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日本語の方が得意な皆様、お待たせいたしました。日本からこっちに戻ってきて1ヵ月半以上が経ち、やっと日本に滞在中の報告が終わったので、日本語に戻して、こちらに帰ってくる様子から、まず報告します。

日本に滞在中の2ヶ月間はほとんど毎日出かけていたので、とても長く感じましたが、こちらに帰って来てからは、毎週同じような生活の繰り返しなので、あっという間に1ヵ月半が過ぎた気がします。それでも、1ヵ月半ともなれば、やはりいろいろと報告することが溜まっていますので、徐々にアップしていきますから、楽しみにしていてください。

さて、まずは帰ってくる日ですが、夜出発の便だったので、午前中は出かけずに、シィちゃん宅でしっかりお昼寝をさせてから出ることにしました。家でゆっくりお昼寝をさせてあげることがしばらくなかったせいか、フィデルは待てど暮らせどおきて来なくて、結局、4時間近く寝て、もうどうしても今起こさないと間に合わない、というところであわてて起こして、出発。その代わり、ゆっくりお昼寝をしていてくれたおかげで、お世話になったお部屋の掃除をしっかりして、のんびりしぃちゃんと話をすることもできました。

子供達が寝ている間に、荷物も全部車に積んであったので、あとは、フィデルを起こして子供たちを車に積むだけ・・・という形にしてあり、スムーズに出発。お見送りに、あーちゃん、しぃちゃん、ようちゃんが来てくれて、みんなにお礼とお別れをして出発しました。ままちゃんが帰り1人になってしまうのは寂しいだろうと思い、松ねぇにお見送りをお願いしてあったので、途中の駅で松ねぇをピックアップして、そのままその足で成田へ向かいました。

成田には出発2時間半前に着いたので、すぐにチェックインできるかと思いきや、とんでもない行列。これはぎりぎりに着かなくて良かった～、と思ったと同時に、どう考えても、並んでいるだけで30分以上は待たなくてはいけないので、松ねぇに来てもらって良かった～！松ねぇが子供たちを連れて、飛行機を見に行っててくれて助かりました。それから、恒例で、私の大好きな「そじ坊」でおそばを食べて、出発。ままちゃん、松ねぇ、お見送り、どうもありがとう！カメラのレンズがオートフォーカスになっていなかったらしくて、写真がピンボケで残念でした・・・。

私達が成田から乗ったJetStarの飛行機。ザックはちゃんと2ヶ月前に乗ったときのことを覚えていて、着く前から「スターの飛行機、ザックの飛行機。」と言ってました。フィデルは私の背中の上なので、写真に写れなくて残念～！

あんなに長いお昼寝をしたのにも係わらず、飛行機が飛び立ったと同時にフィデルは私のひざの上で爆睡。ザックが途中でトイレに行きたくなったりしないように、ザックにもおむつをしておいたので、フィデルはそのまま着陸の30秒前くらいまでしっかりと眠り続けたのでした・・・。ザックは、当たり前ですが、快適に寝られなかったらしくて、間で何度か文句を言いながらべそかいていましたが、すぐに寝なおしてくれたので、私もゆっくり休めました。やっぱり小さい子を連れての旅行は夜のフライトが楽ですよ～！多少、疲れが残るものの、ある程度すっきりとして、ゴールドコーストに到着。一番最後に飛行機を降りたので、ゲートのところでセキュリティーが待っていたから、この記念撮影もあわてていて、ピンボケなのには気付いていたのですが、そんなの直している暇なし。残念でした。

ゴールドコーストがこのスタイルの空港なのは知っていたので、とりあえず、ザーザー降りじゃなくって良かった～！

ゴールドコーストでは荷物もスムーズに出てきたし、それをまた乗り継ぎ便にチェックインするのもシドニーの時と違って並んでいなくて、全てスムーズ。しっかりラウンジで朝ごはんを食べる時間もありました。そして、ゲートに行ってみると、私達が乗る飛行機が到着が遅れていて、またそこでのんびり。子供たちは、しっかり飛行機の離着陸を堪能することができました。

ゴールドコーストからシドニーは1時間ちょっとなので、あっという間です。ザックは眩しいのがイヤだ、と子供らしからず、窓のシャッターを閉めてしまい、サングラスをして、クールに座っていて笑えたのでパシャリ！私たちの3人がけの所の3人目は誰も来なかったので、フィデルを間に座らせてあげたら、大はしゃぎでした。

シドニーにもうすぐ着くので降下し始めます、というアナウンスが流れた頃に外を見てみると、ちょうどうちの上空でした。この写真に見える向こう側は海ですが、手前にある湖の右下がうちの辺りです。

もうあとちょっとで着陸だよ～、というところで、「まぶたが、重いよ～！」眠気と戦っているフィデルが超おかしくて、ザックと2人で大笑い。

シドニーに着いたら、国内線だから、ゲートのところまでお迎えに来ているはずのダディが見当たりません。あれ～？携帯で電話してみると、なんと、間違えて国際線ターミナルに行ってました。まったくも～～～！国内線、って頭ではわかっていたらしいのですが、車で空港に着いてから、何も考えずに国際線に行ってしまったらしいです。実は、私も、いつもほとんど国際線ターミナルしか行ったことなかったので、その気持ちはわかるが！それにしても、何度も念を押したのに～～～！といった感じでした。荷物が出てきた頃に、やっとダディに会えて、子供たちは大喜び！ザックのこの満面の笑顔はとっても貴重です。

長い2ヶ月の日本滞在、とっても楽しかった！でも、ちょっと子供たちにはハードすぎたスケジュールだったかなぁ？と思います。ちょっと反省。帰って来てから、毎日昼寝、3時間することほぼ1ヶ月続きました。やっとリカバリーして普通の生活に戻ったばかり、っていう感じです。今度、日本に帰れるのはいつかな～？またその日を楽しみに・・・。今度は皆様が遊びにいらしてくださいね～～～！

This will be the last English report for a while . . .  Last report of trip to Japan 2010!  Hope you enjoyed the report . . .  If you have any questions with the photos and Japanese report in the future, don’t hesitate to contact me via email and let me know, so I can always explain :)

On Sunday 4th July, we went to catch up with my friend from Junior high, Chisato.  She and her second daughter Mayu joined us for lunch.  Her first daughter Mae is at the boarding school which is about 3 hr drive away from Tokyo.  That’s the school where Chisato and I met, and now the next generation is at the school!!  No wonder I feel old . . .  Chisato works for ADRA, which organisation exists in Australia, too.  When the drink is sold out of this vending machine, the percentage of each drink go towards the work ADRA is doing.  If you would like to find out more, here is the link of ADRA Australia .

It’s always good to catch up with her.  She is always flat out, but makes time for us, so we can at least have lunch together.  Thank you for making time to see us again, Chee-chan :)

After having lunch with them, we went to the free classic concert for kids at the Tokyo to Jidokan, which was reported on 7th July.  It was a walking distance (one train station far) from where we had lunch.  We caught up with Sachi and Soma again there, and sat together in the hall.  Because it was soon after the Shimajiro concert, kids were quite excited to be in the concert hall.  But as soon as concert started, Fidel kept wanting to walk around (couldn’t sit still!), so I took Fidel out of the hall and just walked around in the foyer.  According to Sachi, Soma and Zac weren’t too far off either, so we ended up leaving the concert as soon as the first half finished.  I am glad we didn’t pay for it!!

The next day on Monday, Mayumi offered to look after the boys while I get my hair cut, so we went to her home town, Fuchu.  She was going to take them out to the park near by, but Fidel fell asleep on the way, and Zac rather stayed near me, so they ended up staying inside of the salon.

After the hair cut, we went to have nice yakiniku lunch near by.  I paid about $15 for this plus yakiniku!!  Yummy and very good deal!!  Sorry about out of focus!

Mayumi can fit into the high chair!  No wonder she doesn’t mind sitting between the boys when she is here!!

We really enjoyed this trip to Japan.  I took advantage of their age, and took them everywhere I could think of, as most of the places, the kids were free.  Next time we are back in Japan, Zac will be at school age, so I will have to pay for his public transport as well as all the attractions!!  But now that I’ve taken them to lots of places, I can pick and choose which ones are worth going again :)

I didn’t manage to put a report in, but we went to the near by park as well – this would have been early in our stay, when we didn’t have anything planned.  Zac liked this rocket – which I brought back home, so he can keep playing!

Fidel always likes playing with sand – anywhere he went!

It was good to see that both of them enjoyed singing and dancing in front of Japanese kids programs.  They picked up heaps of Japanese during our stay there, hopefully, I can keep talking to them in Japanese and they will keep that skill.  We are even planning on hooking up Japanese TV programs here for them :)

And of course, they both absolutely LOVED the train and bus rides everyday.  They will be missing that experience for a while!!

Finally the results of the Holz Hausen vs Ricks (standard wood rows) are in and there is a clear winner! Common sense has prevailed over ludicrous untested claims - and the winner is NOT the Holz Hausen!!

 Holz Hausen vs Rick Experiment - Results

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Saturday 10th July, we went to visit Ojiichan’s (my grandfather, A-chan’s husband) cemetery.  I’ve realised that it’s been almost 18 years since he past away and I haven’t even seen the cemetery!  In Japan, normally, lots of people visit their family cemetery at least once a year, if not more often.  But as I am a Christian, I don’t have any attachment to cemetery and didn’t even think about it until it came up in the conversation!!  As we have friends who wished to see Zac and Fidel who live near the cemetery, we decided to visit them and cemetery on the same day.

This is very unusual cemetery.  It’s a group one.  The church A-chan goes to, owns a group cemetery, so everyone who goes to that church and wishes to be part of it can be part of it.

Ojiichan’s name is shown here.  It’s hard to see it on the photo above, but basically the black stone behind the grey one with cross has the name listing.  As I have never been there before, I was quite surprised how many people’s name were behind his, but then I realised that the date is almost 18 years ago, and it’s not so surprising at all!!

We visited Mr Maruyama and his mother, Mrs Maruyama after the visit to cemetery.  Mr Maruyama is normally on wheel chair, and I’ve put a photo of them from our previous visit to Japan.  You can click here if you are interested in checking it out.  They are again, mum’s Amway friends, but completely different group.  They have been friends of my mum’s for many years and mum has taken them to multiple overseas trips as well.  She always mentions barrier free, as she knows what sort of things they have to go through as a wheel chair person.  It’s great to be able to understand lots of people’s perspectives.  I really respect mum that way – for looking out for lots of people around her who are less fortunate.

Mr and Mrs Maruyama have been watching Zac growing since he was a newborn.  They have given us lots of gifts in the past, and this time, they’ve prepared lots of toys for him to play with while we visit them.  It was really nice of them to look so forward to our visit.

Unfortunately, again, Fidel slept through the whole visit, so Mrs Maruyama came out of their house to see Fidel’s sleeping face in the car, but that was it!!  Well, I think it was better that it was only one boy in the house – so no breakage happened, as their place was definitely not little kids proof!!!

Next day, mum decided to stay with Mrs Tsukiji, as she was going somewhere in the afternoon, but didn’t have any plan in the morning and didn’t have a car, as she got lift with someone else who didn’t stay overnight.  So she dropped Mayumi, myself and the boys off at the family farm park near by.  It was saying it’s like a little Switzerland, but it was nothing like it to be honest!!  Both Mayumi and I have been to Switzerland before – so we were laughing about it!

Boys found the rides again!  I found Thomas the tank engine is popular here as well . . .

There was no customers around when we were there – so the guy gave them free ride on this train!  Lucky them!

They chose Bertie (also Thomas character) to ride around this time.

Well, after riding a horse in Kodomo no kuni, Zac decided he loves horse riding.  So this time, he wanted to do it without me suggesting!  Pretty happy about that :)  He is riding well – here is the video clip.

Fidel was saying hello to the calf.  He wasn’t sure whether it was safe to give it a pat at this stage.

But got this close in the end!!

This was the first time Zac actually rode on the carousel horse.  In the past, he always wanted to sit in the wagon.  I think he feels safer there . . . as they don’t move up and down!  He is slowly getting more adventurous these days!!

I think this is the fastest ride he’s ever been on.  And look at this smile – HE LOVED IT!!  As everything else was pretty boring, he rode on this car ride 8 times!!!

As you can’t tell the speed of this ride from the photo, I will also include the video clip.  But you won’t be able to see his facial expressions from the video, so I had to include photo as well!

Like I mentioned earlier, on Thursday 8th July, we went to Nasu – overnight trip.  It was initially going to be just my mum, myself and the boys, but I decided to invite Mayumi to come along to the trip, and she came with us, which was nice :)  As everyone knows by now, she is great with boys, and I am so fortunate to have a friend like her – who doesn’t mind going out with us!!  This is how she kept the boys entertained in the car when they were bored!

We went to mum’s Amway friend’s residence first.  They are blind couple, Mr and Mrs Ozaki, and they don’t even belong to mum’s group, but she got to know them through their up-line Diamond, and as I was doing the puppy raising, we visited them when Zac was a baby.

Since then, they have been good friends, so we decided to visit them again, so they can feel (?) how big Zac is now!  Mrs used to be a midwife, so she loved cuddling him when Zac was a baby!  They’ve got a different Guide Dog to the one they had when we visited last time and Zac was very nervous in the beginning, but got used to her in the end.  Unfortunately, Fidel slept through the whole visit (a couple of hours!!), so they didn’t get to meet him!!

We stayed in the timeshare again – which was reserved by mum’s friend, Mrs Tsukiji.  She came along in the separate car, so we saw her at Mr and Mrs Ozaki’s (the one who is holding Zac in the photo), and then again at the accommodation.  Very nice place to stay – but as it was a golf resort, it was in the middle of nowhere!!  We struggled to find a place to eat where it was kids friendly!!!