The Children's Garden

It was a place we could hear sooner than we could see it. Brand new to Japan, we were meandering the streets of our new neighborhood when suddenly we were overcome by the boisterous sounds of children playing...really playing! It was loud! Eager to learn the source of such pandemonium, we rounded the corner and found our answer. It was a school, and the students were joyfully running, yelling, and chasing each other around a dirt-covered play yard. The building itself was rather unimposing, and the tree-lined play area was likewise somewhat simple. The well-loved play structures had clearly known hundreds of children over the years. Looking through the wrought-iron enclosure, we had no idea that these running, yelling, chasing children would one day be the kids' classmates and eventually, even their friends. Nor could we know of the richness that awaited us on the other side of the fence.

The school year has come to a close in Japan, and a ceremony and celebration unlike anything I've ever seen marked the end of Patrick's time at this kindergarten. For months the teachers and moms have been crafting, cutting, planning, and practicing for this send-off. Meetings were held, assignments given, projects designed,  spreadsheets created, and minute-by-minute timetables devised. The end result? An elaborate but elegant day...the kind that sends you collapsing into bed at the end of it from sheer emotional exhaustion!

 

I was on the Programs Committee.
Who knew we were making 55 of them
individually by hand?!

Final briefing before The Big Day

The Japanese are good at so many things and ceremony is high on the list. Imagine 35 kindergarteners in suits and dresses seated in their tiny little chairs, waiting for names to be called.  Imagine a warm but efficient principal announcing each name, each child coming forward to accept with a bow a diploma that surpasses in quality and design anything we've got hanging on our office walls! Imagine the lilt of age-old elementary school songs, sung in the clear, sweet voices of the earnest little graduates. Even days later, the soundtrack remains on a continuous loop in the background of my thoughts.

Ceremony complete, we were ready to celebrate! There were slideshows and speeches, skits and presentations. My friend had e-mailed me the night before to remember to bring tissues. She failed to tell me, however, that I'd need so many, because another area in which the Japanese excel? Sentiment. Oh, my, but they are sentimental. Those who know me well know I am pretty darn good at that myself. I don't need any help! Put me in a room of weeping mothers and it was all I could do not to collapse into my (beautifully catered) bento that day. 

As we walked home from the ceremony in the drizzle of a spring rain, we paused to peek through the fence one last time. The silence of the garden stood in sharp contrast to that first noisy encounter, not so many months before. And in that silence I could hear it all over again...the laughing and yelling, the classical music that signaled an end to the play time, the strains of piano and singing that poured out of every classroom every single day, the children's performances, the gym demonstrations (we'll be working a bit on our jump rope skills...), the chattering of the moms as they gathered to await their children, the mother-child dance on the last day of school. It was truly a children's garden...and what a joyful place to grow!

Ready to celebrate, and she deserves it!
This little girl came to her share of meetings!

 Evelyn and Patrick with his dear teacher,
Yukika Sensei

Everything I ever needed to learn in Kindergarten
I learned from these moms.
We will never forget their kindness!

Graduates gone wild

No Shrine Left Behind

View from the Osaka Castle Hotel

They blew into Tokyo with the hunger of a tornado, and within minutes of touching down began devouring its neighborhoods without mercy. By the end of their first full day here, they had ticked off their sightseeing list what had taken us months to see! Tokyo didn't stand a chance against these two.

Meet my sister-in-law, Lorraine, and her son, Cameron! I don't see them nearly enough, so it was especially fun to welcome them to our city, if only for a short visit of less than a week. (I'll take what I can get, and the kids were thrilled to see their aunt and cousin again!) Time constraints did not seem to limit their excursions, and when asked what they had seen on a given day, perhaps a better question might have been what didn't they see!

At Cameron's suggestion, we traveled to Osaka to attend Day 7 of a 15 day sumo wrestling tournament. How fortunate that their visit coincided with one of the six tournaments held during the year! After three hours of brow-raising incredulity at the spectacle of multiple rounds of sumo, I firmly believe there is no better place than the Bodymaker Colosseum of Osaka to bond with your sister-in-law.  We were amazed and somewhat mystified at this interesting, time-honored art!  It is much more complicated than I would have imagined and we were awe-struck by both the agility of the wrestlers as well as the ritual of the bouts. 

The ring-entering ceremony

Victors are decided in a matter of seconds, with the the elaborate pre-match ceremonies taking longer than the contests themselves. There was plenty of salt-throwing, foot-stamping, chest-slapping - all in the name of purification and intimidation. I was plenty intimidated!

Note the agility.  I could no more squat 

like that than I could tie a knot in my leg.

In the world of sumo, you truly never know who will win.
The wrestlers are clever and quick!

Prior to returning to Tokyo, we toured Osaka Castle, originally built in 1583. Lightning, fires, battles, and wars have not been kind to this structure, but it requires little effort to imagine what was once an imposing and impressive stronghold.

The return from Osaka to Tokyo was blissfully unremarkable and a welcome departure from our train ride the day before.  The rocking of the shinkansen had not agreed with Evelyn, and she let them know exactly what she thought of the ride just as we were exiting the train. (What a way to start the weekend!)

Feeling much better, thank you!

We miss Cameron's watchful eye and protective nature.
He was a big help, not to mention a lot of fun!

I am convinced that Lorraine brings a little magic wherever she goes. Things have a way of just turning out when you are with her! Did I not just lament the elusive Fujisan in my last post? Look who shyly greeted us on our train ride home!

Thanks for the visit, Lorraine and Cameron, and for bringing a little magic our way!

In Search of Fujisan

I'm told that Mt. Fuji is a permanent resident of this country. That may be true, but I've only chanced to encounter Its Majesty on less than a handful of occasions. It's all about timing and weather and location, and with viewing opportunities dwindling with the passing of each day, Chris suggested a weekend trip to a nearby hot-spring resort. There we could take our time, stroll through the quaint streets of Hakone, switchback up the mountain by train, travel by boat on a lovely mountain lake, admire from the comfort of our peak-to-peak tram the steamy, sulfurous emissions puffing from the mountainside - all while enjoying spectacular views of the elusive Fujisan. 

Maybe.

Despite his best efforts to plan a memorable mountain adventure, no amount of Chris's clicks and scrolls could outmaneuver the stubborn fog and lashing rains insistent on joining us for the weekend. Such unwelcome guests! Still, we trudged forward with our plan, enjoying a pleasant two-hour train ride into Hakone from Tokyo on the Odakyu Line Romancecar.  For our family, the train ride seems to be half the adventure, and who doesn't want to ride the Romancecar for the name alone?

Saturday dawned gray, cloudy, and misty - none of which would play very nicely with 'spectacular views' - but we were not to be deterred. Bring on our switchback train ride up the mountain! Our peak-to-peak ropeway! Our Swiss-made cable-car! Our boat excursion! Bring on those spectacular views! (Such an optimist...) 

High on adventure and low on alternate plans, we gamely set out in the rain. My memory of this day is a hazy collection of riding some unusually fun modes of transport enshrouded in a cloudy fog the entire time. There was an occasional glimpse of a snow-covered peak, a passing view of sulfur escaping the mountain, but it is as if we were wrapped in gauze the entire day.

The switchback operator manually
eases us further up the mountain

Riding the ropeway to the sulfur springs

Sulfur-boiled snack, anyone? These black-shelled
hard-boiled eggs are a popular treat on top of the mountain.

The sulfur springs were a big hit.

When life hands you less-than-spectacular views, make friends. These cheerful girls did not stop giggling, talking and sharing their snacks with Patrick and Evelyn during the ropeway ride down the mountain. They also thoughtfully translated the operator's rather important parting message as he closed the doors to the tram: the boat for which we were heading had canceled its run due to 'dense fog'. You don't say! At this point we cut our losses, hopped on the nearest bus, and headed to the sanctuary of our hotel for happy hour and a dip in the hot spring.

It would be shamefully omissive if miserable weather were my only take-away from Hakone. Better to remember instead so many other things - our hotel, the food, the gardens - that made this weekend so much more than wet clothes and chilly toes!

Yes, better to remember the clever accommodations Chris found. Not one to bathe with his fellow man in a public hot spring (but not wanting the kids to miss out on an age-old tradition here) Chris cunningly hunted down an inn featuring our own private onsen. The rain, so pesky and pelting during the day, drummed cozily on the covered porch of our hot spring at night. And once again we were fed like royalty...beautiful, clever, meticulously-created dishes that we probably did not deserve to be served!

How simple to dine morning and evening wearing the hotel-provided yukata. Cute, comfortable, and best of all, dry!

And shame on me if I didn't mention the beautiful garden just outside our doors. No amount of rainy weather could keep us from exploring the twists and turns of this enchanting paradise.

You win this time, Fujisan. But as I relish the memories of the weekend and our fun in spite of the weather, I can't help but wonder if we got just what we came for.

Why Not?

When I first saw them perform in early November, I had difficulty pinpointing what impressed me most about the Moms' Chorus Circle. I had never experienced mothers' 'clubs' in any other school environment, so the idea of moms gathering weekly to rehearse music to perform at the Kindergarten several times per year was new to me. And these are moms (like moms everywhere) with quite a few other things going on in their lives, which is why the polish on their performance was also striking to me. In my bumbling and stumbling way, I tried to say as much after that November concert. In their gracious and earnest way, they invited me to join them.

Join them?! Tempting!  I like to sing! But would my love for singing be enough to conquer one rather imposing obstacle? My inability to read or speak Japanese would not be insignificant in this circumstance. Time passed, and in their gracious and earnest way, these kind mums again invited me to join.  In my bumbling and stumbling way, I accepted their invitation.  Why not?

Indeed.

I was clearly in over my head from the start. Except for one song, the music was unfamiliar, and though they had kindly prepared for me a binder containing the musical scores, that nagging little obstacle remained: one of these moms was not like the others.  Japanese words danced across the page as I tried in vain to chase them, and as the practice came to a close, I concluded that the Moms' Chorus Circle might be better off without the American whose only qualification to that point was 'likes to sing'.

I've come to discover that you cannot out-nice the Japanese, and the Chorus Circle is yet another example of that. While I was busy reconsidering my agreement to join, several moms were finding ways to preserve that agreement. By the next practice I had received e-mails containing Youtube links to the songs, as well as new musical scores, the Japanese words painstakingly transcribed into romaji (English alphabet) so that I could begin to follow along. English translations of the songs followed, so that I could also understand the sentiment of the music. There'd be no backing out now!

Our final (and my only) concert of the year was last Friday, and while this link to Boyoyon March may not represent our best song, it certainly represents our favorite. My kids are constantly belting out their own Japanenglish versions, and the vision of Evelyn exuberantly singing along at the concert was priceless. (Bless her heart, she went to a lot of practices with Mommy!)  The general sentiment is one of encouragement from the moms as they sing their final send-off to the graduating Kindergartners: You can do the difficult things that lie ahead. 

Boyoyon March - Chorus Circle

While one of the moms may not be exactly like the others (it was all I could do to get the words out!!), the Chorus Circle will always be a rich and happy memory...a challenging and rewarding why not.