Trips to Japan

Day 7 – school

In the morning, Evan went to Kashihara Elementary school. I tagged along. People at the education department yesterday said that they can only allow Evan to attend the age appropriate class, which would be third grade. People at Kashihara Elementary already planned to put Evan in second grade, and the teacher already had some plans. When we got there, they went with their original plan.

So we attended just the first period of the school – math. They were working on addition of 2 digit numbers. The kids in the classroom were excited to see Evan. Evan was very shy. It was a good thing that we decided to stay just for one period.

For now, the plan is to go back tomorrow for two periods, when they go out to town for a short field trip.

Yoko drove us to the school in the morning, but we were to walk home when we were done. It was a pretty nice 20-minute walk. We talked about butterflies as we walked.

After the lunch, we went to Shiki no Mori (Forest of Four Seasons) – a hybrid of a park and a garden. The place was having Hydrangea and Rose festival. Hydrangea were really pretty today. They impressed me more than the roses. There was also a section that had several blocks of traditional Japanese gardens – maybe 4- to 6-feet square each. So, that’s the garden part. Inter-sparsed with those are the play grounds for the kids.

Evan and Kasumi really had a blast there. First, we went on to the grass sledding. There’s a hill covered with fake grass. We took a plastic sled, and did a few down-hills. Kasumi rode it once on my lap. It sounded like she was excited about it.

Then we went to more traditional play ground. They spent about 20-30 minutes in the sand box. It was a chore to get Kasumi out of the sand box. The next target was the slide. As if the grass sledding wasn’t enough, they got hooked on that slide for a while again.

After a short walk later, we came to a small petting zoo. We saw couple horses and a few pigs. This section didn’t excite the kids too much. After we passed the hydrogeas, roses, the Japanese gardens, and a rock garden, we came to a walk-in water fountain. That got the kids hooked again.

It really felt like we had a day for kids today. And if you call me a kid, you’re right – I had fun too.

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