Stranger in a not-so-strange land
Just wanted to say a belated Merry Christmas. Since number 2 is being stubborn and not wanting to come out on schedule, I’ve found some extra time on my hands. So I’ve posted some pictures from our holiday season here in Japan.
Dec. 24 – Tamie cooks up a storm in Ebina for Christmas Eve dinner.
Dec. 26 – Boxing Day in Japan has no sales… so we went to a park instead.
Luckily, this time there were no hospital visits, no appointments to miss or schedules to fall behind on, so this day went much smoother than the previous photographer outing. We got to the shrine in the early afternoon, signed up for our blessing, paid our blessing fee, and waited for our turn.
While we waited, we were shown to a waiting room where there were markers to write on the wishing wood they gave us. Tamie wrote something deep and meaningful in Japanese and Layla signed her name in every colour of the rainbow. Then Tamie realized she wrote on the wrong block of wood and they did it all over again on the correct one.
After some time, a shrine lady collected us and led us to the main prayer room. We sat quietly, bowing our heads when told to, as a couple of monks prayed, sang and blessed the whole occasion. I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to take any pictures, so left my camera in my bag, but the constant flashes from the tourist crowd behind us made me wonder if it’d been okay. At the very least, the tourists could have asked us if we wanted a copy of the pictures they took.
All the while the prayers and things were going on, Layla was sitting on my lap. She bowed when instructed, and listened when told. Not a tear was shed or peep peeped as she went through the whole process of celebrating her turning three. Even when she needed to go up to the front with me and place the ceremonial tree branch on the ceremonial table and ring the ceremonial bell after doing the ceremonial bow, bow, clap, clap, bow post-prayer procedures. The only time she balked at something during the day was when they offered her a bit of sake at the end. Smart kid.
Once everything was said and done, we took the opportunity to shoot a few pictures in front of the shrine before heading back home. On the way back, Layla wanted to change into her running shoes that I happened to have in my backpack. By the time she got to the car, she wanted out of the dress and into some jeans, again in the backpack.
Back at the Grandparents’ house, Layla wanted to go to her favourite park on her favourite red bicycle. Jiji was more than happy to go and I ended up tagging along, taking pictures along the way. Layla had a blast, but I wouldn’t doubt if her Jiji had more. Biking, sliding, running, playing, swinging! No wonder she likes going to the park with him!
When Layla was done with the park, we headed back home to go for dinner with everyone. There’s a great teppanyaki place that opened up in Hon-Atsugi that Tamie was interested in trying. I convinced her parents to come with us, which amounted to nothing more than asking them. I think it was unanimous that the food was great.
Golden Week has just ended and I am sick. Not sick of having time off, just getting over a feverish, stuffy-headed cold.
A quick recap of the events, more for my memory than anything else:
Saturday – Hospitals. Lots of hospitals. Both Layla and Tamie are getting healthy and news is looking good on all counts. Thank goodness for that.
Sunday – Spent the day in Ebina, looking around. We headed to a park with a 75m slide, found a temple we knew nothing about, and hit up Starbucks for our weekly(?) fraps.
Monday – Went clam-digging with the in-laws. About a million other people had the same idea and we were stuck in a huge crowd – luckily the ocean is large and we all fit. Layla decided she wasn’t afraid of the ocean anymore and ended up having a blast. I think this is where I got sick.
Tuesday – Headed down to Enoshima for the first aquarium/beach visit of the season. Enjoyed the dolphin show with another million people – Layla didn’t cry and was quite proud of the fact. I was quite proud later when we left the aquarium and she wanted to play on the beach, fearless of the waves that petrified her only a year ago.
Wednesday – Went to an outlet mall in Minami-Machida called Grandberry Mall. Found out that I’m too big for even the XL pants. Shamed and sick, I went to bed early this night.
Pictures? I got ‘em. You want to see ‘em? Click below:
 Saturday |
 Sunday |
 Monday |
 Tuesday |
… Wednesday still to come.
Golden Week is upon us and we’re entering a time of rest and relaxation here in the busy land of Japan. Golden Week is a grouping of national holidays that amount to nearly a week off. Today (Thursday) is the first of 4 holidays. The others being next week’s Monday-Wednesday.
We spent a lazy day relaxing before Layla got it into her head she wanted a (surprise, surprise) Matcha Frappuccino from Starbucks. Being the pushover parents that we are, we headed out for the cool drinks.
On the way home, we stopped off at an amusement park of sorts for kids. Layla had seen it in our travels before and every time we neared it, she’d remind us of our promise to one day take her. Today was that day. She’d seen kids driving cars and wanted to give it a try so we let her. It took her a while to get warmed up, but once she started playing she didn’t want to leave.
Layla’s been a bit under the weather recently, her nose bubbling more than usual and her cough getting worse every day. We decided to take it easy this weekend in the hopes of her getting a bit better with a couple days to recuperate. As it’s Sunday night now and the poor kid is in bed hacking up a lung, I fear we didn’t succeed. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be back at the hospital — hopefully it’ll be a quick trip.
As for the weekend, Saturday we headed up to Machida to do a bit of shopping, but mainly to check out a fruit parlour Tamie knew of. We were going to hit up the usual green tea ice cream place, but wanted to try something different and this place was actually pretty decent. It being strawberry season, they have a lot of specials on — Layla wanted the strawberry sandwiches which were actually strawberries and whip cream between two slices of white bread… with pepper on it!
Today, with Layla coughing even more than yesterday, we didn’t go anywhere but grocery shopping. Tamie had a date with a masseuse tonight, so I stayed home with Layla. She wanted to play Candyland and, surprisingly, knew all the rules. I ordered pizza, which I thought was a good idea at the time… until I screwed up the order and ended up with two medium pizzas, one of which mistakenly had mayonnaise instead of tomato sauce! Never having tried a mayo pizza before, I wasn’t eager to taste it… but after shelling out the equivalent of 20 bucks for it, I had no choice. My openmindedness was rewarded with a lot of beer being drank as I choked down as much as I could, saving half the pizza for Tamie’s return. She, too, thought it was less than tasty. Layla seemed to like it though… kids these days…
