Mummy's been making Yukatas...

Here they are!

Anya & Sam's First Year in Japan (video)

I spent hours last night trying to make a book through the Apple Photo printshop thing. I figured if it didn't get done before classes start, it will never get done. Eventually it worked, and we'll get some printed. Here is a slideshow of my 'efforts':
We'll try to be more disciplined in organising the photos this year, and build it page-by-page. Maybe.

Anniversary Day

Today was our sixth anniversary. Where did those years go? We spent most of the day in the house, out of the heat and taking it easy after the Disney On Ice trip.

Daddy's culinary expertise knows no bounds. 

Once Sam woke from his super-long nap (he's been snotty and grumpy), we headed off to the Yakitori restaurant. This place is great.

I asked Anya if she'd still kiss Daddy when she's 13...

And after our collection-of-food-on-sticks, we went up to the Taiyaki stall. These are lovely red-bean, custard or sweet potato-filled, fish-shaped pancake-things:

Taiyakki stall. We love it. 

And then we hopped on the bus back to Rokko Island, to eat them by the big Obon lights by Rivermall. A nice anniversary evening.

Disney on Ice in Osaka

The summer break is drawing to a close. Yesterday we took Anya (Sam came too), to see Disney on Ice: Princesses. She had no idea we were going until we got there. She suspected something was up when we asked her to put on the Tinkerbell dress, but then the penny dropped when she saw so many people dressed in Disney gear around Osaka Castle.

Just after she found out. 

It was pretty good, though we all preferred the show in Jakarta last year, with complete stories. This one was a series of shorter dances of greatest hits songs from the princess stories. It was still fun, and there was a cool dragon that set fire to the ice.

We had expected the songs to be in English, but it was all in Japanese, which was pretty funny. I've been shouting "Arriell-u" at random times for the last day. Here are the 7 Dwarves doing their thing (go fullscreen and HD):

Anya in a Yukata

Messing around with instagram, here is a nice photo of Anya in a yukata from last week's trip to Lake Biwa. Here is my instagram feed (via extragram): http://extragr.am/ibiologystephen

Some Sam moments

He was in a good mood after his bath, so we wanted to try to record some of the funny things he does:

1. Singing Game of Thrones theme tune
2. Smacking Daddy's cheeks
3. Penguin kissing (we saw it on Animal Planet).
4. Singing "Who let the willy out?"
5. Peeing on Mummy.

The words are starting to come thick and fast now, but we can't always get them on video!

Summer in Japan: Map

Let's see if this works...


View Summer Holiday in Japan 2012 in a larger map

Camping: Take Two (Lake Biwa)

Last week we decided to give camping another go while we still had the use of a car. Having lost the lovely orange tent to a monster storm, we had to get a new one and picked a family tent up from Sports Depo.

So, car packed, GoogleMaps set and off we went in search of lakeside camping at Biwa, up beyond Kyoto. After a couple of hours we arrived at Maiami Beach (Maiami Hima), which is an excellent campsite. We'd originally planned to use a basic bay for ¥5,000 a night, but saw they were pretty hot and exposed. Instead we opted for the A-type bays, which have trees for shade and their own hot shower for ¥7,000. The difference was worth it. Hardcore camping!

It should have been easy, but wasn't.

In our haste, I had neglected to check the new tent (it's new, from Sports Depo, what can go wrong?). As it turns out, we had been given a returned tent with a broken pole elastic. It took ages to fix, and once we got the tent up, the aluminium join between the pole sections split apart and the tent collapsed. Wonderful. Luckily the campsite were pros in dealing with halfwits and lent us a spare set of poles which just about fit the tent. Phew.

Finally got it up! (oo-er)

This tent is bigger and more fun for the kids. 

The evening was clear and warm, so we hit the lake, cooked out and went to bed. We woke up to some sun but some ominous clouds, then a lot of rain. Luckily we found the Lake Biwa Museum online by accident and it was close to the site. So back in the car and off we went. It is the best freshwater aquarium we have come across and was really good value. We were there all day.

By the time we got back to the campsite, the weather was fine, the air had cooled and we slept well.

The next morning, we had plans to find a big park for the family. We hopped in the car and ended up driving into.... more rain!

It was so wet we ended up in a newly-built mall, with a US Land play area, which kept the kids busy for a couple of hours.

And again, once we returned to the tent, the weather cleared up, so we hit the lake:

During the day, the campsite had gone from being our private place by the lake to a jumping party venue, with loads of pro car-campers and their gear:

Sam was knackered:

The final day, Sunday, was hot and sunny, so we found another park with a pool and hung out on the way home. A good little holiday - all only two hours from Kobe!

Bye-bye Lake Biwa! 

We'd chosen good days to go up to Lake Biwa. It is now the Japanese school holidays and the traffic we saw on the way there as we were heading back was nuts. It will be too busy (and hot) for trips like this in the next few weeks, but hopefully we can get up here again in the October break, typhoon-season permitting. 

On the way back we stopped in Sports Depo with the cacked-up tent. In exchange for our knackered and dirty tent, we were given a new, nicely-packed one. Result!