Yui’s assessment of her first year of life.
Category Archives: events
daycare Summer Festival
The daycare staff picked a good day and time to have the summer festival/natsu matsuri. It started off at 5:30pm so when we left our house, there was a cool breeze blowing, not humid at all.
At the registration table right before the entrance, Yui was given a sling that would keep tab of all our “purchases”.
Yui keeping tab of what we’ve ordered so far ^-^
The first floor was where we could buy festival food – frankfurts, yakisoba, choco banana. It’s only for the older babies and adults though, we had to bring Yui’s food with us. It felt weird to bring food at the daycare since they usually provide food for Yui. With a couple of the senseis.
We ate our fill at one of the rooms of the second floor. Dad and Yui while Mom eats her yakisoba. It was the most bland yakisoba I’ve ever had though – naturally, because it’s also meant for kids.
Yoyo ball pool!
We didn’t get one for Yui. Turns out she wants one for herself!
We had this for Yui though.
Please tell me what to do sensei
Art time! Design-your-own-fan.
Mikoshi time! For the older kids. Sorry for the blurred photo.
Obon dance time.
Thankfully, the time was right for Yui’s sleeping cycle that’s why she didn’t have a meltdown. A lot of kids had a meltdown however towards the end of the program (it lasted about two hours). Hubs and I could understand. Both of us were actually tired after the activity, to think we just looked around. How much more overwhelming it would be for the kids, and the teachers for that matter!
Instilling culture right at a very young age. Very nice. Thankful.
natsu matsuri
Tomorrow’s the Natsu Matsuri/Summer Festival at Yui’s daycare. 楽しみにしています‼
Above is the announcement posted right at the daycare entrance. The white block is for us to enter the PIN so we could enter the premises. I like it how the arrangement of the number changes after every input.
Kanagawa hanabi 2013
Today (again, technically, yesterday) was the Kanagawa fireworks festival/hanabi. The past years, we just stayed at the office to avoid the crowd – we’re lucky that the fireworks display is easily seen from our office windows so we can enjoy the beautiful fireworks sans the crowd but also sans the sound. I wasn’t able to watch it this year though as I had to get out of the office at 5 to pick Yui up. Nor was hubs able to watch it because he went home early to avoid the crowd. And boy was there a crowd!
The yearly hanabi always attracts large crowds that the police/city government had thought of means to ease the flow of people. For one, they’ve set up these dividers to separate people going to the Minato Mirai area and those going to the station back to their homes.
Obviously, I’m on the wrong side and against the tide of people. My bad! There were police around announcing where people should go but I couldn’t understand them.
I haven’t been able to take photos of the fireworks yes, but thankfully, these ladies in their yukatas happily agreed to pose for me!
The yukata is much less elaborate and much cheaper than the formal kimono but it’s still pretty nonetheless!
Company family day
Today (or technically yesterday since it’s now past midnight) was our company’s family day – a day in which employees’ kids could get a glimpse of their parent’s workplace. The program is open for those who have kids from 4th to 6th grade in elementary. So for those colleagues who have kids around that age, they had their kids tag along with them for most of the day.
You couldn’t just bring along your kid on an impromptu whim however, your kid has to be registered ahead of time. The program is very well organised, I think, owing primarily to security reasons. The kids even have their own IDs with their photos on it – with the card coloured a pretty pink! whilst employees generally have blue or green – which they can use to open the glass doors for certain floors of the building.
If I were the kid, I’d be really wide eyed the whole day. First they had an orientation which took most part of the morning. One of the assistant area lead of our project had a kid who was part of the program so we all had lunch with him. The early part of the afternoon his Dad took him to meet our Clients who shared that they too have the same program in their country. After which the kid stayed on the vacant desk beside his Dad and “helped” by filing some outputs. Yet even with the simple task, he was very serious with it.
I’m really glad there’s such a program in the office. Sometimes people work so hard the work-life balance is often off-balance, and leaning always on the work side. Excited for our little one’s turn some 9 years from now! Haha.
Yui’s first Tanabata
The Tanabata is usually held during the 7th of July (7-7) but as that day falls on a Sunday this year, Yui’s daycare decided to have it today.
Last week, we were asked to write our wish for Yui on the tanzaku.
Something very interesting. In English, we usually say “body, mind and spirit”. In Japanese, it’s “karada mo kokoro mo”, kokoro or heart being the umbrella term for mind and spirit. And yes, that’s what we wrote.
Yesterday, we saw the bamboo (wishing tree) for the 4~5 year old class. Excited to see Yui’s class’ tree.
And so to be in with the tradition, I put on Yui what her Dad was so excited to buy for her. Yui’s first jinbei (甚平).
She was a hit with her senseis.