Time for Reflection

A very slow day.  We were pretty worn out from our trip and mostly just sat around, cleaned up a bit and planned for the next couple of days.  It was also raining which meant the kids were in confinement and we had to resort to Ponies and Clone Wars to save our sanity.

We found some old pictures in a tin box, one of Mitzi’s mom when she was six years old in 1921.  We picked out a few to keep, but most of them will likely end up in the garbage.  It is sad really, but what are we to do with all of these pictures and albums that don’t really have any meaning for us?  I guess that’s part of the reason I am writing these blogs on our trips.  So that in 50 years, we can have something more than scattered photos in an old cookie tin.

Jill also packed up a Tansu (traditional mobile storage cabinetry indigenous to Japan) that she has been wanting since our last trip here.  It meets the size restriction for checked baggage, so why not.  We can even put our clothes in it and use it as intended.  It is really very light.

As an aside, it’s certainly been interesting traveling with 2 kids.  Last year Ru-chan wasn’t really as fully formed as she is now so she wasn’t as much a force in our plans.  It has been rewarding being able to see the kids take in their culture and start to talk Japanese more and more fluently.  They have taken the city in stride and the fact that people stare at them and don’t always understand them.

It’s been hell at times, because in order to pacify them we’ve had to resort to TV, junk food, lots of breast-feeding on Ru-chan’s part and buying things.  While we don’t usually eat that much junk food at home (we do resort to TV alarmingly often) it’s been an easy way to change a screaming/whining baby/kid on the train or bus into a happy one.  Mostly it’s Ru-chan because she is LOUD!  We don’t remember Miwa being overly loud but Ru-chan can stop a crowd in it’s tracks!

We’re going to have to do on a sugar detox when we get home but we’re very grateful that we are able to take the kids on trips like these and especially when we can get together with the family.  It was fun to tell Miwa that she was related to everyone in the room when we were at my Grandma’s ceremony.  It kind of blew her mind that there were that many people that she was related to.