This past Sunday, Ellie was invited to Maya‘s Ballet Festival in Kodaira, just west of Tokyo. The quality of the performance was surprising. The kids were much better than I was expecting, and the costumes were stunning for an amateur, show-off-what-your-kid-has-learned-in-class type of event.

The above is Maya…

And Maya’s friendly friends Ririka and Kanon.

After the Ballet Festival (小平市民文化祭のバレエ・フェスティバル), some pictures were taken, and then we jumped in a cab to head off for dinner, which was even more fun.

Posted on November 30th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: ellie, kids, people. Comments: 5

Kids’ Trips in Tokyo: A Family Guide to One-Day Outings and Japan for Kids: The Ultimate Guide for Parents and Their Children are two books we reference frequently while living in Tokyo. Both can be useful, but both are far from perfect.

Neither one is very good at telling you what you can do in a certain area. For instance, let’s say that you will be in Shibuya for the day. Without going through each book from cover to cover, you can’t figure out what the books offer on just the Shibuya area. The index in Kids’ Trips is a mere three and a half pages in length and is not organized by area. Japan for Kids has an index of seven pages, but it, too, is not organized by area AND it covers all of Japan so seven pages means the index is nearly worthless. If you look up a place like Takadanobaba (where we live) or Roppongi (a popular hang out in Tokyo) in the index of either book you will find absolutely nothing. Of the two, Kids’ Trips is more useful when trying to look up a place since you can use the map inside the front cover to sort of see if there is any coverage of the target area.

Both books are dated. Kids’ Trips has a copyright of 1998, meaning the information is at least 10 years old and usually more like 15 years old. The second edition of Japan for Kids was copyrighted in 2000, but much of the content goes back to the first edition which was written before 1992.

OK, so the books aren’t great, but they are sometimes still useful. For instance, we wouldn’t have known about NHK Studio Park without Kids’ Trips. A video from NHK Studio Park can be found at the end of this post. However, we followed Kids’ Trips‘ advice too much and went to Maisen, a tonkatsu restaurant, on the top of Tokyu’s Department Store. We had a great time there, thanks to the lively conversation we enjoyed with the couple next to us who were celebrating her 60th birthday. However, the food wasn’t that great, and certainly not Tokyo’s best tonkatsu as the guide suggests. I’ve had better tonkatsu at other places in Tokyo for less than half the price.

The maps in Kids’ Trips are pretty good, and the directions are generally easy to follow.

Both books are useful references and fairly essential if you are going to be in Tokyo for an extended period of time with kids. If you only choose one, I would make it Kids’ Trips. Even if you are only going to be in Tokyo with kids for a couple of weeks I recommend bringing Kids’ Trips along.

Posted on November 14th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: book review, guidebooks, kids, video. Comments: 1

The little, Japanese girl on the right, dressed as a witch, looked to be taking off when the wind caught her cape.

Ms. Krueger tried to take off my son’s face.

The “Up” movie float started the parade. There were two large nets of balloons coming off the top before the parade began. One they let go to kick off the parade. The other had to be pulled in tight so they could get by trees, etc.

These two, cute kids were doing some reverse trick-or-treating. They handed us candy and said “Happy Halloween” although it sounded more like ハッピーハロウィン. In any event, it brought a smile to my face.

What I eventually figured out, though, is that photos only come out well (with my camera anyway) pre- and post-parade when the subjects are still. During the parade video provides much better results.

Posted on November 1st, 2009 under Japan. Tags: halloween, kawasaki, kids, people, video. Comments: 1

The above picture is of my kids and the kids of my coworker. All four were really nervous before meeting and could hardly look at each other for the first five minutes, but then they ended up having a great time together even though they shared no common vocabulary. I think the event inspired all of them to try harder to learn the other’s language.

I spotted this little guy at the Marines’ game.

And this little girl at the playground next to 甘泉園公園…

Posted on September 25th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: kids, people, 甘泉園公園. Comments: 1

The food at this party was more than I had anticipated. When Maya said it was a barbecue, I was picturing yakitori and yakiniku (shish kabobs). While there were those things, there was also much, much more. The above is one round of more than a dozen, different BBQ sessions. I didn’t count, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that 30 different things were cooked for this party of about eight kids and six adults. There was salmon, oysters, octopus, squid, beef, chicken (many different parts), pig, shrimp, several other kinds of fish, many different vegetables including corn on the cob, many items I’ve never seen before (nor do I know what they were), and others that I’m probably not remembering. On top of things coming off the grill, there was onigiri, yakisoba, and several other things to choose from.

I think Maya’s mom cooked barely half of what she had purchased and barely half of what she cooked was eaten, even though we were all stuffed. Speaking of moms, I was the only dad there until later in the evening when one of the moms went home and told her husband to join us. He was hesitant to come at first because he didn’t realize I’d be able to speak Japanese. His wife assured him that I was harmless, and we’d be able to communicate in Japanese just fine. Until he arrived, it was rather embarrassing to have five Japanese ladies wait on me. I suppose there are worse fates in life though. 😉

After dinner we had a fireworks show in the street.

This last picture from the party is of my favorite little girl of the evening. She was the little sister of one of Maya’s friends and so darling. She was the only one of the kids–other than Maya–who, from the outset, was not the least bit afraid of us. She introduced herself to my daughter and gave my daughter the lowest (and most respectful) bow I think I have ever seen. She was the first to play with my daughter at the park. She said some of the most polite things I’ve ever heard come out of a Japanese child’s mouth.

During the fireworks she would go around to the adults to ask them if they had any fireworks for her with a cat picture on the side. I gave her all of mine with the cat pictures, and she was most gracious in accepting them. She came back after lighting them off to see if I had any more. I did not, but we chatted about what I did have. Eventually I sold her on lighting off the remaining fireworks I held which had pictures of apples, grapes, and other things. Again, she was so courteous in her acceptance that I wanted to have more to give her just to continue to hear her amazing responses.

The evening ended with Maya, and her two friends who bonded well with my daughter during the evening, walking us part way back to the train station. They disobeyed their moms who told them to only go as far as the first stop light with us. At the second stop light I told them, somewhat jokingly, they had better turn back to go home at that point as I didn’t want their moms mad at me. They did, but it was a tough parting. The girls had gone from complete strangers to near tears at parting in just a few hours, despite no common oral language in which they could communicate.

Posted on September 5th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: fireworks, food, kids, people. Comments: 1