6/22/2015 Dad, castle, Kamaboko, American club

UThe kids were soooo happy.  Daddy arrived right when they woke up.

Now we just need to keep him awake till bedtime.

We did a walk around Odawara castle.  (I say this so casually - it involved a walk to the train and several switches.)

We met up with Caitlin, Kyle and their mom.  She had arranged another neat do it yourself factory tour. This one was to make Kamaboko.  For those who don't know - this is the semi circle with pink rim that is often found in bowls of stuff.

These were professionally made.  Ours weren't fancy - in fact they looked gray.

Demoing technique.

We also made some on sticks that were grilled that we could eat right away.  The logs we shipped home.

We spent the night at the American Club, so that we could get up before dawn to go to the fish market.  (Turned out it was closed, so we slept in.)

Branwen's friend Naomi and her dad joined us for dinner and some playtime in the gym.

We had the "Fitness Room ".

Our special squirt water and blow your butt dry toilet also opened the lid every time you walked into the room.

6/21/2015 Schools, looong walk

Yong had made an appointment for us to visit the local public school.  Jef had been making noises about actually sending them to school for a week, but it was going to be too hard to arrange.

The principal gave us a little tour of the 3rd and 6th grades.  Basically, it was a school.  Quite drab, there wasn't much on the walls, desks lined up by twos. Kids well behaved, but little whispers, nudges, etc.

Jef read some essays about the children's day that Branwen's age group had done and said B's class had done better, which surprised us.

Then we crossed the road to St. Maur's where Yong works.  It is a private school where English is the primary language.  Much more lively looking classrooms.

We said goodbye and walked through parks along the Yokohama waterfront.

Another bride

This is for Alexa.  The woman held the pose forever.

We stopped at Pompador for a very late lunch, went to a Manga store (I carry my knitting so I can amuse myself during this stuff.) and Yong picked us up.

6/20/2015 Sunday, American Club

Sunday was a day of rest for me.  I really needed it.  Jef and the kids met friends at an inside amusement park.  (Because it was going to be a rainy day.). Yong and I went to a super market, bought sandwiches for lunch, and napped in the afternoon.

We all met up at the American Club.  Uncle Chi-Heng is a member and really, really, really wanted us to see it.  It was Fathers' Day, so we had the buffet in the family section.

The boys played basketball in the gym and then joined the girls bowling.

Chi-Heng drove us home.

6/19/2015 Costco, sushi lunch

After the shrine we went to Costco.  Since it was still Friday in L.A., this counts as my weekly visit.  Most of Costco is the same except for: 

The signs

 Tasting alcoholic beverages 

She was pouring 3 kinds, but notice the sign.

And some of the local favorites:

Then we all went lunch at a conveyor belt sushi place.

First we met the tuna:

Then we watched it being cut up.  They had little raffles for certain sections. We gamed the system, so one of us would win.  

3 pieces from different parts of the fish:

Each plate was color coded - when we were finished, the waitress totaled up all the colors:

ALL of that only came to $77.

After lunch we shopped for some clothes for Jef and the kids.  I wandered the mall just looking.  Yong took the kids home while Jef and I continued a marathon day.  We walked to another shopping center to pick up pencils engraved with the kids Japanese names.  Then we took a train to a 4 BUILDING craft store.  We started on the 6th floor of the one that interested us most and worked our way down.

When we reached the bottom, I threw in the towel.  We still had to take the train home.  We opted for a taxi from the station.  It was about 9 pm when we finally collapsed at home.  All in all, we had been going for 13 hours.

6/19/2015 Family shrine

Our first duty on Saturday was to pay our respects at the Chinese Temple where the family graves are located.  This is there first visit since Jef's grandmother died.

We stopped at the florist where Yong has been buying her flowers for 40 years.  The proprietor is 90.  Branwen told the lady how much I liked her shop.

At the grave the kids filled buckets with water to pour over the stones.

Then they went to the temple with Yong and put incense sticks at important places and at memorials of the 1928 earthquake victims.

The inside of the temple is always incredibly smoky because of all the burning incense, which makes this sign so funny.

Back at the family site they put the flowers in the little vases and put 3 incense sticks at a time in front of each stone.  The remaining were put at all of the "neighbors ".

6/18/2015 A "resting " day

Today it was a little rainy and we had nothing scheduled, so took it easy all morning.  We walked to two nearby small malls for an afternoon excursion.

The Japanese will never be thirsty.  There are vending machines every 6 feet - just there next to the street.

Cute gate decorations: 

Lunch at the mall, 2 kinds of pasta:

A funny sign in the store.  Notice the small print:

We picked up stuff for dinner and since it started raining again, took a bus home.

6/17/2015 Cup Noodle Museum

Visiting the Cup Noodle museum - doesn't that sound weird?  It turns out that it's really fun.  We got to make ramen from scratch and pack it in bags we drew on and we chose the ingredients for a customized cup noodle.

Caitlin and her mom joined us.  Kyle had to go to school.  We had a reservation but had no trouble adding them to our group.

First we had to put on our "workers' uniform ".  

After a food safety talk, we mixed the dough.  Calder and I were partners.  We dumped the dry ingredients in a large bowl, made a well, added the wet, and mixed and kneaded.  Our group of six had our own instructor.  Every once in a while she would take over and help us along.  I don't have pictures of this part because my hands were messy.  After flattening the dough, we left it to rest and had another little lecture about what we were doing.

We each had a number and everything matched our numbers, so by the end of the process we were going to get a package that really our own.

Next we ran our dough through the pasta machine many, many, many times.  Calder was our cranker and I folded and placed the dough.

Finally we rolled it through the blades, and cut the strands into 8" pieces.  I don't think quality control would have passed our lengths.  We weighed out 2 portions of exactly 100 grams and fluffed them So they didn't stick together.  We put them in little round numbered baskets and sent them to the fryer.  (We just watched the deep fat frying - the Japanese aren't stupid!)

When they were cool enough, they were packed into the bags we had decorated.

We are lunch in the museum restaurant.  There were food stations around a room, each offering noodles from different countries. I had the Malaysian.

After lunch we customized a cup noodle.  We didn't have to dress up because we were not touching any food.

My cup:

Then we chose 4 additional ingredients.

These were the cutest:

My cup noodle:

Our cups were not only shrinkwrapped, but also we put them into inflatable plastic bags to protect them.

We finished with a visit to the museum.  Thousands of ramen products, and the history of the invention and development of cup noodle.  (And of course, a walk through the museum store.)

On the way back to the bus, we stopped for gelato.  Yong called us to say she could pick us up, so we went to the Pokemon and Build a Bear stores to fill some time.

After a day filled with noodles, the kids wanted to go to a noodle restaurant.  I had cold soba with tempura.

6/16/2015 Kidzania

Our first activity was a kid activity center.  A fabulous fun place.  We were signed up for both the first (9 to 3) and second (4 to 9) sessions.  A family from their school joined us.  Kaitlyn is 14 and Kyle is 8. They paired up by sex and really had a fun time together.

The kids can be either workers or customers for activities.  The workers earn money that they can then spend.  Everyone starts off with some cash and there is a bank with ATM's to store your money.

Among other things the girls worked at the cell phone store waiting on customers (demonstrating how to take pictures, etc.), the soft serve ice cream shop, and the freeze dried food factory.

The boys made hamburgers, pens, and their own watercolor sets.

Both groups were together as actors on a food show (earned money and received a DVD of the show)  and made candy.  The candy company is the most popular activity and fills up all of its time slots before the park opens.  We had line priority for the late session, so we trained the kids to dash directly there.  They were first in line!

A lot of the activities were sponsored by real Japanese companies and the uniforms were what the real workers wear.

At one point I heard the Wedding March and rushed to take a picture of a wedding party complete with groom provided by Kidzania.

By 9 we were all exhausted and still had 1 1/2 hours on the crowded train to get home.  The kids managed to stay awake until we got seats on the second train.  Luckily Calder could be awakened, so could walk himself off the train. We took a cab home.

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