That's my boy

The High School held a little award ceremony for the kids last week. It is such a small school, I think there may have been as many parents as kids attending.  And I'm pretty sure every kid there had a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and thus received an award.  I was trying not to embarrass Joshua, but I thought he'd seen me there.  Apparently he did not see me and did not know I had even come!  Thank goodness I got one photo to prove I do love him and I did attend!  Next time I will have to be a little more apparent.  Heh heh heh.....

Japanese Potato

On Friday, this adorable kid in her ridiculously cute uniform, got to dig potatoes at Yochien.

I know, you've seen this photo before, but it is so stinking cute, it never gets old!

She had to wear rainboots and to bring a shovel.  Her pants got dirty.  She said she collected 6 potatoes, but she only brought 2 of them home.  One was enormous, and the other was tiny.  They were the purple skinned variety that grow here.  I had gotten once at the grocery store to try it out and I had discovered it was NOT like a regular Idaho spud.  It was more like a sweet potato in texture and vaguely in taste.  I had chopped it up and cooked it in broth for a Chicken Pot Pie and it was quite delicious in that. But it was not entirely what I had expected.

Rylee had been asking if we were going to eat her potatoes.  I am so sad I did not take a photo of her with her potatoes.  She was very excited about them.  I finally remembered to do something with them, and tonight I attempted to make sweet potato fries.  I confess, it was a colossal failure.  Purple Japanese potatoes are not interchangeable with sweet potatoes either.  Trying to cook them like a sweet potato resulted in a very tough, crunchy exterior and a dry, fibrous, yet soft interior.  However, not a tasty thing to eat.  Very bland, and that dry, fibrous texture was not conducive to fine dining.  I am sad.

Next time, I will dice them and cook them in broth and put them in my Chicken Pot Pie again.

Japanese School

 Delaney and Callie both got to go on a Field Trip to a Japanese School on Thursday!  I got to chaperone with Callie's class and it was kind of fun.  I really just wanted to go visit and see a Japanese school, but the kids were pretty good and Mom Duty wasn't too bad.  I was a little surprised it was an all day event, until I realized we were driving an hour away to the school.  (Our school will reciprocate next month and they will come and visit us.)

All the Japanese kids, sitting neatly on the playground.  Our kids were significantly less organized!

Playing an ice breaker game of "Rock Paper Scissors".  The loser would go to the end of the line and the winner was the head of the line.  Eventually you had several long lines of kids. 

Delaney playing her first round. 

She won, so she got to be the leader and play everyone else. 

Callie in her line. 

At the end of the game, the leaders were all recognized.  Delaney was a winner!  She never lost a match. 

This is the classroom portion of the school.  You can't really see it, but there are gardening beds all along the front, and some solar panels as well. The rooms are lined with the windows and are bright and airy. 

After the playground game, they split up the kids.  Second graders stayed in the gym and played a lot of fun games and then had lunch.  I headed upstairs with Callie and the 4th graders for more fun and games, followed by lunch.

Learning to write Katakana. 

Playing a game with paddles and a "birdie" you tried to keep in the air.  This one was a lot of fun! 

Playing musical instruments. Some of the students sang along and they were good!  The room did get a wee bit noisy, but our kids had a blast trying out the drums and xylophone.

 This was a game to test your chopstick skills.  You reached out and grabbed an origami and I think you got to keep what you grabbed.

Callie was a little confused on that.

But she was delighted to get this.  I thought it looked like a Dachshund, but she said it was an alligator. 

This was a game Callie said was like Chutes and Ladders, but without chutes or ladders.  She said it was fun. 

The kid going down was awesome.  They were doing a Judo demonstration. That kid was so amazing. He showed each of our kids what to do and then let them throw him.  He was so great about falling, even when our kid really didn't have the leverage to throw him.  He was my favorite.

Lunchtime was a very different experience for our kids.   The Japanese kids all put on white smocks/aprons and left.  Each of our kids had to pick a desk to share with one of their students. They came back carrying a couple large metal bowls (bins? they looked more bin-like).  They served each other and put their trays on their desks.

 This is what they had for lunch.

Callie, all ready for lunch.  She said their food looked really good and she wished she could have had what they were having. 

The back wall of the class was covered with their art.  I love the self portraits, and Callie was impressed with the quality of their paintings on the bottom. 

The grown ups got served lunch!  Hee hee hee.  The kids had to bring their own, but the chaperones got fed.  They made us a special lunch.  This was part of the offerings: Several different kinds of rice balls, and a pickled something. 

My lunch.  A delicious slice of pork, a saffron rice ball, and a something else rice ball, a sweet potato not-muffin, and a corn muffin.  It was all tasty! 

Callie in front of the school. 

 Callie's class.

This was the best picture ever!  I loved that the kids were riding the unicycles in the background, while an America girl is jump-roping.

The kids all came out to wave goodbye to us. It was a great trip and well worth the experience.

My little Girl Scout!

 Delaney joined the Girl Scouts here.  I have never been interested in it, but she wanted to and I have discovered it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  She loves it so far.  On Wednesday she had an "Investiture" Ceremony.  She got to be formally welcomed into Girl Scouts and it was very exciting for her.

Trying to get the girls organized for the program.

Delaney helping.

Getting her certificate. 

All her friends!

Hiroshima Peace Memorial

Monday was Nov 10, the Marine Corps Birthday, so Dan had the day off, but the kids still had school. Once the kids were gone, we went out on an adventure.  Dan and I headed up to Hiroshima.  You can cut 20-30 minutes off the drive if you take the Sanyo, which is the toll road.  However, the toll road is pricy!  We opted to go there for free and took the surface roads all the way in.  Wow.  You see on the map that it is only 25 miles, but when you are driving in kilometers, and the traffic is slow, it takes you over an hour to get there.  Crazy, I know!

We were able to find our destination, but had a little difficulty navigating to the parking.  We eventually got where we needed to be, with only an extra lap or two around the park.  I was a wee bit dismayed to see the parking area- it was tiny, all in Japanese, and locked your car in till you paid.  I had visions of net being able to figure out how to get our parking paid for and the car released!  No worries, all was well. (Although with the tight quarters, I had to do a 200 point turn in inch increments to get out!)

We walked to the park, visited the museum, and then visited the memorials.  It was interesting.  It was also sad and slightly depressing and a little intense.  I did not take any photos in the museum.  It felt a little wrong to do that.  There was a lot of info in there and a lot of personal stories.  While I would recommend it, I would not recommend taking kids.  The awfulness of the bombing and its effects is a little too descriptively shown there.  The thing I got out of the visit is that an atomic bomb is a truly horrible thing. The deaths of so many people in such a horrible way was incredibly awful and depressing.  However, I loved the Japanese people's message there- one of peace.  Let us live in harmony so this never happens again.

The memorials were lovely and the entire park was tranquil and peaceful, even with a bunch of school kids roaming around.  It was a beautiful day and a lovely trip.

The machine to pay for your parking.  It did have some directions in English, but there was a little guesswork as well.  You parked, then entered the parking space number into the machine.  It did not give you a receipt or anything.  It then locked your car in.  When you returned, you entered your parking space number, it told you how much to pay and you paid.  Then it released your car.

This is the locking mechanism.  The flap under your car lifts up so you can't drive back out till 

you've paid.

The river we crossed over to get to the Peace Park.  This does not do it justice.  The trees alone were gorgeous.  And it is a little odd to have all this hustle and bustle and busy city, then you cross this bridge and suddenly it is peaceful and quiet with no cars or big buildings.

Entrance to the museum.

It was 50 yen to go in (about $.50) and we sprung the extra 300 yen ($3) each for the headphones that gave info in English.  They were kind of unnecessary, since nearly everything in the museum was also written in English, but it did have more stories and a little more embellishment on what you read.

The view of the main memorial and the park from the second floor of the museum.

The little arch on the right sits over the center of where the bomb hit.  The big dome building in the back is one of the only buildings left standing in a 2K radius after the bomb went off. They have left it as is for a memorial.

This is the spot where the bomb detonated 600 meters directly overhead. 

I was trying to get the flame memorial behind it, but you really can't see it. 

The plaque in the fountain around it. 

This was one of the sad stories.  If you can biggify it enough to ready it, you should.  This is the Children's Memorial.  It was erected after a girl died of cancer due to the bomb. 

There was a class of school kids carrying what looked kind of like a length of flowers and they were having some sort of ceremony. 

The big bombed building.  And me.  Dan got me with my eyes closed. 

It was a fascinating building. 

Check it out. 

This shot was for the birds, for Kera. 

The backside of the building.  No, you could not go into it.  It was fenced off. 

And then we had a lovely drive home.  This was the view for part of it. 

But this is mostly what we saw.