Welbi ‘Round the World

More Pictures

Todd and I were recently interviewed for a video that our school is putting together.  The person making that video also wanted some footage (video and photos) of a staff apartment.  School had already let out, so most people had left the city, if not the country.  We offered our place.  It was incredibly stupid of us as we had just given up full time nanny/cleaning help.  So we madly cleaned, and here are the photos of our place.  It is shocking small, but at the same time, we love its coziness and love how much freedom the girls have in the house.

Also, here are some photos of the girls playing around the house and around the island.  They especially love their new couch, which was a generous gift from Lucas who happened to be moving to Spain and could not take it with him.  Thanks, Laura.

You can tell from the photos that Tess really needs a haircut, but Riley still hasn’t had one, but she still barely has any hair.  I think they will definitely both get a haircut sometime this summer, but I am going to give it a little more time to really get shaggy (Tess) and to cover her scalp (Riley).

Ok, photos are back online.

Wow!  I cannot tell you how close I came to shutting down the welbes.net website.  When Todd was trying to move our photos over to our new site, he encountered many problems.   At one point it looked like we would have to reupload all of our photos, which I was not willing to do. Today, after many attempts, our gallery works, and I didn’t have to reupload any photos.  So please go see these cute photos of the girls when we went to visit Kachoen, a bird and plant sanctuary, on a nearby island.

I am going to upload more photos of the girls around the house soon.

**Note: Most photos have captions, but they don’t show in the thumbnail view (for now).  So you have to click on the thumbnail to see the bigger image and the caption.

ELAC and Tex-Mex

Although Riley hasn’t been officially accepted yet, I wanted to share photos of her new school.  It is actually Tess’s new school as well because there will be a 2 year old program in the building, too.  The building is officially known as the ELAC.  Unfortunately, I did not take these photos. A professional photographer took them, and the school shared them on their website.

Todd and I ventured into Osaka to eat Tex-Mex food for our anniversary last night.  We found it with almost no help, and it was fantastic!  The salsa, the guacamole, the chips, the burritos, and the chimicangas were delicious.  It has been 9 months since we had restaurant cooked Tex-Mex, and we both spent the evening constantly giving each other high fives for making the 3 hour round trip to eat at the restaurant.  It was worth every second.  And I bought a pair of sunglasses that I have been desperate for.  Happy Anniversary to me!

Gion

So we went with about 16 other people to tour the Gion District at night in Kyoto.  Wow!  What a cool trip! We ended up going with several people we knew from our trip to see Sumo Wrestling.

We started the trip by finding out that our good camera’s battery was dead, so we had to take the not-so-good camera.  The shots are blurry, and Todd will complain, but I will post them anyway, and you can imagine what they would have looked like with our better camera.

The actual tour began in front of an old Kabuki theater.  Then we walked for an hour and a half through the Gion district.  The district is filled with boardinghouses, which is where the maiko (newly geisha) and geisha live.  Also there are tons of tea houses where people drink tea and are entertained by geisha.  Most of the establishments are private, which means that you cannot walk in off of the street.  You must know someone who is a member, and then you will be invited in.

We saw several geisha and maiko who were dressed up coming back from and going to jobs.   They start their career at 15, and then they train for one year.  Then they become maikos and are bound for 5 years to their boardinghouse, which provides them meals, kimono, and jobs.  Then they become geisha, and they have more independence.

Towards the end of the walking tour we made our way through a Zen temple complex that is open 24 hours a day.  It was beautiful, spooky, and enchanting all at the same time.  The moon was almost full, which I think added to the overall feeling.

We ended the night at a traditional Japanese restaurant.  Two maikos joined us and talked to each of us with their halting English.  I didn’t really know what to say, so the night Swiss woman to my right helped me out quite a bit.  Then both girls performed a dance.  Todd caught a snipet of it here.

Then we were offered a ride home by the French/Swiss couple who both work at Nestle.  It was great to be in a car again, but I gave wrong directions on how to get to our house!  Luckily, I caught my mistake quickly.  Things look very different from inside a car than they do when you are walking!

All in all, it was spectacular evening.

Let us not forget the children. Here are a couple of photos, and a video of Todd and Riley cooking breakfast with a little of Tess, too.

Cute Kids

We have just about a month left of school, and Todd and I are ready for a break. This has been a long year, and we are ready for a long summer.

This past week we had a consultant, Kathy Daulton, in from the States to help us with the implementation of the newly adopted strategic plan. I worked with Kathy in Peru, and it was so nice to see her again and in Japan! It was a long, but productive week with her. I am sad to see her go, but I am looking forward to getting back to the classroom after a week of meetings.

We have a busy, but fun couple of weeks again of us. This Saturday we head to Kyoto where we will have a night tour of the Geisha district. We will then have dinner with a maiko, a geisha in training. After dinner the maiko will perform a traiditional dance. Todd and I signed up for this trip and paid for it back in January so this is like a nice present.

On Sunday we have another birthday party. It is for Rocket, and he is turning 5. Riley has a little crush on Rocket. Whenever he is around, she is glued to him. He is so nice to her as well.

Then next Wednesday Riley has her interview for the the Building Blocks Program, the 3 year old program. The main issue for her acceptance is whether or not she is potty trained, and fortunately, I can say that she is. The way that it works is that there are several parents being interviewed at once by the elementary principals and counselor. While the parents talk, the teacher plays with the kids. Here is the thing – Jon Schatzky is one the principals and Riley kind of loves him. He will be in the room interviewing someone else, so I have had to explain to her that she cannot play with Jon while he is working, but she can play with him after work. We will see how it goes. Fingers crossed.

To end the year with a bang the school is hosting three parties in two weeks – one to celebrate the end of strategic planning, one is a teacher appreciation party hosted by the PTA, and finally the end of the year party to celebrate the end of the year!

Oh, and I almost forgot! The Girls! Here they are in all of their glorious cuteness.

Toy Organization

So, I finally completed the great toy redo of 2008. It took me two days longer than I thought it would, but I completed it before I have to return to work tomorrow. It involved a lot of sorting, throwing away and labeling, but I think it looks great. I will be interested to know what it looks like tomorrow after the girls have had all day with it.

Also, I took some photos of the living room and dining room to show what the rest of the place looks like.

Here are the photos.

Golden Week

We are in the midst of the Golden Week Holidays here in Japan.  Golden Week is a string of days in late April and early May that are various national holidays but mostly past Emperors' birthdays.  For us that means we didn't have school on Friday and Monday. 

Riley still had school on Friday, so I dropped her off and met up Todd and Tess, and then we all headed to Sannomiya to shop at the world's greatest store – Tokyu Hands.  It has 18 floors of everything.  We bought all of the odds and ends that we needed.  We spent the rest of the day hanging around the house.

On Saturday, we waited for IKEA to deliver our purchases.  While we waited, I changed around the girls closets.  I removed their winter clothes and moved in their summer clothes.  This took me all day and while I did that, Todd assembled three toy storage shelves.  They are great, but I am still trying to get the toys in them.

On Sunday, we ventured into Kobe with Karen and Paul and their two kids, Andrew and Amelia.  We headed toward Maya Mountain which is just behind the city.  We took the bus from the main hotel on the island.  We ended up at Skin-Kobe station where we walked to the Skin-Kobe Ropeway, which is a gondola up the mountain.  Unfortunately, the wind was so strong that it woke Tess up from her nap after only 30 minutes, which made her inconsolable for the rest of the day.  This is the reason for the pacifier, which we have been good about taking away during the day, but an overtired kid will make any parent resort to the pacifier.

Once we got to the gondola, four adults and four kids, and our enormous stroller squeezed into one gondola.  We went all of the way up, and when we arrived, we found great views and good food.  We sat down for lunch, ice cream, and a couple of Asahi beers. 

Eventually, it was time to head down the mountain.  As we walked about half way down the mountain, there was always a breathtaking view in front of us, and all around us there were herb gardens and flowers.  We then found a greenhouse that Riley named "the jungle."  In it was a spice exhibit, tons of plants, streams, ponds, and waterfalls.  We kept going further down the mountain where we discovered a fantastic bouncy castle.  Riley has a problem with bouncy castles.  She never wants to leave. Today was no exception.  She was timid to get on, and when we told her it was time to leave, she threw a huge fit and had to be brought out.  We now have a "no bouncy castles" policy until she is older and leaves this tantrum phase behind.

It was a smooth ride home with lots of games of eye spy for Riley.  Todd taught her the game on the way up the mountain, and now she is obsessed with it. 

Tomorrow the forecast says rain, so our plan is to stay in and continue to organize the toys and finally change our closet and put away the sweaters and bring out the shorts.  I have a massage at 1pm to help my right shoulder which is so stiff I cannot move it as well as I would like. 

Then back to work on Tuesday.  It should be a quick end to the year.  We have just about a month left. 

Here are photos of Riley playing with our IKEA stuff, our playroom before the great reorganization (after pictures to come soon), and finally photos from our great mountain expedition.

Random Photos

Here are some cute photos of the girls attending the double birthday party of Zoe and Andrew who both turned 3 this week.  

There are also some photos from Todd's trip to Tokyo.  He met up with Marilyn and Gaby from Roosevelt and Jennifer, Lawrence, and their baby Hanule.  

Enjoy!

Blogging in the Spring Time

I really love blogs.  I read several of them every night.  So why am I so bad at updating our blog?  I have no good answer to that.

We have been quite busy, but still that is no excuse.

As the long, cold winter comes to an end, we have spent a lot of the spring time outdoors.  The first thing we did when the weather started to turn nice is buy bikes.  We bought two dark green bikes.  We were very proud of ourselves as we remember to register them with the police, and we even figured out how to register them with our apartment complex. 

We eventually bought two kids seats that attach to our bikes.  However, when we got them home, we realized that we didn't have the required rack to attach them to our bikes.  I went back the store where we originally bought our bikes and explained that we needed to buy just the rack to put the baby seats on.  The man kept repeating "dangerous" over and over again.  Finally, I realized that we need to have a double kickstand instead of the single ones we have, so our bikes would sit straight up.  We discussed whether we should sell our bikes, forget the baby seats, or just buy two new bikes with double kickstands that day. 

We told our story to Jon Schatzky over lunch, and he recommended that we just go to the big bike store and buy two new double kickstands, two racks and put those on, and then we could put the baby seats on.  Todd and I had no idea you could change the kickstands on a bike.  So we got the kickstands, the rack, and came home to assemble the bikes.  I watched the kids while Jon and Todd went to work.  An hour later, Todd and I were on the bikes with the girls.  Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the Welbes family on our bikes, so you will just have to use your imagination. Be nice!

Besides biking around Rokko Island, we have been getting out and seeing more of the surrounding areas.  We went on a picnic with the Schatzkys up on Rokko Mountain.  Riley did not like the winding road up the mountain and puked on the way up.  Jon drove and was nice enough to stop every chance he had so that Riley could get out, stretch her legs, and try not to puke anymore.  When we finally made it up, we had a great time.  The kids loved playing on the sloping mountainside, and we enjoyed the sunny weather and great food.  We finished off the trip with petting some baby lambs and eating freshly made vanilla ice cream.  Luckily, the trip back down the mountain was much less eventful.

Our next big outing was to see the famous cherry blossoms in bloom.  During one of our trips to Osaka, I noticed that a train station was called Sakura Shugugawa.  Sakura means cherry blossoms.  Now the Japanese would not name something "cherry blossom" if there weren't a great place for cherry blossoms. Unlike Americans (or maybe it's just the Houstonian suburb where I grew up) who would put the word "Oak", "Bay", or "Glen" where none have ever existed.  So I asked around, and Sakura Shugugawa is a great place to see Sakura.  We went with Celia to see them, and they were breath-taking.  It almost looked like it was snowing when the wind blew and caused the petals to fall.  Most people were picnicing on tarps and enjoying the weather.  We just walked along the loop and just paused to let the Riley play on the swings.  She also demanded to go down to the river and play.  Todd was nice enough to volunteer to be her chaperone.  Unfortunately, Tess slept through the entire walk, but I am sure we return to the spot next year.  We ended the day eating at the Japanese version of Denny's.  It wasn't bad food, and it is the biggest restaurant we had seen, so there was plenty of room for the stroller as Tess slept through our entire meal as well.  

Riley woke up one weekend not so long ago demanding to go to the zoo.  Todd and I wanted a break from the zoo, so we ended up visiting the Osaka Aquarium.  It took us two hours to get there. It required us to take the train to Osaka, then transfer to the Osaka Loop Line, and then transfer to the subway.  Standing on the platform for the Osaka Loop Line almost made us turn around and head home.  There were so many people and the signs were so confusing with just a little English but a lot of Japanese and colors.  We ended up on the right train.  The nice thing was all of the elevators.  During our entire trip we did not have to carry our stroller up or down any stairs.  We almost had to in the Osaka train station coming back, but Todd figured it out.  Fortunately, the Osaka Aquarium was well worth the trip and the price of admission (don't ask).  Unfortunately, they did not allow strollers in, which is fine, but Tess really likes to run around and go wherever she wants without caring about the desires of others (toddlers!), so she was several dozen handfuls.  I needed the stroller to strap her down!

This past weekend Canadian Academy hosted the Food and Fun Fair.  The day started with a parade of all of the nations represented by faculty and students at Canadian Academy.  Tess and I walked with the Peruvian delegation made up of the Constantini Family as Tess is a Peruanita.  Todd had to be there to help the yearbook kids sell old yearbooks and order the new ones.  So we took turns gorging ourselves on yummy food from all over the world and watching  Riley and Tess playing at the playground.  The best part was the Scholastic Book Fair was also selling books, so we added another 7 books to our ever expanding library.

We've also been able to do some traveling and adventuring without kids.  We saw Sumo Wrestling, which was really enjoyable, and we traveled to Kyoto with Jon and Celia and visited the Golden Pavilion, which was gorgeous.

We have told the nannies that we will not need them next year as the school is going to provide before school and after school care, and hopefully Riley and Tess will be going to school here during the school day.  We have asked if they are both available to work on the evenings and weekends when we need a break, but we will see how that works out.  I imagine that we will be doing less things without the kids.  That isn't such a bad thing.  They are both getting to be pretty independent.  However, right now Tess shows her independence by running away from me at full speed!

All in all, it has been a great start to our spring.  IKEA opened yesterday, and so I am biding my time until I can go and finish our house without having to wait for hours in the checkout line. 

(click on the links to see the photos) 

Zoo Visit

This is by far the longest winter that Todd and I have any memory of.  We started wearing our winter coats sometime in December, and it is just now nice enough that we can wear a lighter winter coat.  

We went to the zoo and braved this cold weather.  It even snowed while we were there.  The animals loved it and were out in all of their glory.

Here are the photos.