Unlike Canada, the school year in Japan ends in the middle of March and begins in mid-April. On February 28th, Theo's yochien held their end of year performance. Like last year (and every December as well), this included four mind numbing hours of plays, instrumental ensembles, and singing. This year, Theo played a mouse in one of the three plays. I vaguely caught the premise of the play which was as follows: A bear finds a door in the middle of the woods and passes through to the other side. The door transports him to a magical land of ice and snow where he finds ice fish swimming in a river. After gorging himself, he becomes a magical ice statue, only able to move his eyes but unable to speak. All the other animals of the forest notice that he is missing, find the door, and travel through to the other side. When they find his frozen body they debate on the best way to free him from the spell. Music of course! Once the song has done its trick the bear and the animals head home. I am not sure if there was supposed to be a moral to this tale. Maybe don't eat other people's fish without asking?
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| Theo is the 7th child from the left. The one doing some kind of salute. |
William and I were very lucky that Obaasan and Ojiisan decided to come and see Theo's performance. William spent most of the time being entertained, fed, and followed around by Obaasan which was really the only way he and I survived all four hours without any major meltdowns.
On March 3rd we once again failed to celebrate Hinamatsuri, or Girl's Day. Theo did make a little paper craft at school and we snapped this shot of him posing as the Emperor without an Empress, which I think was a tiny bit more effort than last year.
And finally, the much anticipated (by Theo and not so much by me) day arrived: the last day of school before spring vacation. Here is Theo posing in what he calls his "fancy pants" for the last day of class.
Actually, Theo has spent the past week in a state of heightening excitement due a number of things on our horizon: first was the beginning of spring break on March 15th, William's second birthday on March 19th, the arrival of Dustin's parents for a month long visit also on March 19th, a trip that we will be making to Kyushu in the last week of March, and Easter with all the egg dyeing and goodies it entails. Every morning, he runs through this list of future events asking me if any of these days have arrived yet. How frustrating it would be to have very little concept of the passing of time!
3 comments:
A trip to Kyushu? Do let me know if you'll be in my neck of the woods. I hope March lives up to Theo's expectations.
Where in Kyushu are you? We are traveling to Oita. Unfortunately, Dustin used up nearly all of his nenkyu on our trip to Canada this past August so we are really limited in how much time we, or at least he, can be away.
I was happy to read that you got your hands on some gardening space! I have had a lot of fun growing veggies here, mostly because the thrill of the ground not being frozen solid for 6 months of the year hasn't worn off yet. I just harvested a freakish amount of broccoli from 3 plants that I have neglected for the past few months. I am sure your garden will do great!
We're in Nagasaki prefecture, the appendix of Kyushu. Probably not convenient to your travels. Shame, too. We have both a giant Dutch theme park and a zoo where they let you feed and pet kangaroos and other animals. Another time.
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