It's hot!

Today it was hot! air temperature was 34 degrees, relative humidity 70% which means that the Heat Index (how it actually feels) was 47 degrees - I have never felt so hot in my life, and we've still got another 5 degrees or so to go!

The kids had crazy hair day today, which was lots of fun, and there were some great crazy hairs! It was a bit embarrasing going on the train - the Japanese think we're a bit odd anyway, and today they really struggled to avert their stares!!

I had the day off work today as I'd arranged to go to Kawagoe with three other mums - we arranged it because two of us had missed the earlier trip. We'd arranged it today becuase there was to be a temple sale - crossed between a big junk market, and an antiques fair.

One of the Mums has a business making beautiful quilts from old kimono material, so she knows her way around these markets and also speaks Japanese, which is really useful. The market was lots of fun, but really felt like being in an sauna - we were all dripping in sweat - nice!

Anyway, we all bought some things - I bought two Japanese lions which could be really tacky, but I thought were really cool. I will attach a picture!

Then we went to this old Edo (old Japanese) street - in the 1600's or something the traders in Kawagoe made their buildings fireproof and, because they didn't loose all their stock everytime there was a fire, they made lots of money, so were able to fireproof the rest of their buildings, hence they survived, so there's this row of beautiful old Edo houses, which are now shops - so we had a very interesting day wondering round these old shops (with me carrying round two large lions!). For lunch, we found this little stall down a side street selling these japanese mini-pasty things (like fried dim-sum) have forgotten what they were called, but they were very tasty!

Then we made our way back on the train to school. A very enjoyable day out!