As I have previously mentioned it is now the summer school holidays here... fun for all! Last night one of my friends came to stay with her 3 boys and after the usual pizza making we did the standard summer thing here and had fireworks. I'm pretty sure in New Zealand most fireworks are prohibited, but here in Japan they are nightly entertainment over the summer. Each town has a huge fireworks display, but you can also buy BIG bags of fireworks at basically every shop you walk into. There are many different kinds of hand-held ones and although I love to see the delight on the children's faces as they are swirling them around I never feel particularly at ease when little 3 year olds are swirling their sparklers around amongst the other children. Every Japanese person I have ever mentioned it to can't understand why I would have any problem with it... I guess yet another cultural difference revealed!
This morning all the children made their own lunches and we set out on a huge hike to the local train station... a whole 1km through the rice paddies! Well we did take the "long" route over the river and stopped for a spot of "fishing" with plastic bags and some crab hunting before arriving at the shady trees of an abandoned temple to eat our lunch before another summer speciality arrived - a huge downpour! We had made it to the station (aka shack by the side of the railway line) by then though and the kids had a great time running along the platform getting absolutely soaked.
Our friends headed off home on the train and we wandered back home in the rain singing "galoop went the little green frog" as loudly as we could! A nice summer holiday memory!
As I have previously mentioned it is now the summer school holidays here... fun for all! Last night one of my friends came to stay with her 3 boys and after the usual pizza making we did the standard summer thing here and had fireworks. I'm pretty sure in New Zealand most fireworks are prohibited, but here in Japan they are nightly entertainment over the summer. Each town has a huge fireworks display, but you can also buy BIG bags of fireworks at basically every shop you walk into. There are many different kinds of hand-held ones and although I love to see the delight on the children's faces as they are swirling them around I never feel particularly at ease when little 3 year olds are swirling their sparklers around amongst the other children. Every Japanese person I have ever mentioned it to can't understand why I would have any problem with it... I guess yet another cultural difference revealed!
This morning all the children made their own lunches and we set out on a huge hike to the local train station... a whole 1km through the rice paddies! Well we did take the "long" route over the river and stopped for a spot of "fishing" with plastic bags and some crab hunting before arriving at the shady trees of an abandoned temple to eat our lunch before another summer speciality arrived - a huge downpour! We had made it to the station (aka shack by the side of the railway line) by then though and the kids had a great time running along the platform getting absolutely soaked. 
Our friends headed off home on the train and we wandered back home in the rain singing "galoop went the little green frog" as loudly as we could! A nice summer holiday memory!
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