Sapporo

Remember when I said that I was worried I couldn't keep this up? Yeah . . . .

But I want to share some pictures from our trip to Sapporo. Going to the Sapporo Snow Festival is something I'd wanted to do for a long time. 


I don't exactly remember why we didn't go the last time we were living in Japan. Did we find out about it too late? Were we too broke? Did it seem like the only way to get there was an overnight ferry ride on winter seas (something some friends of our later did)? I'm not sure.

This trip was made more affordable thanks to extreme budget airlines (no free water, no actual gate at Narita, no checking your bags in too early, etc.) and the tip that we could go a few days early and see the snow sculptures in progress. Not going during the festival meant that both airfare and lodging was a lot cheaper.

We were also able to visit a friend from our old grad program. 

 

Our friend lives just outside Sapporo - the further we got from the city center, there was more and more snow piled up everywhere. Our friend later told us that this was a "nothing year" in terms of snow. We had a lovely evening with him - so much hospitality, such a lovely house and family. Also, apparently, there are wild foxes in the Sapporo suburbs (no picture, but we did see one). This is at the train station at the end of the evening - doesn't look like a "nothing year" to me, but clearly I'm no expert!

Here are some snow sculptures. It's hard to capture the scale and the detail of these sculptures. They are so large! And so elaborate! They're also totally constructed with military precision - sometimes even by the military (theirs and ours), actually. It really was amazing and totally worth it. It was super-cool (the puns, they write themselves)

Partial group shot:

 
We also stumbled upon some more informal (but still elaborate) snow sculptures being built in a local park. This wasn't part of the official festival; it seemed more like a community effort. Sort of puts an ordinary snowperson to shame, no?

Sapporo is really beautiful. Don't get me wrong, it's, like, so cold and so far north that it's almost in Russia. But the mountains come right down to the city on one side and the Japan Sea is on the other side. So it's a chilly sort of beauty. (There's also excellent skiing close to Sapporo and super-excellent skiing slightly further away in Niseko.)

But you know what warmed our hearts? We got to spend a lot of time with the host family Mike stayed with during his time in Japan in 1998. It's funny how time passes - he stayed there as a college student and now he returns as a college professor with two kids. He was both gratified and grateful.

Here's a family shot in an elevator in Sapporo. When we travel with Jacob in the stroller, we're all about the elevators (so! many! elevators!).

We also made sure the kids had some time to play in the snow.

Natalie and Mike also went ice skating.

 

 This, of course, required hot chocolate afterwards.

 

Unfortunately, all this playing and walking didn't sufficiently wear Jacob out. Either that, or hotels are just too exciting. We had a really hard time getting him to settle down and go to sleep at night. This picture was taken about three hours after we started on the bedtime process. He is, with no irony at all, holding the Do Not Disturb sign from the hotel door.

So that was hard. Also hard was that he was then so grouchy and cranky that he was really difficult and screamy. We had to leave the hotel restaurant one morning because he was throwing a fit. Know what makes for a grouchy day? A mother who doesn't get to eat breakfast. So we're off hotels for now. And for the next ten years.

Also sad was that we managed to lose Natalie's brand new fancy ski jacket. I had snagged this jacket at an amazing deal after some serious internet research and sale-stalking. The jacket had a zip-in fleece and a system where you could extend the sleeves, so it would have lasted two years. I'm really, really upset about it. It was an awful moment to realize that we were missing it as the express train pulled out of the station en route to the airport. The first train stop was already so far from the town, plus we had a flight to catch and airport lunch plans with Mike's host family. There was just no going back. We called a few different places a few times, but, well, it's gone. Like I said, I'm more broken up about this than I should be. I keep looking at sale sites for similar jackets, but I suspect it's still too early for great deals on ski jackets. Maybe I'll find something in April or at the start of next winter. I don't know; I guess I just hope the lost jacket just finds someone who really needs a warm jacket. 

But, well, here's a ray of sunshine: realizing that we were in real jacket trouble (the kid had to go to school, jacket or no jacket), I posted on the local parents' Facebook group asking where to buy a used or new jacket and offering to buy an outgrown jacket. A very lovely woman then met me the next day, brought three jackets her daughter had outgrown, let us pick one, and then refused to accept any money. 

So kind, right? Her only request was that we pass the coat on to someone else who could use it when we were done with it. This was so touching because it's so hard to be here without extra clothes, friends to help, and local knowledge (we honestly didn't even know where to go to buy a reasonably priced winter jacket). Your village is, indeed, where you find it and where you make it.

Jacob doesn't go for the cosmic karma lessons. He just consoled himself with a melon pan the size of his face.

The above is actually a good reminder because, well, any weekend we don't use the Epi-pen is a good weekend, lost jackets or no lost jackets.

Stay cool, my friends.

Happy Holidays!

The holiday is, of course, Valentine's Day. Because that's how we roll. 

To be fair, what with the trans-Pacific move and all, I gave up doing a holiday card in the early fall. We did, however, get family pictures taken; memories still matter, even if we weren't making cards to share. I looked into doing a paper Valentine's Day card / postcard, but the cost was a prohibitive, given that we'd have needed the printer to mail them stateside for us. 

So I built us a cheapie online card.

We wish you love, light, happiness, health, and peace today, this year, and in the coming years. We also wish you hot chocolate, good books, beautiful flowers, lovely sunrises, and cute animal videos. May you find and enjoy the things you love!

Jacob's food songs

This is a video of Jacob singing songs and doing dances about ramen, sembei (rice crackers), and mochi (sticky rice cakes).  These songs are from his school.  He is generally better at singing about Japanese food than actually eating it...

School

The number one question people ask me is: "How are the kids liking their schools?"
Also, some variant of this was the number one question I was asking myself before we started all this.

The short answer is that it's going really well (knock on wood).

The long answer is that I don't really know. I've gone from being a pretty connected mom (chatting with teachers at pick-up, knowing what the kids are doing / studying / reading each day, volunteering frequently at the schools) to someone who really has no clue. I mean, I know what Natalie reports, but I know enough to know that that isn't always the full story or even the most important part of the story of the day. Jacob's school sends home a daily log sheet (which I can't read - so there's no skimming it at pick-up and asking questions then), so we have a little more of an idea of what the teachers thought was important about the day. But my general understanding of their schools days here is something between a shrug and a single detail.

Natalie's school is largely physically inaccessible to us. She rides the school bus to and from school, but for us to get to the school, it is a ten-minute walk, followed by a five-minute train ride, followed by a ten-minute cab ride. I don't think I could explain to cab driver how to find the school, but apparently the address is enough - it's out in the country, so I'm not sure if this makes it easier or harder to use the address to navigate. But, duh, not being able to get to the school easily makes one feel very disconnected from the school. I'm grateful to a neighboring parent who has been generous with rides to school for events where parents are welcome / required.

Here she is getting on the school bus for her first day of school in early January:

Jacob's school is the opposite. We can literally see his school from our bedroom. I've never lived in that sort of walkable paradise before. It's pretty sweet. But Jacob's school is largely inaccessible to me because of the language barrier. The teachers are sweet and lovely and kind and do speak some English, but my pick-ups and drop-offs are mostly built around smiles and laughter and pointing at Jacob. It's clear they like Jacob and that Jacob likes going there, so, well, all seems well.

Putting on his indoor school shoes: 

Sample report that comes home at the end of the day:

The top table also contains fields for us to record when he went to bed, when he woke up, and his temperature. The first thing I do when I get home is snap a picture of the daily report sheet and text it to Mike so he can give me a brief version, just in case there's anything I need to know for the rest of the afternoon.

In a way, my generalized ignorance is sort of liberating. At Natalie's school in Texas, I feel some anxiety around her fitting in and having the right uniform / backpack / water bottle / lunch bag / etc., volunteering enough, talking to the other moms, etc. The rules of the game are clear to me, even if I worry about my ability to deliver on the specifics. Here, I know I am failing at an unknown set of culturally specific rules of parenting about eighty-seven zillion times per day. The saving grace is that often I don't even know exactly how I'm failing because I'm not even sure which game we're playing. For example, let off Jacob's school supply list was a nap bag. Because - duh - what parent would send her kid to nursery school without a nap bag? Yeah...... Present on Jacob's school supply list? Two towels. Check. Only two weeks in did I realize that meant two towels every day. Same thing with the change of clothes. I come from the send-extra-clothes-in-for-emergencies school of preparation. Jacob's school changes the kids into fresh clothes after they play outside in the morning; they then eat lunch and nap in clean clothes. I was slow to catch on that this was a daily deal. I'm perpetually buried in laundry.

When the staff at Jacob's school points these things out, they are kind and gentle and always show me examples of what I need to send. When my transgressions at Natalie's school are revealed, Natalie tends toward the petulant and enraged and betrayed. I. Didn't. Know. The. Score. Example 1: No jeans on PE days, even if it's 34 degrees and you have to wait for the bus at 7:30am. Okaaaay. At least my mistakes make sense in my universe, right?

But, really, absent my understanding of what others think I should be doing, I just kind of have to do my thing. Will Natalie ever find her neckwarmer? She'll have to look for it at school and go without for a few days. Do people think I don't know that my kid needs a neckwarmer? Does Natalie need a new reading book? She'll need to ask the teacher and go without for a few days. Should she be reading every day? Is everyone else getting a book every day? Is my kid falling behind? Do people think we don't value reading? Does Jacob's school think I don't know the difference between putting a shirt on frontwards or backwards or that I'm a bad mom because I let my kid walk to school with no hat and with his shoes on the wrong feet? Or do they think I'm awesome and into Monetessori-driven experiential learning or natural and logical consequences? Or maybe they think I'm mean because I make him carry his giant backpack? I don't know. We can't actually talk to each other (plus I'm sure they are much too polite to say), so I've gradually come to just accept that I have to make the decision that feels right. I'm sure there's a larger lesson in there, if only I have the grace to find it.

Both kids are happy. We couldn't ask for better schools to be our temporary homes, replacing the lovely schools we left behind.

Natalie's school has violin and calligraphy / Japanese as part of the school day.

 
Natalie's class is just wrapping up a big inquiry unit on light and dark and what makes shadows. She was really into it, explaining to us all about shadows and light sources. As part of this unit, the kids had a sleepover at school. I worried that the kids were too young for this, but apparently school sleepovers are common in Japan, even in preschool. So Natalie went - it takes big courage and a big heart to go to a sleepover at a new school in a new country, after less than a month of living here. But she did great! 

Here are some pics from the post-sleepover breakfast (parents were invited to this part). 

Bonus: we now have a sleeping bag so the kids can play sleepover whenever they want. Sleeping is, of course, optional.

No doubt there'll be more school updates in the coming months!

Jacob is THREE!

We got our Hanukkah celebrating out of the way before we left, so our first major celebration in Japan was Jacob's birthday. 

I was actually pretty worried about this because, obviously, birthdays require cake. But we don't have an oven! Not being able to bake your kid a cake for his birthday feels sort of sad, especially when you like baking as much as I do. A cake from a bakery is always a little more fraught because of Jacob's food allergies. But, luckily, his main allergen (peanuts) isn't super-common here (although cross-contamination is a worry, so we tend to avoid all nuts, which makes things a little harder). As someone who isn't really literate here and doesn't have anything near communicative fluency, my basic strategy is to go the for most simple, most boring baked goods. Jacob eats a lot of melonpan and waffles as snacks when we are out and about. For his birthday, we stepped it up a little with a pound cake from the bakery where we had ordered my birthday cake when we were here before. 




Jacob's big birthday gift was a train set.

Jacob also got the vest he's wearing in the picture below - plus the giant stuffed snake. The snake is great because - along with densha (train) - the Japanese word for snake (hebi) is one of Jacob's favorite words. He'll often ask us, "Do you know hebi?" As a pedagogical technique, it might need some improvement. But it's totally adorable.

So Jacob is three.

And he is SO THREE. He wants to do it himself (autonomy: the struggle is real), he's a fan of rigorous empiricism when it comes to determining limits, and he is bold and independent and a total climbing monkey. Note that we thought all of the above was true for Natalie. We. Had. No. Idea. Well, expect for the climbing monkey part. They are both fearless climbers. Heaven help us. And the emergency room.

Jacob would tame tigers, if the tigers weren't busy wearing that dumb smile that covers up how they are really cowering in fear.

But Jacob can also be so sweet and cuddly and loving. He loves having a book read to him and he'll happily do that all afternoon.

He sleeps, eventually.

Jacob he LOVES his sister. They fight and have to be separated, sure. But anything she does, he'll do immediately (related concept: teaching Natalie what being a good leader means / that with great power comes great responsibility).

 

A small detail about the above picture: not long after this picture was taken, watching sumo progressed into doing sumo, with predictable injuries. Call that a parenting lesson. Sumo [watching and doing] is now banned in our house.
  
On that note, we had this encounter at the pediatrician a while back:
Doctor: Are you nice to your sister?
Jacob: Yeah!!! (After some thought) . . .  And sometimes I bad.
Doctor: Thank you for your honesty, Jacob.
(At least the doctor managed to hold back her laughter; we were not as successful.)

Here's wishing our big boy a great year of good decisions and exciting adventures!