Christmas Day

Christmas was wonderful! We had a lovely day, just being by ourselves, and taking our time.

William got a bike from Santa Claus. He can go much faster now because of the bigger wheels! He has hand brakes, a basket (he wanted one with a basket, very Japanese), and a bell.

It took us a long time to open all the presents. We had left some of the shipped from family gifts in the boxes, primarily because there wasn't room under the tree for them all! We appreciated the gifts to open up from everyone back home! Tim (you'll notice he's looking ill) is about to open up his growler. It's a very cool way to take beer from your kegerator to parties. Yes, Tim was ill on Christmas, and the day after, and even today, but he HAS to go to work today, so we've loaded him up on Tylenol, and he's off to base. Besides being slow because of illness, we had to stop opening gifts to have breakfast, to ride the bike, play with toys and gifts as we opened them, and to watch the clock. Tim got a groovy new clock from Santa. It uses ball bearings to keep time. William was running in every 3 minutes or so, to watch the 5 minutes change over. He'd wait for it, and down it'd go. It really slows down opening gifts when you have such a distraction. 5 1/2 hours later, we finished up. NOT because of a lot of gifts (we were blessed with plenty, however) but because we're easily distracted!

Mochi Pounding

I have to admit, I don't really know much on the history of Mochi pounding, but it is a Japanese New Years tradition. It is made by boiling polished and soaked rice and then pounding and kneading it until it turns into a sticky dough. It is then made into various treats or served in something like soup. They were doing Mochi pounding at the community center at the end of our block. We went down to see and we got a chance to participate. William got some whacks at the Mochi (and possibly the turner's fingers...), Caroline got a few whacks in, and all that Dad did is carry the camera around.

We then went inside to sample the results. It was an interesting taste, but not one either William or I were going to be able to finish, so we decided to take the rest home in a doggy bag. From the video, you might sense William's reluctance. I'm not sure Dad did much better...

It definitely is sticky and thick. Japanese newspapers apparently start tallying up the death toll from choking on Mochi about this time of year.

William also did Mochi pounding at his school with a visiting Sumo Wrestler. In that case, they added the Mochi to soup.

The Never Ending Christmas Pageant

William's Japanese school, Seika Yochien, put on it's 61st annual Christmas Pageant last week. This was our first pageant with William in it, so we were very excited. Caroline carried out the required task of finding brown tights and sweater for William for his part of the pageant. We were told to be there with William in his seat 45 minutes before the scheduled start. We were a bit late since there were about 5 families at the base taxi stand all going to Seika for the Pageant and the off base taxis were coming only one every few minutes. We eventually got there and took our place in the auditorium. Specifically, William sat in his assigned seat and Caroline and I stood along the wall and the back. It was a bit crowded.

The program was a one pager with two parts. We figured it would take 2 hours tops. We apparently haven't fully appreciated the Japanese tradition of long and respectful opening ceremonies where many important people get up to speak and get recognized. This portion took about an hour and a half. Then there was the actual Pageant where each class provided a dance or drama. One of the classes did the entire Birth of Christ story with about 12 scene changes with each student having a speaking role in each scene. Then each of the major age groups put on a short musical concert. Then, closing ceremonies... It took a grand total of 4 and a half hours! We hadn't planned for that. Caroline noticed as she was helping William get on his costume that the other mothers had snacks (if not meals) for their kids as they dressed them. William got a snack of candy, cough drops and pocket lint... We'll be more prepared next time.

I've combined one of William's classes concert videos with his dance routine. To help spot him, he is the blond haired drummer in the back right and the blond haired brown bear. We'd honestly expected William to be playing the melodian (air blown keyboard) since he'd been practicing at home. He's been in drum lessons for a few weeks, but we figured that was preparation for next year. What cracks me up, are the key boards with the megaphone underneath that you can kinda see in the front row. They are serious about having their music heard in Japan.

Reading Japanese

We read books to William as part of our bed time routine.  Since he's learned to read a bit, he sometimes wants to read the book himself.  We'd gotten some cool Shinkansen (Bullet Train) children's books that were written in Japanese, so we considered them purely picture books to look at the cool trains.  To our surprise, he picked these up and insists on reading these as well.  He's been playing with our Hirigana and Katakana (the two phonetic Japanese alphabets) flash cards and has learned the sounds that go with the characters.  But, it was still a surprise that he decided to try reading the books.  His pronunciation is probably poor, and we have a hard time helping him when he gets stuck, but he seems to cruise through the pages.  His reading comprehension, though, could improve a bit...

GW Tour

Last week the Yokosuka Naval base opened its gates for an annual open house event. With the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON newly in port and opening up for public visits, there were some 30,000 visitors to the base. Almost all of them making a bee line for berth 12 where the CVN 73 was waiting.


The ship put on a great tour. They shuffled people straight onto the pier and onto the hangar bay. They showed some video and then you stepped on to elevator 1 to take you to the flight deck where you could see Mt. Fuji behind the hills. You could also see a F-18 posed for launch with the blast deflectors up, tour around the deck, and then get on elevator 4 to ride back down. They had displays of fire fighting equipment, jet engines, and munitions. William posed with a fire fighter to impress Uncle Noel.

We got there early since we could get on base before the gates opened to the public. We walked right on and had the place nearly to ourselves for about 20 minutes. Then the crowds started crawling in. The lines were incredibly long, but they processed people quickly and everyone got to take a close look at the CVN. I think it will do a lot to help the community feel comfortable with its presence.