Bentenjima Hanabi

This weekend, Dustin and Theo biked the Shimanami Kaido. This was the first time that Theo has been on this cycling route and the fifth or sixth time for Dustin. I will try to convince Dustin to write a post about their adventures in the next week. The two younger kids and I decided to stay home, firstly because I was working in the morning and early afternoon, and secondly because that evening was the annual Bentenjima fireworks festival. Our friends, the Oshimas, watched Rosie and William while I was at work and as soon as I returned home, I threw on some yukata and headed out the door.

The fireworks are held each year in Tomonoura and as always, it was incredibly lively and crowded. William was exited enough to add a new word to his repertoire: hanabi, or fireworks. We arrived early enough to get a parking spot, wander around the street stalls, and find a good spot to view the fireworks.

William demanded a photo in front of this firetruck 

Overpriced, unhealthy, but oh, so delicious!

This was my first time to see a chocolate and sprinkle covered banana stand

I thought these Anpanman candy covered apples were great. The lady in the background was busy
making a Hello Kitty candy apple. 

Happy as Larry he was

and totally oblivious to the samurai father and son sneaking up on him

There are a lot of different stalls that allow children to "fish" for toys. At this stall, you pay to get one metal hook attached to a short piece of twisted tissue paper. The object is to hook as many of these balloons without getting the piece of paper wet and losing your hook. Once the paper breaks, you must stop fishing, but until then you can keep whatever you hook. William got one balloon before he got impatient and ripped his hook off the paper for no reason. Maybe he is a bit too young for this game? 

A similar game involves a little plastic hoop with rice paper stretched in between and a collecting bowl. You then try and scoop as many balls, toys, or whatever out of the water and into your bowl before your paper net breaks. There is an art to it: you need to work fast because the paper breaks down quickly once it is wet, but you can't get too greedy and scoop too much. Whatever you collect in your bowl before your net breaks you can keep. 

This stand lets you scoop up goldfish with a paper net which I think is pretty sad.

I thought this mom and her tiny little girl in yukata were so incredibly cute.

William, Rosie, and me

All thoughts of fireworks were temporarily forgotten when William found a new little friend on the sidewalk. It was a funamushi, or sea slater, which was very friendly and docile. It is an oniscid isopod, very closely related to pill bugs, which are actually crustaceans and not insects like most people think. One of William's favourite pastimes is playing with pill bugs in our yard so it was not at all surprising that he found the sea slater so appealing. He discovered the "fun" in "funamushi" by letting it scamper all over his hands and arms, carrying it around, and creeping out anyone who came close enough to see.

I think someone drew on its back because they don't naturally have white markings

Rosie occupied herself by picking up rocks and trying to eat them, one of her all time favourite hobbies.

 And puttering around the street stalls taking in all the new sights.

This was her first real fireworks show and I was curious to see how she would react to all the noise and lights. Thankfully, she shrieked in joy and clapped her hands as each firework boomed in the sky. The boys were always pretty mellow about fireworks when they were babies, so her overboard enthusiasm surprised me.

Looks like we'll have to go to more fireworks shows this summer! 

Kochi

Here, at last, is the final catch up on of some of the traveling we did when my in-laws were out.

The first weekend in April, we packed our bags yet again and made our way to Shimanto City in Kochi Prefecture. Seeing as Kochi is the birthplace of Anpanman, what better way to get there (and make our children's day) than taking the Anpanman train! William, who is especially obsessed with all things Anpanman at the moment, was thrilled beyond words.

It takes about 4 hours by train from Fukuyama to Shimanto and so the kids were somewhat bribed into good behaviour with the purchase of these Anpanman themed bento.

Theo modeling his bento lid

We only remembered to take a shot of William's bento after he had taken a couple of chomps
out of Anpanman's head

We wanted to have a chance for Obaasan and Ojiisan to get to know Dustin's parents a bit better, so we invited them along with us for the weekend. We were able to book this fabulous house in the middle of nowhere for the time we were out. It is a model eco home built almost entirely, inside and out, with local cypress and smelled absolutely amazing! 

Front of the house

and the back

Grandma and the boys peeking down from the second story balcony

Waiting to eat some yummy nabe

Theo and I hunted down this 5 cm monster for our more squeamish
housemates and deposited him outside

The gorgeous all cypress bathroom

Even more amazing than the house itself were the views of the mountains and the Shimanto River. Directly across from the house was this large display of koinobori strung over the river for Children's Day. 

 Enjoying a walk in the sunshine with Grandma

Trying, and failing, to find fossils in the rocks

We went on a tour of the river on this traditional boat. What you can't see from the photo is that the whole interior of the cabin has tatami flooring, so everyone's shoes were left outside on the deck.

Theo soon made a new best friend when the boatman let him control the motor. Theo sat with one  hand firmly planted on the man's thigh and the other on the tiller, and giving us all a choppy, bumpy ride for most of the trip. I think he was a little surprised (and probably annoyed after a while) to find out that Theo could speak Japanese. There was an endless stream of prattle and questions from Theo about everything and anything he saw.

BFF

The day ended with a barbecue in which Theo forsook all of his previous claims that he was an herbivore. 

And here are some final random pictures of our adventures:

Theo checking out a rock slide that was blocking part of the road. There were also mountain monkeys on the road which we weren't quick enough to get pictures  of.

Dustin, the hunter-gatherer, finding the biggest bamboo shoots the forest had to offer

 And some beautiful flowers that were blooming earlier in Kochi than in Hiroshima

Azalea

Wisteria

A View from the Station

Theo absolutely adores babies. When he is not playing with William, whom he refers to lovingly as "Chubby Bubby", he is pretending that his teddy bear is a baby. Lately when we go out, he asks if he can carry his "baby" around in a carrier like William. So, I fashion him one out of a shawl. He has certainly gotten some interesting looks from people when he has it on!

Theo, helpin' a brother out.

Dustin and Theo waiting for the train with their babies.

On a train related note, did you know that Fukuyama is the only city in Japan where you can see the castle directly from the train platform? The shinkansen platform is one level up from the regular train platform, so I am sure the view of the castle is a bit better, but seeing as we're too cheap to ride the shinkansen, this better view will have to wait.  

Here are the castle walls and smaller out buildings of the castle as seen from the train platform. It does make a nice view while waiting for your train to arrive. 

Also, a few days ago Theo and I stepped off the train on our way to an appointment with his doctor and saw an Anpanman themed train waiting on another track. Cute!

Fukubukuro

On New Year's Day, we took the kids for a long, enjoyable bike ride along the river and into the countryside surrounding Fukuyama. On our way back, we stopped at a little, out of the way playground and let the children explore for as long as we could stand the cold wind. 

William had fun checking out all of the dinosaur statues. 

There were also lots of things to climb and jump on which pleased Theo.

This tube had really interesting acoustics and William enjoyed a few minutes protected from the wind while hearing his own voice amplified. 

Scattered throughout the playground were little interactive plinths like this one that shows how to draw a kappa, which is a child and cucumber eating water sprite. They are probably my favourite creature in Japanese folklore so I was pretty excited to learn how to draw one.   

We picked up a few Year of the Dragon themed sweet buns from a shop on our way home. Thebuns were made using a plain and green tea flavoured dough and filled with sweet bean paste with chocolate decorations to make them look like dragon heads.

Before we returned home, we stopped at a grocery store near our apartment and bought two fukubukuro, one for the boys and one for Dustin and me. Fukubukuro are mystery bags filled with a random assortment of goods from the store which are sold at a set price which is lower than the actual value of the contents, or is at least supposed to be. I was really hoping that our bag would contain some interesting and surprising new items that I have never had the opportunity of trying. Unfortunately, everything contained in our surprise bag was pretty tame, mostly just snacks. On the plus side, we estimated that we only paid about half of the actual worth of the goods in our bag and we knew that we would be able to use everything in it. Theo picked an Anpanman themed bag for William and himself. It was filled with an assortment of Anpanman candy and cookies which they have both been enjoying over the past week.

The contents of our bag were clockwise from top left: a bottle of tea that tasted like nail polish remover to me, a bottle of water, milk tea mix, 2 cans of coffee, chocolate crackers, senbei, oreos, potato chips, curry mix, seasoning for eggplant stir fry, chocolate covered biscuits, and caramel corn.

The kid's bag contained crackers, cookies, candy, and a sketch pad.

I think that fukubukuro are a fun way for a store to get rid of extra merchandise. I am not sure if they would be terribly successful in Canada though, since people there seem to be pickier when it comes to product selection and have way more allergies, intolerances, and food avoidances.