But just an update:
By the end of the year in Kyoto Sam speaks Japanese slightly better than English, definitely with a more perfect accent. Maia is really just taking off in terms of speaking, but most of her words are Japanese, including the new sentences she is starting to produce here in Vermont where we’ve come to recoup from the trip. She understands a lot in English, and is also picking up things quickly that she hears around her like “OKAY!!” and “ABCDEFG.” Seeing letters (or Sesame Street characters) she often says “ABC ya” Meaning, “it’s the ABCs” in Kansai Japan dialect.
We survived the flight back though with some crying and Maia beating the head of a passenger in front of us with a free fan from McDonald’s. Sam only fell asleep during the last 30 minutes of the 12-hour Pacific flight and had to be carried off the plane by a lovely Japan Airlines stewardess. Probably to the envy of many adults, but I had too much to carry to take photos of this for posterity. American Airlines sitting me separately from the kids and then criticizing me for that (having a different last name) was a nice welcome back to American service culture. US immigration and customs were really nice, and allowed my huge collection of children’s curry rice and furikake (season packets to sprinkle on rice). I suppose stuff decorated with Anpanman couldn’t be too dangerous, though I don’t know about the Bacteria man ones...
Last week I decided to embrace being back by going to a Walmart. Sam had the appropriate expression on his face:
The cereal aisle was as big as our entire Fresco supermarket in Kyoto.
The tofu was not quite the same – I think its expiration date was more than a month away, while tofu in Kyoto is generally eaten a day or two after it is made. (If you don’t like US supermarket tofu, you might like Kyoto tofu.) Analogies would be a Keebler artificial strawberry wafer and a pint of freshly picked strawberries, except I suppose that the strawberry wafer is closer to tasting good and also less healthy than the bad tofu. Speaking of strawberries – I also found this interesting product.
They don’t have that in Kyoto, even though they try to make soy milk everything for the tourists (soy latte, soy milk donuts, and so on).
And the Oreo section was bigger than ALL of the shelf space at our favorite local Kyoto bakery, Croix-Rousse, which had better baguettes than we can usually get in Boston and nice selection of sandwiches on sesame rolls with filings like pate de campagne, smoked salmon, or roast pork. It’s run by a chef and his pipe organist wife who met when they were in Lyon. OK, Woodsville, NH isn’t the cultural capital of the United States, or where such a couple would end up, so this is not a fair comparison. And I must admit that I bought a package of Oreos and ate most of them. This is a comparison between a Japanese package of Oreos that I bought in Narita Airport and an American one.
The price is pretty similar – around $2.50; size more than twice as BIG.
But Sam intelligently chose to eat three ears of sweet early corn.
And go swimming when it wasn't too cold!
