LOST

I have lost my camera and am feeling very bereft and naked wherever I go. Weechan is no doubt relieved. However this means no pix of the festival. My friend Toshisama took some though. It's all in Japanese but you can get an idea from her blog post here.
If anyone else got any good one's I'd appreciate digital copies!

Hiroshima International School Festival

In case I forget to tell you, I'm presently baking up a storm for Weechan's school festival. Please come if you're in the area. It's this Saturday (18th). Please call me if you need more details. All are welcome and there will be lots of tasty international cuisine and games and other nonsense.

Many firsts...kind of....

It was Weechan's first day of school on Monday. Well, not really, considering she has been going to school for a couple of years now. But her first day of Japanese elementary school.
And it's strange, maybe it's my British background, but the buying of the uniform, and the school satchel and all of that somehow made it seem like her real first day of school for me, even though she will probably only go there for a couple of months each year.
Luckily, our nextdoor neighbour's daughter K-chan is also starting school this year so she has a friend there already.

So it was the first day of first grade, and because our surname starts with the 2nd letter of the Japanese alphabet, Weechan is number 1 in her class so she was first into the hall for the entrance ceremony too.

The older kids showed the new kids to their seats, which was a nice touch, and this half African girl was chosen to make Mairi feel at home. She was really nice.

Nerves were raw.

The obligatory ceremonies...

Then first out, with the new teacher, Ms U.

The view over the city from the 1st year classroom is breathtaking.

The girl nextdoor's name starts with "I" too so she sits next to me!

Who's going to do her best at 2 schools?
"Hai!"

Sakura, Sakura.........

It's that time of year again.
When seemingly normal people get wasted in the afternoon under the fluttering pink haze of the cherry blossoms.

This year we went to Kintaikyo Bridge in Iwakuni.

Gorgeous!

Yes, we have cherry trees at home too. But there is something quite beautiful about the Japanese celebration of them.

We met the N family there.
Relaxed by the river.

Played some games and had a picnic.

And of course one of the 100 flavours of ice cream on sale there they even had soy sauce flavour!

Went for a walk.

Found monkeys in trees.

And some of the beauty Japan is famous for.

This was a good day!

Burgers for the Masses

Had a good time with old friend E on Saturday. We made the burgers!

Yakiniku

Went out for dinner with this cheerful crew last night to a nice yakiniku place within walking distance!!
A warm or should I say hot welcome to our guests from Engerland.

The first yakiniku seemed to go down well.

M's best friend for the day E-chan seemed to have good time.

Not bad with the old chopsticks for being here a week!

Last Supper

Dr Dad moved hospitals last week, which has various ramifications good and bad for our family, but one of the most hard hitting is that we will not have many excuses to come to Canadakan, one of our favourite Italian restaurants, which was perfectly placed for stealing family meals when Dr Dad was too busy to come home. Both pasta and pizza will be sorely missed!

Especially the pizza.

0829-36-5551 広島県廿日市市地御前1丁目23-27

Forty and Fabulous!

The cake me and Malaina made for JJ's 40th.
Happy Birthday JJ! May we have 40 more!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Transportation Project

Weechan's project for her Transportation Unit of Inquiry at school was to build a model of a vehicle she had designed at school. Due to the influenza plague, I received the designs in an e-mail from her teacher. The specs were:



Description: Flying Car

Function of her vehicle - to be able to fly and jump over cars in traffic
Use - long journeys for land and air
Features - 4 wheels and 2 wings
Using recycled material
Special features - wings
super speed
environmently friendly

This is what we came up with:


A wind and solar-powered (the retractable roof is just one huge solar panel!) convertible, with wings that extend Chitty Chitty Bang Bang style when flight is necessary, and jet boosters on the back for super speed.

Now I'm sure the inimitble Miss B sees these exercises as an opportunity for parents to be involved in their child's learning and for a fun family project.
That would be fine if you weren't dealing with a thwarted Blue Peter presenter with control freak and perfectionist issues, someone with a "that'll do" attention span of a gnat unless there is a festering disease or a get rich quick scheme involved, and someone whose understanding of the word "help" seems to correspond to my understanding of the words "just do it for me".

I'll leave it to you to decide who is who in this scenario, and just how much fun we all had with this.

Miss B, if you ever read this, these things can lead to broken homes!

Family Day

It is a lesser known fact outside Hiroshima, that 70-80% of Japan's calligraphy brushes are produced in the small town of Kumano, not far outside the city boundaries. They also make handmade make-up brushes which are apparently used by a lot of big names in the cosmetics business , paint brushes and brushes of many a kind. Anyway, I'd never been, so we had a rare family drive the other week to investigate.
Not necessarily worth devoting a whole day to, but just right for a half day drive, the visitors centre has exhibits on brush making from the dawn of time, and the kids cn take part in trying to make a brush or just use one to paint a postcard.

After that we had a Baps and Buns picnic on the beach - yes you people in Scotland- the beach! It wasn't exactly swimming weather yet, but Spring is definitely in the air, and if it was this weather in Scotland, people would certainly be swimming in the sea at St Andrews!

Gathering shells on a sandy beach is definitely better than 24-7 Disney!

And even Daddy got to stretch out on the steps for a while!