Annie's First Day of Nursery School

After a lot of indecisiveness (that is an understatement - the decision was torture for me), we decided to enroll Annie in nursery school at the American School in Japan's Early Learning Center (ELC), which is conviently located on the first 3 floors of our building. She's been going for over a month and a half now and she really loves it. She is in a class with 14 other kids and two teachers, Teacher Cassie and Teacher Miyuki.  We love her teachers - they are experienced, highly qualified and have travelled the world.  Her classmates come from a variety of diverse backgrounds - Japanese, Swedish, Korean, French, Indian and American. Annie has already made a "best friend," a little girl named Henna, and it's so cute to see them together and hear Annie talk about her.  "I love Henna, she's my best friend." "I want to take Henna to Disneyland on my birthday and let her pick the Dumbo we ride in because she will be my guest."

Anyhow - in Annie's classroom (ages 3 and 4) they follow a schedule every day but for the most part the learning is child-led and play based.  You can read all about it here. We toured a few international preschools in Tokyo and the ELC is really a pretty impressive place. They also use a project approach.  For example, next week the class will be taking a field trip to go sweet potato digging, which is the Japanese equivalent of apple picking in the US.  So for the past few weeks Annie's class has been learning all about sweet potatoes: planting and observing them, cooking them, tasting them, reading about them, etc.  While it is an American school with a US based cirriculum, there are also some Japanese cultural aspects that are integrated.  Annie has already picked up a few new Japanese words and is excited for special events like a visit from Sumo wrestlers, O-Mochi pounding and Taiko drumming. 

The best picture I could get as we walked in on the first day!

It was only for 3 hours on her first day, but couldn't believe I was about to leave my baby!

Lizzy had a great time getting in on the action. Can't imagine Lizzy going to Nursery School in a year!!

Goodbye kisses, round 1.

Arm kiss.

More hugs and kisses for the best friends.

While definitely a little sad, drop off was way less emotional than I expected.  I knew Annie would be fine, but I had fully prepared myself to be sobbing. I was able to hold back the waterworks, however, probably helped in part by Annie who asked me about 17 times why I hadn't left yet. We picked her up at 11:30 and walked to bakery across the street for an after school lunch.

Joe was actually out of town for this momentous occasion, and had been gone for a week or so, so needless to say I was exhausted. I figured Annie would crash at naptime after her big morning, but neither girl slept that afternoon. See how much fun we are having together???!!

I wish Lizzy could get a little closer to me. 

After a failed nap attempt, we had another first: I bought a coffee drink at Starbucks!!! I am NOT a coffee drinker, I think it tastes like dirt. However, I was SO tired and desperate that I decided to try one. Full disclosure, I probably chose the wimpiest drink on the menu and I'm not even sure it qualifies at coffee (iced white chocolate mocha?).  It basically tasted like chocolate milk with a shot of esspresso.  Thought I would have to choke it down but it was pretty delicious and gave me a little kick to make it through the rest of the afternoon.

Of course, the girls got a treat, too. No coffee in their drinks, though!

Um, this was expensive.

All in all, I am happy with the decision we made to send Annie to nursery school.  It's been a great opportunity for all of us to meet new people and be a part of a community here in our new city.

Ice Cream!

The Roppongi Sakura-zaka Residence that we live in is owned by the Mori Building Company.  One of the perks of living in a Mori residence is that they offer monthly special events for residents.  Every month we get a newsletter detailing the events going on and so far it has included things such as advance tickets to a Harry Potter exhibition, cooking and art classes, lectures, and this month an event for kids sponsored by Cold Stone Creamery.  If the demand for an event exceeds the spots or tickets available they use a lottery to select names.  

I was very excited when I received an email that we had been selected to attend the Cold Stone event, because Lizzy asks for ice cream on a daily basis (in addition to McDonalds).  It was being held on the 43rd floor sky lounge of a nearby Mori apartment building so I was also excited that I would get to see what a luxury high rise looked like from the inside! 

Taking the elevator all the way to the top! My ears were popping on the way up.

We arrived and checked in - I was relieved to see that both girls were on the list since I was worried that I may have only reserved one space.  Mass hysteria would have erupted if only one girl got to participate in anything that involved the creation and consumption of ice cream.  We ended up being the only non-Japanese people there - since the entire event was conducted in Japanese, a very nice Cold Stone employee translated for Annie and Lizzy during the presentation.

Checking out the menu! They got to pick ice cream flavor and 3 mix ins! 

One of my favorite parts was when a woman told a story with a giant picture book -  I understood it to be about ice cream's journey from machine to bowl.  She was using different voices for the different flavors of ice cream - the yellow ice cream was sniffling and crying about something at one point, very hilarious. I have a video... how do you upload on this thing? Can't figure that out.

Story time!

Next, they brought out crayons for the kids to color an ice cream picture and circle on their sheet which flavor and toppings they would like to make. All the text was in Japanese and they were nice enough to write the English translations for us.

Next, everyone started to get up and our interpreter informed me it was time to "dress up in ice cream clothes!" i.e. a Cold Stone apron and visor. I highly doubted Lizzy would go for this but when I asked her if she wanted to put on her ice cream dress she enthusiastically said yes. 

Lizzy has been doing a new trick where she sticks her hands in her mouth when sad/angry/nervous. And every time it's time to clean up her hands after meals.

Ready to make some ice cream!! I think Annie got it, but pretty sure Lizzy had no clue what was going on at this point. 

View from the lounge! It was a beautiful (hot) clear day.

Waiting their turn.

My little sleeve monster looking tough with her candy heart tattoos. 

The kids took turns in groups of 3, and after 2 rounds it was Annie and Lizzy's turn! Lizzy was so excited for ice cream she actually let a stranger pick her up and set her on the cooler behind the mixing slab.  The Cold Stone employees sang a song to the tune of "Hi Ho" from Snow White while the girls "mixed" their ice cream... a.k.a. stood there motionless holding 2 giant spoons. 

Not so good at mixing, but very good at scooping and dumping sprinkles!

Needed just a little help.

I love everything about Lizzy in this picture. Annie, on the other hand, is all business. 

Proud of their final creations and ready to EAT!

Finally getting their reward for being so patient!

Can't believe she was still wearing the visor at this point.

After all the kids finished up eating (no ice cream was offered to the parents....  still crying wondering if they just threw away all the unused toppings..... waaaaahhhh) they were called up one by one to receive a certificate and a laminated membership card which entitles them to free sprinkles every time they visit Cold Stone. Booyah!

It was a great event - this would be such a cool thing (although I'm sure very expensive) to have at a children's birthday party or gathering. All the kids (including my girls!) were very engaged and extremely well behaved.  Needless to say there were no naps to be had after that morning's sugar high, but it was worth it! 

Food!

I have taken nearly 1,700 pictures on my phone since we moved to Tokyo.  Since there is such a large assortment that I wanted to share I thought I would try to categorize them and share all the food related pictures first. We haven't been too adventurous when it comes to food (imagine that), but hopefully we can slowly branch out. A lot of these pictures have also been posted to my Instagram account, so sorry for any repeats! 

I got a fancy rice cooker from the rental company that supplied our furniture. I've been too intimidated to use it since receiving it a few weeks ago but successfully cooked some barley for a salad yesterday. Had to look up the English instructions online, and even then it was a little confusing.

Annie and I have been eating a TON of cucumbers! Joe hates them (baby) and Lizzy is going through a "no vegetable" phase at the moment. Japanese cucumbers are really long and skinny, kind of like an English cucumber. They are really delicious and have that fresh from the garden taste. In the picture above you can see that these cucumbers were grown in Fukushima - I don't know that much about the current radiation situation aside from reading a few articles but just to be overly safe I didn't buy these ones. But, the grocery stores I mainly shop don't have English words on any of the food so I've probably eaten my fair share of Fukushima produce without even knowing. I was going to make a radiation joke about my third arm but figured that would be in bad taste. 

All grocery stores and convenience stores (konbini) have huge selections of prepared foods, called bento. A lot of them look a little scary to me (octopus! something pickled! is that an eyeball?!) but I'm trying to find a few things that we like.  Picked up these meatballs at LINCOS, the upscale grocery store near our apartment in Roppongi Hills. They had a kind of sesame glaze and sesame seeds on top. I tried to ask the checkout girl what was in them, and she said "Pig" while flapping her arms like a chicken.  Pretty tasty and the girls even tried them! I love that when you check out at the grocery store they ask you if you need chopsticks and napkins. 

Sometimes I pick up a bento salad as well - they have some big elaborate ones, but I just like the simple veggie ones for 100 yen ($1 US). I never knew how effective chopsticks can be for eating a salad!

There definitely are a lot of things lost in translation when it comes to food. The back of this potato chip bag still makes me laugh every time I read it.

Senbai are Japanese rice crackers.  They come in various shapes and flavors but we try to stick to the plain, salted ones, with the exception of the multiple times I accidentally bought shrimp flavored. They still tasted great, just had a fishy smell :).  Annie loves these things!

I've heard a lot about all the crazy things you can get in Japanese vending machines, but have yet to see anything TOO crazy.  I thought this "CalorieMate Balanced Food Block" was pretty funny, though. There are honestly multiple vending machines on every block. Around here they mostly have soft drinks, teas, coffees, flavored waters and alcoholic beverages. Shockingly, they are pretty reasonably priced.

The cereal selection in Japan is seriously lacking compared to what we have in the US. Luckily we shipped a billion boxes of our favorites over. Honestly, you can't get a box of Cheerios here.

The good old standby McDonald's cone. Only 100 yen and a very short walk from our house. Lizzy asks multiple times per day to go McDonalds. Such a proud parenting moment (not.) On this particular day I got the girls cones and they were eating them in their stroller on the sidwalk in front of McDonalds. It quickly turned into a HUGE mess with ice cream dripping all over the girls and all over the stroller. A worker witnessed it from inside and came running out with wipes and a wet rag to help me clean up. Also, they bow after taking your order. :) Take notes, America!

This may look like a mess but it's an amazing Falafel Pita from a place called Pita the Great. Love it so much I'm saving it for a future post. Delicious.

                             

Took Lizzy out for Ramen one night at Ippudo on the recommendation our neighbor, Lina. There are a plethora of different types of Ramen in Japan and Ippudo serves tonkatsu Ramen which means pork broth. Joe and I went back again later that week, so I will save the details for a separate post!

We are lucky to live in such an amazing location and have all the shops and restaurants of Roppongi Hills at our doorstep.  We frequently take walks over there after dinner and last night stopped at the Joel Robuchon bakery. So fun to enjoy some tasty French baked goods right in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Roppongi Hills.

Onigiri: FAIL!! Thought I was being adventurous by buying myself an onigiri from the Family Mart a few weeks ago. Onigiri is simply a rice ball wrapped in seaweed with a filling in the center. Common fillings are umeboshi (pickled plums), salted salmon, tuna and mayonnaise, roe, and beans... or so I thought. I scanned the pictures on the packages and found the bean one, figuring that was a safe bet. I sat down to eat it and it started out ok - I like rice, and can tolerate seaweed in small doses. Then I got the beans. Oh, the beans. I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but they were terrible. I can't even describe the flavor but the texture was like straight up mucus.  In fact, long strings of mucousy (is that a word?) liquid clung to the filling as I took a bite. Well, it turns out that they aren't regular beans but "Natto," or fermented soy beans. I love regular, green, soybeans, but these babies were brown and slimy and smelly. It's going to take me a while to get up the courage to try another onigiri!

Recognize that?? Yes, a good old fashioned Costco Hot Dog and soda. Best deal in Japan!  We've made 2 trips to Coscto so far.  We are lucky enough to have a car, otherwise it is a loooong train ride from the city.  It's a great place to buy produce like berries that are prohibitively expensive in regular grocery stores here. They carry almost everything a US Costco would, so we stock up on things like frozen waffles, strawberries, pretzel rolls, cheese, etc.

A Maid Cafe... I don't even know. From wikipedia:  "Maid Cafes are a subcategory of cosplay restaurants found predominantly in Japan. In these cafés, waitresses dressed in maid costumes act as servants, and treat customers as masters (and mistresses) in a private home, rather than as café patrons."  So strange. We saw some of the waitresses out on the street one day trying to lure in customers. Remind me to write another post on the weirdness of cosplay.

Some fresh squid hanging in a restaurant window in Azabu Juban.

A walk up Yakitori window in Azabu Juban. Generally yakitori is skewered chicken meat cooked over charcoal but it can also include various skewered giblets. Yum! You can read about the different kinds of yakitori here.  Seems to be a very popular street food in Tokyo, but there are also fancy sit down yakitori restaurants.

Finally, I have to confess that we eat lunch almost every day at the Tokyo American Club. It's so convenient since I am usually there working out in the mornings. It's nice to not have to worry about coming home and cooking and cleaning up a lunch!  They have a good salad bar with lots of healthy options for the girls, and by the time I would buy all the ingredients to make salads at home I'm sure I would exceed the cost of our lunches here. I am also a big fan of their thin crust wood fire pizzas.