Hon-atsugi | Japanese Crackers

After a week of long working days and longer working nights, I was happy to have the weekend upon us. But alas, when the going gets tough, it just gets tougher.

Friday morning, Layla had enough of a fever that the daycare wasn’t willing to take her (38 degrees! oh my!) Swine flu running rampant in our little town, and reports all over the news again caused great concern in Tamie and her parents, enough to take Layla to the hospital. The doctor, after poking and prodding, concluded that she was undetermined to have the flu (of any kind) and we’d have to come back on Saturday. At 9am. So much for sleeping in.

9am rolled around and we were scrambling to get to the hospital on time. Arriving just after 9:07, I was happy to see that there weren’t a million parents with kids in masks. Who ever thought one would be relieved to be only the thirteenth in line at a hospital. We were actually taken care of pretty quickly, and it was determined again that Layla might not have the flu. The fact that her fever had broken wasn’t a good indication as it might come back.

A clean(ish) bill of health in hand, we set out to have a good weekend. So what did we do? The weather was miserable so we didn’t do much. We shopped, we played, we ate, we came home.

Shopping was interesting in that we picked Layla up another toilet. She’s deathly afraid of the big blue (in our house) water closet, and even when we put the friendly bunny Miffy on the toilet seat, she’s still paralyzed. The daycare, from what I understand, are doing their best to toilet train her and have a pot with anpanman, a Japanese cartoon character, encouraging the kids to do their business. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a similar pot at home, hopefully making her comfortable enough to want to use a toilet. So far? She’s had a lot of fun pushing the buttons that play music… not so much on actually using it.

Playing involved going to the kids’ floor in the department store and letting Layla run around and play with other kids. There’s a sample toy train track out that all kids seem to love, Layla being just one of them. She wasn’t too happy when her favourite toy train (Thomas the Tank Engine, for those keeping score) was being used by another little girl. The little girl was busy playing with two trains, and despite my telling her to wait her turn, Layla insisted on trying to get one. I, using all my cunning (and most of my Japanese skills), convinced the little girl to swap one of her trains for a caboose. Layla still wasn’t happy and tried to take the girl’s other train. She really wasn’t happy when I removed her from the toy section… screaming all the way. Fun times, indeed.

Eating was the highlight of the day. We had shabu shabu, which is lots of beef in a hot pot. Not unlike the previous two weeks of sukiyaki, shabu shabu involves thinly sliced pieces of beef that we cook ourselves in one of many kinds of broth, then dunk in sauce and eat. A new place opened up in our neighbourhood a couple weeks ago and Tamie finally didn’t refuse (at least not strongly enough) to going. It was decent, but we’ve definitely had better.

Sunday was another rainy, miserable day. Tamie had a dentist appointment in the morning, so Layla and I hung out at home before heading out to meet her in Hon-Atsugi when she finished. I was eager to hit up the Burger King there because they were offering a SEVEN patty hamburger, in honour of Microsoft releasing Windows 7. Thankfully, they were sold out when we got there so we went for lunch at a more reasonable, less beefy place.

Before lunch, we headed to the science museum to open Layla’s mind to the wonders and amazements that science has to offer. She seemed to have a good time, playing with marbles and … well, mostly marbles. I was most interested in the hand sanitizer they had available at the exit with the big sign outlining the dangers of influenza. Pandemic, much?

After lunch, we came back to Ebina and ventured back up to the kids’ floor of the department store to give Layla another opportunity to throw a tantrum… unfortunately, they were having some kind of halloween party so there were a thousand kids, all hopped up on sugar and adrenaline… I say unfortunately, not because I didn’t want Layla to get involved, rather she was too timid to go out and play. The chaos of it all seemed to wilt her spirits so we instead helped Tamie shop for a new jogging shirt that she used after we got back home.

Maybe not the most exciting weekend, but it had its moments.

Pictures are available here:
Saturday
Sunday

Today was just like any other Saturday – we tried to sleep in only to be woken up by the kid who never wakes up early on a weekday. Ah well, sleep is overrated anyways. With an early start, we had the whole day in front of us! So what would we do? … yep, it was another Saturday – like any other Saturday we had no idea what to do. When Tamie asked me the night before I told her I didn’t want to do anything – I was too tired and I think getting sick to boot. The shining sun outside and the bouncing Layla underfoot made going back to bed impossible… so we did what anyone would do – we called my parents.

Layla is always excited to call Nonni and Chinni and they always make time to watch Layla on the webcam and we did just that. Hurricane Layla made a mess while her grandparents watched, her dad laughed and her mom worked hard. Nonni asked what we were doing… still no idea. Maybe going to the beach or something… we’d figure it out.

After about an hour, Nonni and Chinni got bored (or just tired. or both?) so we said our good-byes and tried to figure out what to do. Layla made it easy – she decided to go lay down and take a nap. I don’t know if it was the heat, the waking up early, getting older or just plain boredom but I’ve never seen her go lay down by herself. I didn’t complain though as it let me play around with this new blogging software. Tamie went out for a while and I stayed with Layla as she slept.

Once the kid woke up, she immediately demanded to know where her mom was. Luckily Tamie called 10 minutes later to tell me, so we went and met her for lunch. Macau Meadows in Ebina – used to be decent but now? Not even the cute waitresses are worth it. The food has gotten progressively worse in the two years we’ve lived here… so much so that I think that’s the last time we’ll eat there. At least until the next time.

As we ate, Tamie mentioned there was a festival going on in Hon-Atsugi, a neighbouring city only two stations down (three minutes away by train). She seemed interested and I was curious so we decided to go check it out. Who doesn’t love a good festival? Street meat on sticks and cold beer at marked-up prices! Throw in a million people and 40 degree heat and you got yourself a grand old time!

At Ebina station there were already about a thousand people waiting around to head down to Hon-Atsugi. It’s easy to pick out the festival-goers as they are all wearing yukatas (summer kimonos). That, and the fact they’re standing on the same platform we are to get on the same train. The small crowd in Ebina was just a hint of what was to come!

Hon-Atsugi was packed. If I knew how to post pictures on here properly, I would post one. But pictures wouldn’t do justice to the scene we were in – throngs of people out enjoying the festivities. A throng, by my estimation, is just under a hundred thousand… and there were many throngs.

Layla discovered the joy of riding on my shoulders as she saw other kids propped up on unfortunate fathers sweating under the weight of their own offspring and wanted to join in. Always happy to oblige, I precariously balanced her atop my shoulders, trying to find a good gait to walk that didn’t bump into anyone and didn’t shake her too much. It seemed to work out well as she was enchanted just watching the moving crowds around her. I was jealous of her vantage point, but not nearly as jealous as Tamie =)

We picked up some chicken (on sticks) and beer (overpriced, but cold… and oh so delicious!) as we walked towards our ultimate goal – the big field where the fireworks were happening. Every summer festival in Japan has fireworks and every fireworks display is massive. Even our little town of Ebina has a summer festival with a decent fireworks display. Hon-Atsugi isn’t such a little town and their fireworks display was more than decent! To put it another way, Layla was able to watch the fireworks in Ebina but she got so scared tonight in Hon-Atsugi that she passed out. She forced herself to fall asleep just so she wouldn’t have to endure another second of sheer awesomeness. That’s how awesome it was.

Actually, the fireworks were definitely a good show – unfortunately, Layla was definitely scared and did put herself to sleep. We watched with at least a million of our closest neighbours as the sky lit up in various colours and shapes. Did you know they can make fireworks that look like hearts and happy faces? Even cartoon characters! I was disappointed there was no Mario though. The grand finale was called Niagara Falls and it was a display that stretched across the river and rained fireworks down upon us, looking like (surprisingly) a waterfall! It was a good way to end a good show.

Once the show ended, the fun began. The only problem with jamming a million people into a small area to watch fireworks is the battle royale you have to fight through when leaving. Luckily, people (mostly) are polite and stream out slowly and steadily. There is one benefit to having a kid on your shoulders – when someone cuts you off or steps on your foot you got to legs at head height that might ‘accidentally’ kick them.

It only took an hour to get out of the sea of people and there were no serious injuries (at least to us), so we counted our blessings and decided to walk home. It’s a nice feeling to know that we didn’t have to follow that stream of people back into the train station and cram into a sardine can for a long ride home.

All in all, not a bad day for doing nothing.