Children's Day

It's Golden Week in Japan, which means 3 consecutive holidays and one of those is Children's Day. Where most folks in the U.S. are sucking down margaritas and celebrating Cinco de Mayo, here we are eating sushi, flying carp streamers and taking our kids for some kind of outing.

We made the trip to Iwakuni Marine Base for Friendship Day today. We took the train to avoid the traffic, but instead had two wiggly boys in a packed local train. Add a reaaaaallly long walk to the event along with some whining, lots of sticky beverages, a hot dog and a hamburger and it was almost like being back in the U.S.

On the way home, DS1 who was asked nicely if he needed to use the bathroom before we took a bus to the train station, decided 20 minutes into the train ride that he needed to pee. We happened to be on the one local train that had no bathrooms. So we all got off at Obatake station in the middle of nowhere, DS1 used the bathroom and we waited 40 minutes for the next train. It was the longest 40 minutes of my life. I was sunburned, tired and cranky and the boys decided to see how much they could beat each other up on the train platform. Grrrrrr....

And now I'm drinking a Chu-hi, blogging and looking at the chirashi sushi that Grandma made for Children's Day. DS2 is eating bites of it and DS1 is watching Pokemon and asking for pasta. I'm breaking all of my parenting rules by letting them eat and watch TV, but after a whole day devoted to them, I just want a little time for me.

Time to scrub the bath tub and get them to bed really early tonight.