The Frog Is Still There

Last Saturday we stayed close to home. We had so much fun on Friday morning at the Sand Dollar Beach that we decided to go show Robert what we were talking about.

Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cooler and cloudier. The water was still cold. So the kids and Robert were freezing…we stayed at the beach for maybe 45 min.

After eating lunch at the beach, we headed home through some beautiful rice patties. We saw signs pointing to Tonami Clan Village and figured we better stop by there since it’s been over two years when we were there last time.

First stop—horses statues.

Mark’s got his own pony.

Yee-haw!

Next stop--small petting zoo. It’s amazing how excited kids get to see roosters, bunnies and goats just because they don’t live near a farm.

 

One thing we had to do was experience the thrill of Japanese go cars, of course:) Two laps was enough for me, but the boys could have been going for another hour.

Final stop—the frog. 

It’s not just a regular frog, you see?

It’s the same frog that was there almost three years ago in September 2009. We took a picture on purpose at the same spot to see how much kids have changed. 

They turned a bit more Japanese, that’s for sure.

But at least one of them still believes in fairy tales… 

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Three weeks left in Japan…

Momoishi Beach Bonfire

It has been so chilly here in Misawa….For the past two weeks or so, the weather has been in the upper 60s, lower 70s during the day (but very gloomy) and 50s during the night. Considering that the heat is turned off in our base housing and that we don’t have any more furniture in the house, we have been colder than I was hoping to be in the middle of summer. I have been imagining that the weather is like this most summer long in England…not sure how I will feel about that. At least, we won’t have any typhoons or tropical storms there.  We had some serious windy weather with pouring rain on Wednesday because typhoon was “passing by”.

Anyway…the title of my post is Momoishi Beach. So let me tell you about THAT. Last year, after school year was over, we got together with a group of friends on one of the beaches and had a bonfire, fueled with all our remaining recycled homework that kids brought home (and whatever other recycle paper could be burnt). A year ago, most of the beaches along the coastline in Misawa were destroyed so we couldn’t go anywhere but one abandoned hard-to-find place we call Shrine beach.

This year, we decided to organize the Second Annual End of School Year Burn Your Papers Bonfire. This time, Momoishi Beach was open and all cleaned up. The problem was that it was simply freezing that day! I realized then that maybe I didn’t leave enough warm clothes for me.  I had to put on at least three layers…We didn’t allow the cold to prevent us from coming. Three more families showed up as well.

That’s  me, wearing Robert’s sweatshirt. Actually, I was pretty warm standing by the fire.

Kids had fun walking by the water looking for big shells. Unfortunately, Alex got all wet (as usual) somehow and did not have much fun at the end.

But Mark did.

S’mores, of course.

Yeah! Let the tradition continue! Yes, we know, it won’t be the same once the Watsons are gone.

Well, I was going to say that this was our LAST bonfire in Japan, but I would be wrong. Our family will be taking one last Japanese vacation over 4th of July holiday/weekend—we’ll be going camping and bonfiring (….you know what I mean…). 

Five and a half weeks left in Japan…

What do you call baby seagulls?

I know, lots of people think this is so funny that we love Kabushima Island—the place that is covered with seagulls and …seagull droppings. Sounds a bit disgusting. 

I really wanted to go to this place in June, when we were supposed to see something new—baby seagulls.  By the way, baby seagulls are simply called chicks.

Nothing was different when we first approached the shrine but as we looked closer, we saw that lots of seagulls were sitting on the ground with fluffy brown balls next to them. We saw hundreds of them! Can you spot one on the picture below?

And here.

Seagulls were exceptionally feisty, protecting their chicks. 

I tried to walk through the crowds of seagulls without being pecked.

Robert liked this “one legged” seagull.

Everything is green this time of the year. The hill is covered with rapeseed blossoms.

It looks like, as part of the reconstruction done after the tsunami, these new umbrella holders have been installed. A brilliant idea to install them horizontally so that the holders don’t get any rain inside.

And of course we had to drive a couple kilometers to Tanesashi coast and spend an hour or so climbing the rocks. Our friends, Millburns came with us. 

Oh, how I will miss this wild beauty of the Northern Japanese Pacific coast.

Tanesashi coast it one of Katya’s favorite places in Northern Japan.

Alex—making me nervous by climbing way too far and high on his own.

Taking a break on a sandy patch by the water. No swimming here, that’s for sure.

On the way back from Tanesashi, we encountered this new view of Kabushima shrine.

Okay, Katya just came downstairs although she has been put to bed an hour ago. I better go take care of that:)

Sayonara.

Lyana

Last Day of School

Somehow this year, the last day of school came too fast. Originally, June 14th was supposed to be the last day of school, a half day, to be exact. Then Friday before the last week of school, we received a message that due to the need to start renovations as soon as possible, the last day of school would be June 13th. In my mind, I was thinking how grateful I was for scheduling our pack out for June 12th and 13th so it would be done while Katya and Alex were at school.

Because our morning was rather hectic with the movers coming minutes after kids left for school, we forgot to take an individual picture of Katya!

So, let me present you our Second grader (now), Alex. Pajama pants look is a bit strange, if you ask me, but their class was having a pajama party that day, so Alex was actually excited about wearing his pjs to school.

This is what Alex looked liked on the first day of his First grade, obviously very excited…

And here are Katya and Alex together last week….

And last August…

“How sad are you that you are moving?” This is their sad/sleepy/tired look.

First time EVER—Robert was home to send the kids off to school on their last day!

The kids had a fantastic year! Katya had a great teacher, Mr. Lee, who always was building her self-esteem by telling her how wonderful of a student and friend to others she is. In fact, Katya received an Academic Achievement Award and a Citizenship Award this year. She especially excelled in reading and composition. Besides that, Katya received an award for performing 100 push ups!

Alex had a fun year with Ms. Wilds. He is the kid who is never forced to read books, instead, he gets in trouble for not listening when we ask him to put away his books. His reading level is exceptionally high for a first grader, so he is able to read non-fiction literature meant for fifth and sixth graders.  Alex is fascinated with earthquakes, tsunamis (understandably), volcanoes, tornadoes, geography, snakes and famous buildings. This April, I received a message from his PE coach asking me permission for Alex to stay after school to talk about geography since coach himself is a big fan of geography and was astonished at how much Alex already knows. Alex loved those few times he was able to chat with the coach at the school library! If you ever come to visit us, you’ll most definitely get tested on “the capitals of the world”. Oh, lastly, Alex was awarded a “Future leader” award by his teacher, possibly because of how confident he is that he is “the smartest kid in the class” (someone has a very big head-hahahaha).

Now, our crazy summer started. Nothing will be ordinary about this summer as we are preparing to say goodbye to Misawa. Looking forward to this fall (or, should I say, “autumn”?) when kids, hopefully, will start British school.

Good-bye Horns!

Before we say good-bye, I need to introduce you to our beloved horns.  We found these water buffalo horns at a recycle shop several months ago.  Between the sweet-looking chinese dragon etching and the affordable price (500 yen or about $6) we just  had to have them.  They didn’t exactly go with our décor, but that wasn’t the point.  We had plans for them – they were to grace my office at our next base. 

Well, the movers showed up and within a few minutes, they boss said we couldn’t take them to the UK, because Britain is very strict about importing animal products and game trophies.  I guess I never though about the horns that way, but I guess they are from a real animal.  So we were really depressed about not being able to take the horns and we tried to come up with a way, any way, to circumvent the system.  More on that later.

So we put the horns aside and went on with our day.  Beforehand, we put aside all the stuff that we didn’t want the movers to pack (usually in big yellow bags like you see here) and shoved them into the closet under the stairs.

  

We also put stuff in various cupboards throughout the house, and anywhere we didn’t want the movers to get into, we put ‘X’s on the doors with blue tape (Lyana’s idea), which worked perfectly.

This is what our living room looked like BEFORE the movers arrived.  We picked up a few items of furniture (and got rid of a few as well) specifically for this move.  I’m fairly proud of our furniture finds too.  Lyana showed me a recycle shop I’d never seen before down in Hachinohe.  I picked up that light colored desk (with the globe on it) for 1000 yen.  We found that low table (just visible in the bottom right corner) for 1000 yen too.  It’s a Japanese dining table, but it’s perfect for the kids to play trains and cars on.  Unable to resist, I picked up one more item: a nice little dark stained vanity with mirror for Katya (you can see the mirror just sticking out on the left side of the photo) for 1500 yen.  Small pleasures.  Oh, that bed there, that’s Katya’s new bed, bought off the neighbors.  We gave away the older kids’ bunk beds.  Anyway, I digress.  When the movers came into the living room, there was an audible collective inhale, but then they got to work and literally packaged everything we own in brown paper and cardboard.

To illustrate my point, here’s Mark’s bedroom.  Dressers, recliner, plastic bins – everything Christmas wrapped to perfection.

Crates.  The first day they filled up 5 crates – the four open ones here, and another one on a different truck with the piano.  There’s the couch in the furthermost right open crate, packaged nicely.

Staging the goods.

And squeezing everything in.  No easy task.

Oh yeah, back to the horns.  So that evening, we decided that the best (that is easiest) thing to do would be to sell the horns (tear in the eye).  Lyana posted it online and within half an hour, we had several hits.  The next morning just before the movers arrived, someone came and paid $30 for them.  I guess we couldn’t be too disappointed.  Good chance they’re worth more, but that’s how things go.  

Next day, the movers were back and busy.  More packages to make.  Let’s just say the outside storage room took their breath away.

We did our best to keep things easy on the kids (thankfully the older ones were at school most of the time).  We made sure we didn’t neglect Mark, because he was a having a hard time watching all the stuff leave.  After everything that was to be moved was moved, and the house was nearly completely empty, Mark kind of went into a withdrawal of sorts, and was very sad.  We brought out as many toys as we could find (tip: keep lots of toys behind if you can) and that cheered him up a bit.

It’s tradition, and polite, to provide lunch for the movers.  We had six of them today, so Lyana went out to get them Popeye’s chicken.  She also bought some rolls, corn on the cob, frozen taquitos and salad from the commisary and prepared those ourselves.  Well, while she was gone, at least 4 more movers showed up.  Good news: they were done by the time Lyana came back.  Bad news: we had extra unanticipated mouths to feed.

Turned out we had plenty of food and it worked out perfectly.

So we said goodbye to the movers and goodbye to our stuff.  Total number of crates: TEN!!   A couple days later I found out that our total weight ended up at 7500 pounds.  Surprisingly lower than I expected (especially since we had more coming here, but I think the American company padded the number a bit). 

They left one box behind.

rob