Winter Outfit

The weather has gotten much cooler. It happened so suddenly. I wasn't quite ready for it, but it is so nice to have cool, and a bit muggy versus sauna.

William's school goes to the 'winter outfit' the first of October. So, here he is in his finest. Still has to wear shorts, though.

He says he likes Japanese school. The only thing he doesn't like about it is that they just speak too much Japanese there.

He has started to like eating the lunch. He detests 'Japanese salad' which turns out to be a cabbage and raisin mix. Here you have to finish your food. He loves onion soup, miso soups, and looks forward to the days he gets milk instead of tea. I think the tea smells like cow pee, but it's supposed to be good for you! He would never drink it before now.

We have been given the news that since we didn't start him in American DoDDs school this year, that he will not be old enough to start first grade next year. So, he is destined to be in kindergarten for 2 years. As he was reading a letter the other day, and only missing one word (due to the cursive bit) and another due to it being a multi-syllablic word, I looked at Tim and said, "And this boy won't be in first grade (when they learn to read) for two more years!!"

William's Dog, Bernie

For those of you who don't know, last year in preschool when kids started talking about their pets, William would claim that he had a dog, too. Her name is Bernie, and she lives in California with his cousin. She is a yellow lab, very friendly and very smart. I think they originally bonded when Bernie kept humping William as a baby.

This worked really well for us, as we don't have to buy pet food, scoop poop, pay for kennel, vet bills, worming, etc. Life was good.

Well, for his 5th birthday, his Mummi Kay and Eno Brad decided he needed a dog. They got him a yellow lab puppy. Her name is Bernie.

Here's the latest video of her sleeping on her little bed in William's room.

Historic Event

The George Washington came in to Yokosuka today. I rode my bike out to the seawall to see it with the natives. It was exciting to see it come around the point into Tokyo Bay here.
The crowd was mainly retired folks, and people who pulled over and came up on the walkway to view the show.
One gentleman asked me, "She number 73, yes?" It was pretty far out in the bay, and unless you had good binoculars, you wouldn't have been able to tell. I am going to Yokohama for the centennial exhibition of the 'United States White Fleet' that was sent to Japan to show that the US could now cover the Pacific Ocean, as well as the Atlantic. I just thought it was interesting that here I was, on a similar eventful day about a 100 years later.
I am enjoying having a bike. The sea wall is only 3 Japanese blocks from our house, but it's nice not to have to walk it. I need to get a tire pump. I don't think many Sumo ride bikes, so the air goes out of the tires quickly. It's on my list of 'things to do today.' The comment I got the most was, "Ookii!" which means big. A super tanker (looks like) and it passed. Click on the pic below to see it large enough to understand the size.

Backwards Birthday

William's birthday was a lot of fun. First of all, I forgot to pick up the key for the party room on base. A friend helped me scramble and procure one on the weekend. It was tough, as offices had closed because it was weekend, and they'd closed early Friday because of the typhoon. Luckily, it all turned out well, and I was glad to be inside because the last bits of the weather system came through, and it was a soaker! So, instead of spending the afternoon making cupcakes and the pinatas, I stayed up all night getting it done.
We ended up doing a 'backwards' theme. The thank you notes went out first. Then, we had the kids show up with their clothes on backwards.

We started with opening the gifts. William did it upside down, backwards, and with his feet. I even put the bow and wrapping paper on inside out. Then, it was ice cream with cake. I filled the cupcakes with the frosting (that's backwards!). We then blew out the candle, and followed with singing, "You to Birthday Happy!" William (the shortest of his group!) was concerned that the cake was so soon, and wouldn't eat any. Oh joy. A 5 year old without any food in his tummy. Next was games. It was fun pinning the donkey on the tail, and the winner was the one furthest away. We had many games, and every kid got candy each time. The balloons ended up being great fun. They din from the popping balloons was almost as loud as the boys punching each other with the gaggle of balloons. Then, at the end, instead of breaking open a pinata, each invited child (older siblings got to share) got a pinata to fill. As Tim was taking down the octopus (which 3 kids wanted, so tears were shed), the kid who got it just punched the heck out of it. It shocked Tim. I think the boy thought it was already filled.
A good time was had by all, and it just turned out to be a heck of a lot of fun with all the games we played. The very next day William started saying he wanted a random birthday party next year. After being up all night (well, not ALL night, but it was pretty late) I told him that for his 6th, it has to be the bowling party one!!! They do the set-up, gifts, activity (bowling, duh) and clean up. All I will have to do is pay the money. Now, THAT'S my kind of party!!!

Go Table

We've been getting questions about whether we ever got our Go table. Highlights a weakness of ours about following up on our blog entries...

Yes, we did receive the Go table. It was delivered right on the day I'd arranged with the shop owners. It is a really nice table and I hope it will be a family treasure for a long time.

It also doubles as an end table in a way. Since I didn't want to risk a glass leaving a ring on it, I ordered up a piece of glass to put on top of it when we aren't playing. I was bit concerned on where I'd get this glass custom cut to fit the table, but I remembered Sagano-san who repaired our dentist chest. He apparently does glass work as well, so I called him up and he made a custom cut piece of glass with sanded edges for $25 or so and he had it ready that afternoon. Pretty reasonable. We're going to keep his number around as our designated handy-man.

We've used the table to introduce the game to several that have come to visit. William and I also play occasionally. Lately, William and I have been playing out examples from a new book I got from my sister for my birthday. It's titled simply, "The Second Book of Go: What You Need to Know After You've Learned the Rules." It is a really nice book that starts going into the strategy and tactics of Go. It is just the secret weapon I needed to keep ahead of some of the people I've taught at work...

Once Bitten

William loves riding his bike. We took him to base a few times. He will ride for hours. We hear him sounding like a choo-choo train and he whizzes past. He still needs to focus a bit on the horizon. The other day, he was looking at a sign as he passed it (probably reading it) and ran off the path.
Now, we just let him ride around by our house. But, there's a big problem. We have mosquitoes here. They are tiger mosquitoes. They are black versus brown, like the ones we have at home. William is sweet meat to them, and they eat him alive. Being a mom, I've been a little reticent to add DEET into his life. But I was horrified and felt awful when I realized how many times he'd been bitten. It makes me wonder if something else is getting him, as well. He's had bite looking things on his knees, but he's always playing in the sand here. It's amazing that they haven't decided he has the pox and banned him from school! You should see his upper thighs by his shorts. Ugh.
For the first time, I really wished I was back home where we hardly had any mosquitoes! The people in this house before us sprayed weekly to keep the population low. I am told that all these mosquitoes need is wet grass to propagate in.
I am now using the Woods OFF on William. I hope it helps as we tool around the neighborhood on our bikes. Yes, I got a bike to ride around the neighborhood on.
For those of you who wanted more pics of him in his uniform, here it is. I love the little summer hat he has to wear! And no, I'm not going to sue them for breach of contract for substituting a van for a choo-choo bus.

Great Japan Beer Festival

Yesterday I went with some friends to the Great Japan Beer Festival in Yokohama. Microbrewers from around the world come to share their wares. There were some 120 beers to sample.

We paid 3600 Yen for a ticket. You can buy the tickets at the local minute mart. I went to the Lawson store and showed them the code we got off the internet. The guy behind the counter put all kinds of information into an ATM looking machine. I paid him some money, and I ended up with a ticket. Pretty cool.

We headed up to Yokohama via train and subway to Osanbashi Hall at the Yokohama International Passenger Terminal where the cruise boats dock. It is a huge, beautifully sculpted, organically shaped deck. Not sure how else to describe it. We got there a half an hour before they opened the doors and the line was already impressive. Before the doors opened the line grew over the hill, turned around, came back over the hill and around the corner. Apparently lots of people like beer in Japan. The first 1500 got a commemorative glass. All I really needed was something to hold beer in, so I wasn't too concerned, but we ended up getting the glasses.

We tried many different kinds of beers. Luckily, the glass is small and it took a while to get through the lines at the various booths. Otherwise, we may have found it hard to get back to the subway station... You would fill up at one booth and then get into a different line and wait while you drank the beer. By the time you got to the front, you had an empty glass to grab another sample with.

It was a good day.

BAIT AND SWITCH

Today was William's first day of Japanese Kindergarten at Seika Yochien.

He chose this one above the others we looked at because: Their bus looks like a train. They teach a musical instrument (melodian, it's a keyboard you blow through), and because they serve miso soup at lunch (William LOVES miso soup which is a fish stock, soybean paste soup with chunks of seaweed and tofu).

Today, he's all ready to go at 7:15 (those of you who know me know that I don't do mornings well, and in Japan, mornings start early... GROAN!), we go out to the bus stop (at our house, how convenient), and a VAN pulls up. A modern, nice van, but a grey VAN, not the train looking bus.

William started to cry. He was valiantly scrubbing the tears out of his eyes, but the big disappointment was too great. I am ready for him to start the school, and get through the steep learning curve of basic Japanese. And, I am ready to have a few hours every morning to blog, work out, and shop without a boy in tow. But, even I was disheartened by the lack of a train bus. Poor thing. He's going to have to learn that life doesn't always give you what you thought you were getting. But he's so young, and as a mom, my heart hurts for him!

He is dressed up in their summer outfit here. The winter uniform has a jacket and a dark blue felt hat. He's so tall, that those shorts look mighty short. But that's all of the American kids in their outfits here. They continue the shorts thing even through winter.

Today, I am taking William on a train ride to make up for his VAN ride to school. It's not even a bus, it's a VAN.

At least the base school buses here are yellow, like back home. So, next year, when he goes on base for school, he'll be able to ride a real bus!