School Holidays

So the kids have now broken up from school. As luck would have it, I met an American teacher at a 'do' who is here on holiday, and looking for ad-hoc work, so she has been looking after the children for 2 days last week and 2 days this week. They have been having a ball making crafty things, eating McD's and pot noodles and watching movies. Not the most financially lucrative arrangement for me, but does mean that I get to show my face for 2 days a week, and can make up the time when the kids are on holiday in the UK.

So, on the days we've had at home together, we've done various 'chores' like the food shopping, but have had some fun exploring: on Monday we travelled to Machida to go to the 'giga Daiso' (a giant 100-yen store, which is great for Japanese crockery, and gifts, also bought a picture frame for Neve's really lovely artwork (will try to take photos when I've figured how to charge up the camera!), then the kids had their Japanese swimming lesson whilst I chatted to Junko, one of the English-speaking Japanese Mums who helped us get into the club, and is a great font of knowledge for all things related to living in Japan!

On Wednesday we discovered this lovely municipal outdoor poor near to the school, and because the Japanese kids have not yet broken up, we shared the pool only with one old lady, and a young mother and toddler. It was lovely to feel cool! The only downside of the municipal pool is that they have lots of rules, and we did, as usual, get told off rather a lot. In the afternoon, we went to a friend's house (yes, house not apartment!) and drank tea and chatted whilst the kids played, and the helper cleaned up and did the ironing! There are some people here who have let bizarre and amazing lives!

On Friday, we had to wait in in the morning for the Landlord to do some kind of electrical check (? - we never really know what's going on!), then we went to 'the 100-yen park' near to all the baseball stadiums on the other side of Omotosando, where we met an Australian friend who arrived in Japan at the same time as us. The weather was deteriorating somewhat, but we had a nice couple of hours in the park. When Rachel left, the kids and I decided to stay in town, another trip to the 100-yen store to buy some more bowls (dishwasher keeps having the bowls when we need them and am bored of washing up by hand!) and another picture for Neve's artwork. As it had really started to pour with rain, we also bought 100-yen (75p) brolleys! We made our way to the Karaoke and spend a hilarious 30 minutes there (Felix's first trip!) Now we've figured out how you do it, anyone who comes to stay is going to be cajoled into it - it's the eqivalent of the Japanese 'pub' I think! Then we found our way to the 270-yen restaurant, through the neon-lit, sidestreets of Shibuya in the torrential rain, bouncing 2 feet off the pavement in 30 degree heat. Felix and Neve were the only kids in this huge restaurant which was largely full of 'salary men'. Japanese kids are largely shut away studying on their PCs and learnign their Kanji - it's really odd, you hardly see any kids around - quite sad really.