When Sid went to Sendai, the boys and I went to the Tokyo Paper Museum. There is only one trolley line left inTokyo and we took it. I might also note that the morning before this picture was taken there was a small earthquake here. I was laying on the bed reading and the bed began to shake. It turned out to be insignificant, but it was scary. For those of you old enough to remember, it was a little like the Laverne and Shirley episode except that the bed just shook, it didn't move around the room. Of course, our room is not big enough to allow for very much rolling.
The paper museum was fun. We sat on chairs made of paper.
Sam's school had literacy week. This was a fun time for the kids. Each day they had various literacy activities. The principal would ring the bell in the hall a couple times a day and the kids would drop whatever they were doing and read for 15 minutes. For about a week after this Sam had a keen interest in reading on his own. It was great. It is fading a little now and I wish Mr. Ulu would ring the bell some more to drive Sam's interest up again. On the last day of the week the kids got to dress up as a favorite book character. That part of the week was less successful. The kids tended to pick books by the cool characters they could dress up as rather than picking a favorite book or character and then trying to dress up like them. Sam felt deprived at having been Captain Hook in the school play instead of an Indian and so he was absolutely determined to be an Indian. We had to hunt around for a book with Indians in it and finally found an old raggedy book on the Pilgrims. Then, it was time to build a costume. This is not America with fabric stores and Walmarts. It is so hard to find anything. So, I took a packing strip and stapled "feathers" on it (I made these out of shopping bags). I convinced Sam that Indians tried to look like nature and that maybe they wore camoflauge shirts and that beige pants looked like deerskin. Luckily, he settled for that. :)
We went to our friends' mountain house and went skiing. I think I already posted about the mountain house. But, I couldn't remember if I posted any photos. This is the view from the ski lift with Graham--on the way up to my almost death. If I had only known when I took this picture I might have jumped off here.
Graham insisted on buying this bankrobber mask. He spent many yen on it. I haven't seen it since.
Hisako with Sid and Sam at the dairy farm where we went for Margherita pizza and ice cream.
Sid and Sam and I visited two Edo museums in Tokyo. This one is the Fukagawa Edo Museum. It is really cool. The museum is a little Edo-era village where you can go in the houses and see how people lived. This is Sam serving tea. It changes with the season (we had rain because it is winter), but will go back in spring for the Sakura time (cherry blossoms). The village goes through a whole 24 hours (gets dark, the cock crows for dawn, a cat meows on top of a rooftop...). Very fun for kids.
We also went to the Tokyo Edo Museum, billed as a must-see for visitors to Tokyo. Sid had been here with a Fulbright tour. We got an English guide (they are free and provided by the museum). It was okay--many, many, many miniatures showing Tokyo life. The little people cost about 30,000 yen (or 3000 USD) each. They are very detailed and look real. In one of the models there is even a little pickpocket stealing someone's money! This is a suit of armor from the period.
The Tokyo Edo Museum has other stuff as well like this cool bike you can pose on.
And this carriage you can sit in. It also has a display of World War II which is quite sad. It shows before and after pictures of Tokyo. There is also a section on the Occupation. It is sort of enlightening. You follow the arrows through the museum and they take you through the artifacts in chronological order so you follow Tokyoites as they lived in the Edo and following periods all the way to the more recent Olympics. You can really see how profoundly events shaped life here in Tokyo.
We watched the Tokyo Marathon...
Where Graham's school had a booth to play and entertain the runner. Half of Graham's band did not show up, so he and another boy, Franklin, played alone. The playing was good, but the singing I think needed the singers. I'll try to post video on the next blog.
Graham and his friends. The girl on the right is Carolina--she is a model and the daughter of a famous chef. The girl on the left is "Sam."
We watched Graham play basketball at his school. This was their first win! :)
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