Say Yes

I have a spring resolution – or maybe early summer resolution – to catch up on various planned posts. When out and about I often take photos and compose blog posts, but somehow the evening is always too short…

Anyway, one piece of news that's WAY out of date is that Maia did get into public daycare in December. I think I won't get into where it is until she is no longer going there, but it is a great place. For the price of a week of daycare in Boston she receives a month of full-time care with warm lunch and warm teachers.

In the end, the key to the system, as to many things, is knowing that the answer will be "yes" before you ask the question! So after asking around (other mothers, Kodomo no miraikan service desk, and the welfare desks) and also calling the list of centers directly without giving up, you find a potential spot and THEN tell the welfare office that you want that place. If you don't request it on the form, they won't tell you there is an opening there, no matter what you tell them verbally. And also, it's worth knowing that although there are only three obvious spaces on the form, you can write down more than three requests. Anyway, once I heard there was a spot in a commutable place and requested it, it was all settled in a few days. I have to say, I don't think the welfare office was very helpful at first. And the other problem is that people in Kyoto have low tolerance for long commutes (compared to Tokyo, I mean), so people assume everything is too far. But the cost and quality are excellent.

Maia has a lot of buddies her age, mostly boys, and has learned all sorts of songs and good behaviors like washing her hands with soap, putting on her own shoes (almost), and putting on her own pants (well often two pairs of pants with one leg on each leg). She bows when people greet her or gives her things. She is slowly learning to talk, mostly Japanese or words in both languages like "cheese" and "corn." While walking she sings the My Neighbor Totoro song "Sampo" – just the line "Arukou."

And indeed she loves to walk (aruku no dai suki)!

(Wisteria at Byodoin)

Fat Burning Commutes 2

Here is the character for Kyoto Bio-diesel (see Fat Burning Commutes below).



The new goal for the city is to have buses that run on 100% tempura oil in a few years. I wonder if the Kyoto appetite for fried food will keep up with it?

Ritsumeikan School

In late February we went to Uji. Usually one goes to Uji to go to the famous Byodoin (on the ten yen coin), commune with the Uji chapters of The Tale of Genji, or drink green tea which is grown here. But we went to participate in a free ceramics making class with some other students in my program. Sam got to make a creation, and it will be fired and sent back to us. This took place at the Ritsumeikan middle and high school. Ritsumeikan is a prestigious private university in Kyoto, and like many such schools they have feeder private primary and secondary schools. There being nothing else around the area, we went to the school cafeteria for lunch, and it wasn't bad. Sam said he wanted to have his photo taken with some young women who turned out to be the baton twirling team. When we approached them he fled, but Maia was willing to have her photo with them, though she seems to be viewing them suspiciously.


Chris continued his tantanmen trials, Sam had udon as usual, and I had some fried chicken. Maia nibbled on all. It was not bad for the price.








Sam's creation was pretty impressive. No pedestrian bowls or cups for him! He got quite focused on this, and kept his lucky pumpkin hat on throughout.




While I assisted with the clay, Chris walked amongst the baton twirlers stretching with Maia until she fell asleep.



On the way back we looked for a coffee shop with cake, avoiding the Mister Donuts where Chris had a "honey glazed" donut that tasted more like butter rum and stale oil. Yuck. We walked a long ways down to a low-end mall that had a coffee shop (pretty yummy cake) within a supermarket. Their meat turned out to be very cheap compared to our central Kyoto area market, so we bought some beef and Chris made burgers for Sam. You can read about the elusive hamburger (not hambaagu) at Chris eats Kyoto One Delicious Year: Not Quite Like Home.

Fat burning commutes

Our house, each childcare facility, and workplace are each in different areas, so we have tried lots of methods of transportation. In our circumstances a local would definitely use a bicycle with two children's seats attached. (A few would use a car, especially on rainy days. We don't have a car or want to drive here). Kids would probably wear helmets but not the parents. Adults sometimes wear helmets for sporty bicycle use, but use with the usual "Mama Chari" like I have it is pretty rare. When I happened to ride by the City Hall when there was a cameraman taking footage of the bike lanes on the side walk, the director spotted me coming and I heard him say "get a shot of that foreigner with the helmet!" Not only do I fear for my own head, I definitely do not feel confident enough to carry my kids, helmet or no. I know it's probably safer than when we drive in the US, but I've seen too many people tip over their bikes that are off balance with the weight of children. For a short period it was illegal to carry two children on a bike, but it was revoked; it was just too difficult for many parents to get their children to preschool.

Luckily I have found that I can park my bike and ride it to school after dropping off the kids. Most of this ride is away from cars and is an amazing birdwatching experience along the river.



Not to mention pretty good exercise.

When we are with the kids our most common choice has been the bus. Maia recognizes the icon that gives us preferential seating:




Some locals get irritated by the buses, mostly because they can suddenly become very crowded with tourists in certain seasons or the day of some event on that route. And there is usually at least one major tourist destination on every route. But from my perspective it is pretty amazing that the buses almost always arrive on the minute for which they are scheduled and move along the routes quickly (and they don't wait for people running for the bus). A pretty neat thing about Kyoto buses is that 20% of their fuel is recycled frying oil! Kyoto has embraced its role in in the Kyoto Accords and tried to make "Eco" both a buzz word and reality. Under one initiative, they started urging the collecting of frying oil from restaurants and individual homes around the city which is then processed and added to the bus fuel. This program has been used since 2000, and Kyoto City created their own standards to regulate the fuel content. Http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/025875.html

It being Japan there is of course special mascot figure for this program.

Unfortunately the national transportation bureaucracy just came up with its own diesel standards which do not allow for such a high cooking oil content, meaning the buses are now only 5% tempura oil fueled instead of 20%. People are worried that this will get people out of the habit of collecting the oil -- it's not exactly easy to get your used oil into a can and lug it to a collection point. Deep frying is a really popular cooking method here, though we don't use it much at home. Still we often partake of the amazing fried chicken (kara age) at a nearby low-end restaurant, with hopes that we can make up for it with other healthy eating and exercise.

This leads to the other commuting method - walking. Really you can walk anywhere in central Kyoto in under and hour. My cell phone has a pedometer, and I find that even when using trains and buses, I end up walking over 10,000 steps a day. I don't know how far that is, but it sounds impressive! Because of all the walking and shrinking hips that result, my pant cuffs are all wearing out.

Maia and Sam love to eat and can get away with it. Here's Sam topping off a huge meal of carbonara and meat covered pizza (at LEAST one adult serving combined) with a four scoop bowl of gelatto!



And Maia always eats with some food in each hand, and maybe some on her nose.

Stage Fright?

The latest Youchien event was the Happyoukai, an annual recital, where each class performs a play and something musical. Given the painful spectacle of the Undokai in the fall, we dreaded this pretty heavily. Sam's role was as a bear in a play about making a sponge cake out of a giant egg that has fallen into the forest. He was supposed to say "Suponji keeki ni noseyou" (let's put it on the sponge cake) and then put the green whipped cream on the cake. He talked about this quite a bit at home and played at cake making and on. He would sometimes say his line in a loud voice, and also ad lib a bit, changing it to "nosete kudasai" (please put it on the cake) or "keeki ni noseba" (why don't you put it on the cake - in a rather detached way). Or with some nonsense endings. He also said other people's lines. But he never said the line in any practice at school and told me that he could do it at home but not at youchien. Sure enough, he didn't say it during the performance, though he did actually stand on the stage (minus the bear ears) and carefully put his green cream on the cake.




He didn't really want to come back on stage and for the final eating of the cake and he was a little unclear about how to exit the stage causing some nervous moments for his parents as he peered over the front of the stage as if about to jump. But there was no crying or thrashing at least. For the songs he just sat looking bored and picking his nose while all the other kids sang or shook an instrument. It looks like he just doesn't know the songs, but in fact his silence is quite deliberate and stubborn. He said in Japanese "Sam doesn't do that" and "Urusai" (noisy and irritating).

Well, I guess my son is not meant to be a child star. But he did enjoy when they made a TV show on our street a few days later.

Like at undokai, I was truly amazed by the performances of the 5 year olds (equivalent age of US kindergarten). In their skits they said complex series of lines as they went back in time to see the era of Shinran (played by a little girl) to better understand his accomplishments. The final number performance was an amazing taiko drum performance in which all of the kids at that age participated. I could have imagined it maybe as the recital of a special drum class, but that the entire age group could take turns doing a pretty complex set of drumming rhythms and movements was impressive. I recall that at the same age, I had the starring role in our Christmas play as Mary. This just meant I sat holding a plastic baby doll, usually fighting over it with the boy playing Joseph. This was definitely more impressive!

Ebi Fry

For the end of 2008 beginning of 2009 we went to Tokyo.

Walking along the edges of the hordes going for their first temple visit of the year at Sensôji, we played in open areas along the Sumida River. The Asahi Super Dry building is one of the modern landmarks of the Asakusa, Sumida Park area. It is one of two Asahi buildings designed by Philippe Starck (the gold and silver one to the left is supposed to be a mug of frothy beer). It is, some say, supposed to represent foam being blown off a frothy head of beer. Or perhaps an Olympic flame in honor of the hard work of the developers of Asahi's beer "Super Dry." It is more popularly known as "the golden turd." My friend worked in the building for awhile, and she said it was quite an interesting sight to watch a special crew polishing it! We asked Sam what it was, suspecting the usual observation, but he said it was "ebi fry" (breaded fried shrimp). He really wanted to go up inside the "ebi fry."


Alway, putting a positive spin on things. Or else just hungry.

Hmm

One of Sam's classmate's mothers keeps saying we should get Maia Japanese modeling jobs since she's cute and the magazines often use foreign models. The fact that she's had a runny nose for what seems like months might be one obstacle to that. But based on this, I think Pro Wrestler might be more in the cards for her!



Women's pro wrestling is, or last I knew was, really popular in Japan. Perhaps some remember that the notorious Tonya Harding was offered a job in Japan along those lines after she was booted from figure skating.

This is not to suggest that Maia is not quite the elegant young princess. She now does a sort of bow/curtsy type of thing when you say "konnichiwa" (hello) or "arigato" (thank you). And when you walk through a crowd she waves both hands and looks around smiling at the adoring masses.