Paaarteeee!

Last week was our area's summer festival, held in the grounds of the boy's school. It's a surprisingly well run event, very typical of local festivals accross the country. There are stands selling traditional festival foods and games for the kids (and K) to play, dancing, karaoke and fireworks. My boys (yeah, all three of them) are obsessed with kingyou sukui, where they are given a paper scoop to try and catch as many little goldfish as they can before the paper disintegrates. J has honed his technique, and the guy running the stand had to ask him to stop or else there wouldn't be enough fish to last the evening...

The bag at the back belongs to W, he didn't manage to catch any but he was given two as a consolation prize. The front bag is J's - we are not sure how many he caught as they are difficult to count, but we reckon that there are more than twenty in there!

I was assigned to goldfish minder whilst the boys joined thir team for the Bon Odori. The different kodomokai (children's association, based on neighbourhoods) team up to dance in a competition. J and W waited with their friends, while K joined the dad's in downing beer and yakitori...


And then they were off...


I've tried to upload a clip of the dance here, not sure if it will work...

K is bringing up the rear with M perched on his shoulders. The women wearing green yukata (summer kimono) are our neighbourhood mums. Yep, it turns out that I could have participated, too, only no-one had told/asked me... why doesn't that surprise me?

Anyway, the kids had a fantastic time. M cried all the way home as she didn't want it to end.

Random

This is going to be a bit of a mish mash, I'm afraid. I've a collection of photos sitting in my camera that were supposed to be blogged about weeks ago, but then other stuff happens... Anyway, I'm just going to get them out here for you, all a bit random but never mind.

While M and I were gadding about Sydney, they boys were busy partying hard. It was Matsuri season! There seemed to be at least two Natsu Matsuri (summer festivals) each week, each town has their own. The fun includes games (the top favourite one being the one where you try to catch fish with a tissue paper scoop, we still have two survivors living in our genkan), food (W has been known to eat 4 helpings of kakigori in one evening) and fireworks. Our local festival enrolled the children in the bon odori (a dance) and here they are ready for the off in all their finery:

Next up, chocolate. Gotta love funky flavoured Kitkats! Back home we get the odd release, maybe a dark version, or chocolate orange. Here, there are special limited versions appearing on the shelves all the time, and they are are far more creative than you could ever imagine! This, for example:

Uh huh, that's right, lemon vinegar! They were actually very nice, it took me days to pin down what it was they reminded me of - lemon puffs (you know, those biscuits you can buy that are sandwiched together with lemon cream)! Other recent varieties have included cherry, plum soda, melon soda and kinako (a powder made from roasted and ground beans that gets dusted over lots of Japanese sweets).

In spite of the yummy chocolates I enjoy here, I managed to find a photo of me looking really very trim:

Obviously the gorgeous girl in the foreground is little M, but that's my leg you can see behind her. No, not the hairy one, look to the left. Amazing!

Not too long ago I escaped to the mainland for a weekend (first time to leave this island in a year!) and got to enjoy a train journey through the countryside without a small child climbing all over me! For any train geeks reading from back home who have never seen what the shinkansen (bullet train) looks like, here is one of the most recent models:

They look so unbelievably sleek as they glide into the station, stopping at exactly the right spot for you to board your allocated carriage.

Well I did warn you that this was going to be a scatty post. There are plenty more, but as this isn't making much sense I'd better leave them for now. Thanks for bearing with me!