Japanese New Year traditions

I've just been reading up a little on what the Japanese traditionally do for New Year.

* they send out postcards to all family and friends - similar to our Christmas cards
* At midnight on December 31, Buddhist temples all over Japan ring their bells a 108 times to symbolize the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires regarding sense and feeling in every Japanese citizen. A major attraction is The Watched Night bell, in Tokyo. Japanese believe that the ringing of bells can rid off their sins during the previous year.
* Japanese people eat a special selection of dishes during the New Year celebration called osechi-ryōri This includes seaweed, fishcakes, etc. Many of these dishes are sweet, sour, or dried, so they can keep without refrigeration—the culinary traditions date to a time before households had refrigerators, when most stores closed for the holidays.
* they read/write poems
* they play games, including kite flying
* they have a traditional decoration ("flower arrangement" made up of fir tree branches and bamboo)

* 2010 was the year of the tiger. 2011 will be the year of the rabbit.

Walking a tight rope

Josephine doesn't play all that often with her "dolly" anymore. She has her spurts. But at the moment, those spurts mostly come about when Evie tries to take dolly into her own care. Evie has recently adopted "Emma" and pushes her everywhere around the flat in the little doll pram. She changes Emma's nappies too. Her other doll is called Katie. But at the moment, she seems to prefer Emma. (Sorry Emma (my UK friend), but the doll came with that name written on her clothes and all! But the doll Katie was very clearly named after your second daughter to remind us of you guys!). Anyway. Today, Josephine picked up little Dolly for a while and decided to teach her how to walk. Dolly's legs kept caving in. She wasn't terribly co-operative. Her eyes have lost some sparkle since that day. (the day she put liquid eyeshadow...green...into her eyes to the brim.) But even if Dolly gets "left out" for a few days or weeks, Josephine still loves her dearly and will fight tooth and nail should anyone (Evie) try to steal her baby from her.
Anyway, I have yet again digressed.
Dolly wasn't walking too well so Josephine needed a solution. Hers was to put Dolly on a leash. So she got a rope, made a loop, tied it around Dolly's neck and dragged her around like that. It looked awful. Like Dolly was committing suicide or something. Despite me saying that it was probably hurting Dolly's neck a little (not wanting to go the route of talking about hanging a person or something ghastly like that), she insisted that it was "DA ONLY WAY DAT DOLLY WILL LEARN". Ok. Mom knows best. Aha. Josephine dragging poor Dolly behind her, climbed the stairs to her bed and then proceeded to string poor Dolly up for good measure. The doll swung lifelessly below nearly knocking little Evie out who was innocently cooking up a storm a the wooden stove below.
It was an innocently macarbe scenario.

Shinagawa aquarium

Today we hopped onto the trains with friends, Mihaela and Ulli with their two children Timo and Ines. We headed towards Shinagawa aquarium. We met our friends around 9am in Meguro (another big train station) and continued from there together. We had about 4 change overs at various stations, each time sqeezing 2 prams into the lift. Teeny weeny lifts they are!
Anyway, kids and parents alike were hyped and excited to see what there was on offer at the aquarium.

on the train...Timo and Josephine really enjoying each other's company.

My friend, Mihaela doing the Japanese "peace" thing!

Josephine checking out poor Timo's new haircut. He didn't seem to mind too much though ;-)

Us lot, all arriving at the aquarium

Ines and Evie at the dolphins (they're just 2-3 weeks apart in age)

after the dolphin show we went to watch them a bit.

The tank tunnel. That was very impressive! Everything was visible to all aged children. Wonderful.

We saw everything you can imagine....an assortment of massive manta rays and sting rays. And here, a turtle just "plodding" on....still looking for it's escape route.

The "wolf fish"....a deep sea fish that just arbs out with it's mouth wide open and this wierd transparent net thing in it's mouth getting sucked in and blown out as it breathed. Interesting!

some squishies!

the tropical fish.

Theeere goes Nemo's buddy, Dori. Do you see her with her dark blue spot on her yellow scales?

Lovely coral

The salamander fish. From Mexico or South America, I think?

Josephine's nose pressed against the windows. The glass was really thick and at times Mihaela and I felt truly ill. It did give us a sea-sick like feeling.

Little Evie sticking her head through one of those picture frames

And Josephine

Fascinated by the sharks. And the eyes were moving. This shark was resting at the bottom of the tank. But after a while he swam away from us. We watched his gills going in and out as he pressed the water out again.

Jaws. The "Black Tipped Reef" shark

The aquarium also had some "hands on" tanks where the children could let the little fish come and sucker off any parasites growing there. The tiny fish just swarm your hand and take cute little nibbles. Almost tickles. Josephine's last words tonight were that she wants to go back and visit those little fish.

After a 3 hour, but full day there, we left and went by train towards Jiyugaoka (near home) and sat down to some yummy pizza and pasta. Was a nice way to end off the day. Everyone enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

Little gardens

When we went to visit Michael at his work, we strolled around outside for a bit to give the girls a bit of exercise. Within meters, we stumbled upon a lovely little Japanese garden.
Japanese gardens are not huge. But they're immaculately kept. They take such pride in keeping their greenery neat. The trees are trimmed (almost with nail scissors) and kept pristine. Anyway, I focused my camera more on the kids actually and some odds and ends. As we got there, Josephine announced she needed the loo. We didn't have the nerve to let her take a leak on/behind any of these precious plants, so Michael walked her a mile back to find a toilet. They were gone for about 30minutes. Meanwhile, Evie and I froze our butts off in the chilly wind but enjoyed the scenery very much. Evie was set on climbing into the water fountain and pond...so I had my hands full in keeping her life safe and her body dry.

Josephine sprinting back from the loo

My child's heart

Josephine loves flowers. And she loves picking them and giving them to us and then telling us how much she loves us. Isn't it beautiful? Children don't often have things to give. They can't waltz into a shop like us, buy a toy or perfume, wrap it up and give it. They don't have access to money at this age. So what can they give? A flower. I just think that's so lovely. When she gives me a flower, it really melts my heart. I wish the petals would always stay fresh. I have pressed one or two to preserve the memory.
Here's a photo of an Autumn blossom in Japan that she just gave me. She had a real tough wrestle with the bush who didn't want to give it up. Fortunately, no one saw. Her little heart is more precious to me than rules though - generally speaking. (sometimes I do have to tell her not to pick, especially from florists or botanic gardens where people come to look at the flowering bushes which would be bare if we stuck around much longer.)
Anyway, here is tangible love gift from Josephine...

Pappa's office

Pappa has just moved offices and took us 3 along to come and have a look. He works on the 18th floor this time (half that of his former office) and has a view of note! Check it out! And also, more importantly to note: see who is truly boss.Errrm, yup, it's the Kids. :-)

the photo looks teeny. Try to spot snow-capped Fuji in the background. Awesomely clear view!

Nuggets from Josephine

"Mamma! Mamma! Evie pulled this little pig out of a book (holding up a torn piece of paper with great fret written all over her face."
Me pulling wet washing out of the machine asking, "Well, which piggy do you mean (not packing the foggiest clue what she was talking about."
"Dat little piggy!!! Not da one dat went to da market. Not da one dat ate roast beef. It's dat one dat ran wee wee wee all da way home!"

Aha - then I knew what she meant.



As the piano teacher, Ayako-san, was leaving Josephine came running to say goodbye. She gave her about 5 big smooches right on the lips, hugged her continuously. Ayako-san was very touched and gave her great big hugs back. The Japanese are lovely with receiving.
Anyway, she then proceeded to start telling Ayako-san about "Kanoonas". A Kanoona is a great big monster. Some are fwiendly and some are weally weally dwangerous. So you must always be quite careful of Kanoonas. They come from America. Josephine is 100% convinced she lived in Amewica when she was just a teeny weeny baby. And that is where she saw the Kanoonas for the first time.
Ayako-san was giggling all the way through Josephine's very animated and serious expressions as she explained all about Kanoonas. But it took the cake when she induged us in delicate details of the Kanoonas digestive system ending with "....and den if dey eat too much sweet stuff dey get fat and den da Kanoona's body doesn't like it. And den it sends all da fat stuff to da skin and pushes it out....POP!! And DEEENN...and den, (big big eyes) dey have to go to da toilet and make big foofoo. And den dey must also wash deir hands. But sometimes da Kanoonas, dey just want to play and den dey push deir foofoo back up so dey can just do deir little fing."

We were in fits! Shame, she will surely kill me when she reaches a "sensitive" age. But I wish to remember these things for a) they're cute and b) who knows if I need an ace card to play or bribery of some sort.


Josephine is already starting to talk about plans for her 4th birthday. A) she can't wait to get bigger and B) she's totally obsessed with princess and ballerina stuff at the moment. This isn't something totally new, but it has accerated big time in the last month. So she dreams of inviting all her fwiends to a ball....
"Mamma! We just going to have a gweat big ball and we'll all be doing dancing and twiwling. And den (voice dropping in suspense, eyes huge), we're going to have a feast. We're going to eat a gweat big cake altogether. Da cake, we should get a pwincess cake, wif a coach and also a horse. And I also want Chwistmas turkey and bwocolli. And burgers (now started to stut the room, thinking as she talks). And da giwls are all going to wear bweautiful dwesses. And cwowns. And da boys. Dey are going to be pwinces. I fink dey will like dat!
Me: "so who would you like to come to your party?"
Josephine: "Ummm....Big Timo. Also little Timo. And Kenji. And Perry. And Victoria. And Leiya and Nikola. And also Tama. And even Pappa can come. And I want ALL da chwildwen at my kindergarten to come!"
Me (imagining 20 odd childwen running ape in our home...mind speeding over to alternative venues....returning thoughts to the room...) "Josephine, I think we can invite 10 children. You'll have to pick 10 out of those."
big sigh, but accepted. List got repeated as above, and I think that will be manageable.
We still have some time yet, but SHE's so excited to turn 4 already!

x

25 December 2010

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believes in Him may have eternal life."





So on Christmas morning, we had a nice cuddle in our bed, all four of us. We do that most mornings, especially on weekends. And that's ALWAYS nice!!!
Then, we had some breakfast and then we went to open the presents from our dear family and friends who are further away.

That was very special and it brought tears to my eyes to think of all the love that was wrapped up in those parcels! Thank you!


The parcel from Sanders family in New Zealand. Liesl, Jason and cousins Joshua and Jesse

I clearly remember Josephine saying "WOOOOWWW!!" here!

Ooooh yes, a Pappa's gotta do what a Pappa has gotta do. Tx L,J,J,J!

the little Elf family and Pappa Rudolf!

and now Josephine has the sparkling, shiny red nose!

And, now Evie. They just had to try it!!

Evie elf

And now...a parcel from Gwan and Gwamps in London!! Thank you G&G!!

Josephine doing the honours with the scissors

oooh, delight! A DVD and CD, etc, etc, etc!!! Thank you!!!

Some fun glasses from G&G for us to try on! And this is...Professor Pappa

and...professor Jozie

and our little professor Evie

And now for a present from dear dear UK friends, Emma, Aaron, Isabella (Josephine's playmate) and baby Katie

Emma: she LOVES these princess pjs! Good choice!!! She has worn them 3 days in a row also during the day the minute we come home. I tell you! 

Some Scottish "Walker" shortbread biscuits....all the way from UK. Tx E,A,I,K!

and....off Evie goes in her princess PJs which we put on over her other pjs that morning. It fits perfectly! Tx again!

And then, we packed a bag, and went to the school grounds where Josephine could practise on her bicycle for a bit and burn off some energy. From there, we went to Shonan beach again. It's in a town called Eonishima and is about 20km from us. We had Saturday (not Christmas) traffic and it took a  little longer than hoped. When we got there, we were glad we packed in warm jackets. The wind!! It was icy cold! 10dC, but nevertheless biting! We rode along the beach front. I pushed Evie in her tricycle while Michael tended to Josephine's enthusiastic cycling. He had to run. But fortunately she was quite good at her braking too when it came to crossings or so every now and then. But the wind was howling. Waves were messy from the onshore wind and the sand was stinging us even in our faces. We took shelter in an "Italian" restaurant. We ordered some pizzas. I can't remember all that was on the menu, but it was ...different. Not the Italian we know. So Michael ended up with a pizza with lettuce leaves and some funny other bits on top and then melted cheese going over it. Looked worse than it tasted though. Not bad.

We spent about 2-3 hours at Shonan and then went home. Kids slept in the car on the way home, which was necessary and good. When we got home, I finished preparing our Christmas dinner. We were supposed to have it for lunch, but decided spontaneously to go to Shonan instead. So we had turkey and veggies and the whole tutti. And my dear friend, Emma, from England even sent us crackers for the table (can't get them here) and the kids (Josephine especially) LOVED that!!! We had a gooooood time. Candelight dinner. Josephine and Evie's eyes were shining. They were so impressed and Josephine declared that she could eat turkey every day.

We then tinkered on the piano, sang, played, skyped with Gwandparents. Was a lovely family time which we relished. Turned out to be a lovely Christmas.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believes in Him may have eternal life."