funky donkey.

what a busy weekend! on saturday the kids had their ballet performance at the city hall. we arrived very early so i walked around in some park with beautiful gardens and a pond with huge kois and little turtles right next to the city hall. the performance was very nice, there wasn't only my host kids' ballett school but also performances by a modern dance school.

after the performance we put on our yukata (ok, it was only me and the kids) and we drove to Toba to a matsuri (=festival/fair) which was very lovely with so many people walking around in their beautiful yukata. there was a 2-3 hour long wonderful hana-bi. we all sat on the meadow, got some yakisoba (=fried noodles) and yakitori (fried chicken) from the fair and watched the hana-bi.

afterwards we went to the grandparent's home. they live in a fishing village in a very old japanese-style house with tatami flooring and sliding shoji doors and everything. unfortunately, you could hear every word and every snore of the people in the other rooms so i didn't really get much sleep and was a bit grumpy in the morning.

the next morning i walked around in the village, the houses there are quite colourful. i walked down to the docks with my host father and brother - finally! the sea! the pacific!!! the water looked so clean (though there were jellyfish here and there) and i wanted to jump in so hard. at least i went down to the shore and greeted her shortly, got some shells and went back home.

we then left for spain mura. yeah if there's somebody putting up a fake spanish village with roller coasters in the middle of nowhere, it's the whacky japanese! first, i wasn't too excited about it because a) i was still tired and grumpy and b) nothing can beat the UCJ! my host parents bought me kitty ears because i like cats so much and to cheer myself up i walked around with them on my head all day long (omg did i really do that?! how silly!). the rides weren't as much fun as the ones in USJ of course and the music (about "funky donkeys" and "hola! amigos!") was rather annoying but all in all it wasn't so bad after all. for example, there was this ice castle which was so freezing cold that you couldn't stay in there for more than half a minute! my kids and i ran through the halls screaming and laughing quite a few times that day. i had much fun together with them today, my host brother and i explored the castle museum on our own for example (y'know, they're usually afraid of being alone with me without their parents around). we also watched a musical and the dancers and actors and the choreography was actually much better than this horrible universal monsters live rock and roll show at the USJ!

in the evening the grandparents invited us to a yakiniku restaurant. now that's a really cool thing: you sit at a table with a build-in grill and get all the raw ingredients you like, not only meat and fish but also vegetables and mushrooms for example, and you cook them on this little grill, dip them in a sauce and eat it. it was one of the most delicious meals i've ever eaten, i was so stuffed but i couldn't stop eating. (...) while dad drove the grandparents home we waited at a mall before we drove back home. i incidentally finally won my first prize at the gamecenter there: a stitch squeezie thingie!

trips to various places, food, whacky japanese stuff