Today, we took the kids down to the only skating rink in Nagasaki that we know of. Noah took right off with his skating and Kimi tried pretty hard, too. Nico was still a little too young and happily earned the nickname “Spaghetti Legs” Rawson.
Our apartment is decorated this year with a new item – the electric fireplace! Looks great in the apartment but will be even better in the new house!
Here are the kids ready for summer fun.
Noah yanked out his other front tooth on top. Now he’ll be singing…
Here is Nico sleeping away on a lazy Saturday afternoon…
For my family and friends back home who might forget our time differences over here, I’ve provided contrasting clocks from the World Time Server site:
Remember that Nagasaki is ahead of Topsham by 14 hours during daylight savings time!
The Okunchi Festival happens every year in Nagasaki City. Basically different parts of the city enter a boat-float or a cultural dance show and do performances around the city at various stages that are set up. The different city boroughs participate once every 7 years. This year’s main attraction was a whale float symbolizing the whale hunts. Two men work a water pump inside the whale to spray the crowd with water.
Other attractions are the boats. I always think the guys that work these boats are dressed to look like foaming sea around the boat.
These are short videos of some of the performances. There is dance, action, and the recreation of the fishing catch by a very lucky boy who gets chosen for this role. There are many more videos in the archives for October 2006 if you are really interested.
The whale is leaving one of the stages and the crowd calls it back with “Mo-to-ko-i, Mo-to-ko-i” which roughly translated means “encore, encore”.
The kids had fun and we rode back home on the train which made it even more exciting. They sure got exhausted, though. Klaus looks satisfied here that his mission to Japan was successful in the “sightseeing” department.
Noah and Kimi both wanted to play guitar with Papa while Klaus was visiting. We had fun just strumming away.
Our great friend, Klaus who is from Denmark, visited us for 9 days this past fall. He attended school with me to get a look at the Japanese-style education system and to give a presentation about Denmark to my students – they loved it!
Klaus became interested in our Kendo club, so here is a short video of the Kendo master instructing students. Note the battle screams students give. (Master is the guy on the left here)
The Kendo master at our school is over 60 years old. At his prime, he was top in Japan once or twice.
Here is Klaus trying out the BOKUTO, or Japanese wooden sword used in practice. There is a different sword they use for fighting each other (made of bamboo), but this one is a real bit of hardwood.
