school lunches, special events, and gear. And the gear has kept me busy.

First there were the things I should make - some I could buy, but in homemade is preferred. Then buying parts of the uniform that I couldn't borrow from the school and the things I wasn't up for making. Then everything needed labeling, down to the marker pens and caps. I made 1.) a rosary bag 2.) more masculine cover for his disaster protection (防災）cushion (the one I inherited was very pink. They said it was OK for me to buy the cup bag and tote bag so I did. Here's my cushion cover and photos of many of the things I labeled with his name written out in hiragana script.


And he's off!

Our House

Our house for the year is a Kyo no machiya style home on a small alley in central Kyoto. This is an endangered style of building despite some efforts at preservation and use of some such buildings for trendy cafes and shops. We'll write more about this later but I wanted to get some pictures up. This house was modernized, adding a bathtub (which you can order to be filled or reheated to a certain temperature by pressing a button in the kitchen), fresh flooring, and so on while keeping most of the charming qualities of the house. It is being rented out on a weekly to yearly basis furnished and so you can see photos of it in an advertisement on line (just write me to ask for the link if you want it).

This is the view of Shijou (4th Avenue) from our corner.





It's a fairly busy corner with a bus stop, 24 hour restaurant, with major banks and department stores in the distance. We are in an alley off of this corner, a very narrow street onto which taxis and other non-resident cars are not allowed. Amazingly, you walk a short way down the block to our house and inside all you can hear is the sound of cicadas! Apparently this is pretty common in Kyoto. Perhaps it is because of the wood construction and taller buildings at the major corners blocking the sound as it comes in. Anyway, it's very nice to have the convenience without noise.

Turn around and it's like this. At the end of this stretch it turns right continuing in the same fashion with wood houses, and then again to the left coming out on another big street.

Daimonji

Maia asleep Tenkadori
Originally uploaded by sarahfrederick1

Last night was Daimonji, one of the major summer events in Kyoto. It being very hot and having small children we played like locals and laid low, watching the fires on local TV. Before tall buildings were allowed in Kyoto (more about this later no doubt - it's a major issue for our neighborhood), you probably could have seen these patterned fires on the mountainsides from our street corner. But now we would have to brave some big crowds or pay a premium to watch from a high-rise hotel. Instead we had a nice meal at a nearby high-end yakitori place, which was really delicious. One usually thinks of fish quality with Japan, but all the chicken is of superior quality too, young and sweet smelling. We had grilled wings, thighs, tail (very yummy but bad for you), gizzards (surprisingly tender and yummy as prepared), grilled shiitake, tiny green peppers, and pork wrapped asparagus. This was at Tenkadori which turns out to be a chain from Yokohama, but the staff was very friendly and created a neighborhood restaurant feel. One of the waitresses gave Sam an edamame key chain - you can pop the beans out from the shell as when eating this favorite food of his.

Maia was dressed festively for Daimonji (well, she I guess she is wearing this new cute outfit in most of the photos so far) and had a nice nap at the restaurant.

Gosho

There haven't been many that many touristy photos on here. I don't know if I mentioned that it has been over 90 degrees every day since we arrived. I think the first day with a high under 30C was this week. None of this is conducive to sightseeing, and we have a year to see at least some of the 2000+ temples in Kyoto.

We did try to take in some greenery on a relatively cool day when we were near the big imperial grounds in the center/north of the city the other day. Sam liked the giant gingko tree, which is quite a bit bigger than the one recently (almost 10 years ago) started at his grandmother's house.




We happened on this garden, which is apparently one of the famous places to see blooming Salisbury (?) trees in Kyoto in August. The photos are not wonderful but give some sense. And the turtles sitting on a rock were neat. Then we watched some retirees play tennis from a cool cafeteria.

Shinkansen

On August 10 we took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto. My host sister came with us to help, which was great. We had sent the bulk of our luggage down to our house, but traveling with two kids in diapers never seems to allow for "traveling light." Sam fell asleep in the station and missed a lot of the excitement - the trains are more interesting from the outside unless you are a seasoned enough Amtrak traveler to really appreciate the clean, quiet ride, ability to really reserve seats, and on-time performance. In the 25 minutes we were on the platform, about six express trains loaded and departed on time.


Finally we are in our new home (as of 8/10)). Sam was still a little tired out...

Gibli with the kids

At Nagata's are my host brother's kids who are four and nine. They could play with Sam, though language barrier and Sam's general irritability from the trip and hot weather were obstacles to that. I think they had fun but some tears and shouji damage ensued.


We all went to the Gibli Museum in Mitaka. Gibli is the animation studio who created animation such as My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke. It's extremely popular, so you have to make a reservation to enter during a certain time window. Of course we seem to have gone on a day in summer vacation when the crowds were at a maximum and it was super hot. We couldn't take photos inside where Sam played on the "Cat Bus" - a big stuffed version of the bus in _My Neighbor Totoro_. You have to line up for a 5-7 minute stint playing with about 12 other kids on it. This was one of Sam's first experiences with that sort of crowd, and he did OK when his friend stood in line with him. Chris couldn't watch, and it was indeed worrying what would happen when they told him his time was up. Luckily he was willing to just get back in line again. This photo is pretty realistic - a lot of very hot and tired people trying to be in good spirits in front of the giant Totoro doll. At least Totoro was standing in a pretty shady spot and away from the crowds.

Nagata House

As I mentioned before, the Nagata's were my host family when I first went to Japan at age sixteen. I lived there again in the mid-90s. We did a lot of touristy things in the area like going to Sensoji Temple, the covered shopping area Nakamise, and the drum museum where you can play some of the drums. But having lived in that area for almost two years in the past, I didn't even think to bring my camera. Plus it was too hot to think. The new house in of itself was of equal interest to me.

They live on the same plot of land as last time I visited, but I had no idea what it would be like since they leveled everything and rebuilt since I last was here about four years ago. It is quite common to tear down and rebuild houses in neighborhoods such as theirs, altering the living space to suit one's changing needs and the times. They used to have a basic postwar 2.5 story house with makeshift 2nd floor walkways to the neighboring properties where the two children lived, and part rented out as storage. I knew it would be different but was impressed and surprised to find an elevator in the new building. There is a garage and then you can go up to the floors where different family members live, and there is roof area where you can play or light fireworks as we did. They have the nicest home bath I've seen in awhile, and Sam loved it, especially because the granite tiles were green, his favorite color.

Like most such houses, there are elements of older Japanese architecture combined with modern conveniences. Here there is a tatami room with lowered floor to put your feet in. Sam did exactly what all kids seem to do - climb under the table. It makes a great batters' box. Maia liked to dance with her adopted grandpa - she's just learned to pull up.

Maia's Pet

So as not to traumatize them with quarantine, we left behind our two hairy cats Wagahai and Atashi (Waga and Tashi) with our nice renters from New Zealand. Luckily Maia found a new pet to bond with, Koro-chan the robot dog! The Nagata's have one. He can fetch a ball and plastic bone. Maia kept pulling his removable ears off, but fortunately he doesn't seem to hold a grudge.

Sam's First Breakfast in Japan

Sam has really loved clams and mussels for a long time. The night before Maia was born, I think he ate everyone else's mussels instead of a kid-targeted meal given to him when we were unexpected guests at his grandparents' house. He's always loved Japanese rice and miso soup. And one of the Japanese words he's really mastered and uses a lot is for fried eggs: "medama yaki," literally "eyeball eggs" because they look up at you. So he was in hog heaven when some of the things on offer for him Monday morning were fried eggs with ham, steamed rice (almost always available from the rice cooker), and shijimi miso soup. Shijimi are a very small shell clam (my dictionary says ")corbicula japonica." Here is the wreckage part way through breakfast. He ate the clams out of his parents' bowls too.

Maia has been enjoying the better quality tofu. We pick it up each morning from a place through the alleyway. It's still warm when we get it. And my host mother has been making her rice "o-kayu" - just a porridge of rice with water. It's much tastier than flaked baby rice cereal.