Rites of Passage

To be 6 in Japan is to be someone.

One of the things that happens when you're 6, is that you have to start paying to ride the trains. It's only 1/2 price (I've noticed that it rounds up to the nearest 10 yen/cents... so, if the fare was ¥170 for me, it is ¥90 for William), but now you have to pay.

I found it a bit amusing that they made us bring ID for him before they'd issue a PASMO card. It's a debit card system (there's also the SUICA card system) for riding trains, getting sodas, and taxi fares. What? I'm telling you my kid needs to pay, and he's obviously not an adult, issue me the card! So, when Tim and William went to the Ueno Museum, they took William's passport, and got him a PASMO card.

If you can read the Katakana on this card, you'll notice they mis-spelled Putaansuu. We're used to that in English, so it's no surprise the Japanese have the same issue. They have all the correct sounds to correctly say it, at least. The PASMO card is issued to a particular child. That makes sense, as you don't want adults getting a card and swindling the system by only paying half-fare to get through the ticket wickets. Yes, they're called wickets.

William loves trains, and I noticed this was something Tim and he saw the day they went to the Ueno museum.

That little 'purse' around his neck is a custom-made Shinkansen coin purse to hold his PASMO card, some cash for emergencies, and I'll bet you'd find some other flotsam in there.

When we needed something like this, the stores had nothing. So, I found a cloth zipped bag, bought a shinkansen patch and some shinkansen clips, hand-sewed them on, and viola. And then I bought a break-away neck lanyard. Total cost: ¥700. Bleeding fingers, priceless...

Sure enough, about 2 weeks after I made it, they had the perfect little train money purses on strings at the ¥100 store. Grrrr. At least we know which 'kurse' (kid purse) is his!

Another milestone for us was him learning to tie his own shoes.

I'd seen somewhere that it helps to make the laces 2 different colors when learning to tie shoes. It helps them not get confused on which goes under or over, etc. So, I got some laces and made our own tying trainer. Tim showed him how to tie on it, and he aced it in a few hours. It's nice, because he can now tie his own shoes. Woo hoo!

I've been trying to upload the video for 8 hours. I give up. Trust me, the boy knows how to tie a shoe! :)