Hiroko's Hitokoto

Ton's hula show today. Left home in the morning, took train to Mitaka, about 20 min west from Shinjuku. Prep and rehearsal lasted about 3 hours, then it started. Mo was already got board, running around, checking out stage, every door at the hall. She did great job and impressive to see other little kids dances, too. I was busy helping her dressed/hair in between so couldn't see the show much though took some videos: "Oli- Hiki Mai E Na Pua I Ka La'ie" "O Panaewa Ohialoloa" "Tu Tu E" "He Nani Ka'ala" "He Blossom Nani E" Finale "My Hawaii"   Photos here . We were so exhausted had easy soba dinner at station, head back home, then went to bed.

Photos here . Yousef and Ghalia, Mo and ton's best friends from pre school are leaving for Kuwait before the year end. They threw a party for their friends to come play. We've known them for almost 5 years now joined each kid's birthday party on the same place, and it was a bit emotional to see how they are grown up. Off course kids insisted staying late and play together so we did, and we took some of the stuff they won't need anymore.  Thank you very much for the friendships, and we'll miss you all!

Photos here .

Playing at park after school, a friend tickled Mo while he was holding on to a jump rope which was tied to the slide, and he scratched his neck with the rope. It hurt for sure I took him back home, iced him and he fell asleep on a couch, for a good hour. He's better now though still icing his neck... Oh well.

Mo came home in tears. A kid gave him cookies but those were very small he became sad. So we decided to bake our own cookies at home. With Uncle Chris' recipe, only the difference was we used carob chips instead of chocolate chips. It came out pretty good and the boy became happy!

Photos here . Culture committee of Ton's school organized this cooking class and this year we're going to cook Venezuelan dish. Mr. Maurice Reyna from Venezuela embassy came as a instructor with his wife. Menu was: Pollo a la mango （Chicken with mango sauce） Bolitas de arepa frita（Fried corn flour and cheese bread） Arroz perico（Colorful rice） Ensalada dl vieiras con Aquacate（Avocado and scallop salad）　   These were easy to make except fried bread which would take a while to fry because the corn flour takes time to be cooked through.  He ended the class with playing Cuatro, a Venezuelan guitar.  It was a fun class!

Photos here . We took an express train called Super Hitachi early in the morning from Ueno station to north, changed local train from Mito to Hitachi Daigo. There Masami jiji was waiting for us with his car, and we first went to Tsukimachi no taki ("Waiting for moon fall"), then soba (buckwheat noodle) lunch before apple picking. Kids loved it and the carts they had at the orchard. We had lots of sample apples, variety of them, and left with gifts of freshly squeezed apple juice, etc. We stopped by a hot spring to bath in several hot tubs both inside and outside.  On the way to hotel in the evening, kids fall asleep, off course after working hard on picking apples and (pretending) driving carts. Caught in a traffic, it took us almost 2 hours to get to hotel. Checked in, had dinner at a family restaurant, we went back to hotel and shared a double bed with family of 4....! The next day, after we enjoyed buffet breakfast at hotel, we drove to a sweet museum attached t...

Statue of fermented soy beans at Mito station.

It was sweet and sour, just like hard pickled plum...

Mo found this decorated car we call ITASHA and he told me to take a photo.

Lots of apples waited for us again this year. Same tree as last year, and very tasty.

You can go behind the fall. Today's negative air ions.

Steam locomotive was on display.

Ton got a flyer from school which was a treasure hunting map with key words .  She wanted to join this, so we started solving those key words and looked for the treasure boxes, after school. We found one in Arisugawa park, then went to Tokyo tower, then Atago shrine. It started getting dark, we gave up on the last key word in the treasure box, headed to Roppongi Hills where you report your result. Kids had so much fun looking for the treasure box and it was well designed. It seems like this company which organized this treasure hunting has many other local treasure hunting events. So, when we reported, kids received some more flyers and left address so that maybe we would win some prize. Photos here .

MABODOFU, spicy tofu stir fry. Yummy!

It was really cold this morning. They took bus to Ueno Zoo for school trip.

Papa convinced him to shave his hair and Mom ended up shaving like this. He was happy and said it felt good touching his head!

After 3 hours of taiko practice...

Nov 15 is a day of kimono and the kimono school that I belong to had a big challenge of Guinness world record. It was a challenge of "the largest number of people dressing up in kimono". So we had 1109 female dressed up in kimono in 30 min, which was more than enough for us to dress somebody in kimono. It's great that I'm part of the team and proudly say that we have Guinness record!

From kindergarten for its anniversary, and he ate both all by himself...

Found a new restaurant, called Inti Raimi which was open for lunch. Pretty good!

Ton's friend called, looking for her as Mo and I were at park playing with his class mates after kindergarten. Her friend was alone at home, trying to find somebody who can play with until her class starts, so I invited her to the park. She played with Mo for about 30 min, things got board, so we moved on to supermarket, had some YAKURUTO for snack. Then we walked back home, and she stayed with us until her appointment. Mo had fun, and it's nice to have somebody other than siblings to play with for social experience.

Practice dressing up in kimono on Masa again.