I guess it started last year already – the talk among parents at kindergarten about backpacks for elementary school children. Simply put, during the six years of elementary school, Japanese school children are using a special style of backpack called ランドセル, randoseru, from the imported Dutch word ransel meaning backpack. I have grown up with the […]
神待祭, Kamimachi Matsuri meaning waiting for kami festival, is an event held at our local shrine late every year. It is a festival to, with a bonfire, welcome the kami, god, who is said to return home from Izumo that night. We have never participated before, but since our son is growing up and had
There have been so many things happening this autumn and I would have had to write a couple of posts per week to cover what I would like to share. But since I am on a one post per week pace, my autumn stories will focus on the highlights, albeit sometimes presented a bit late. But
Living in a multicultural family, I want our son to whenever possible experience the cultures that both of his parent’s grew up in. I do my best to highlight Swedish traditions in our home, and when we visit Sweden he gets plenty of that. But equally important to me is to value the Japanese cultural
Every October, there is autumn cleaning going on everywhere. The parks are getting their final trim of the year and people are tidying up what is left of the summer from their gardens. Now that the temperature has dropped and nature’s extreme growing power has slowed down, it really feels quite satisfying to clean up
Every autumn, our son’s kindergarten organizes a sports day for the children. The practice for this day begins after the summer holidays and the children work hard every day to prepare for the sports day when parents and relatives come to watch and join in some activities. This year our son, now being in the
Time for the forth and final post on museums this summer. This time UNKO MUSEUM – the poop museum, a temporary museum in a building adjacent to the baseball stadium in Fukuoka. We had seen posters for this museum in spring when we went to a Tomica toy car event at the same venue and
Before the summer holidays begin and we will be focusing on small excursions, swimming school and other summery activities, I want to write a third kappa-related post. In my first post a month or so ago I introduced this mythological creature’s fancy for cucumber, and a few weeks ago I mentioned bowing being a kappa’s
It is not an understatement to say that my son is in to bugs. Especially so the pill bug, or ダンゴムシ (dangomushi) as it is called in Japanese. It started a year or so ago when they were searching for insects and bugs at kindergarten. My son came home and talked very vividly about dangomushi
Every year come June me and my son are enjoying the ever changing rice fields. We always stop and have a look when we pass by, commenting on the water level, looking at all the little creatures living in the fields, talking about the rice field frogs that are soon to be born. Remembering my
I have made a habit of writing a blog post every week but sometimes, I have to admit, I find myself quite at loss as to what to write about next. Often there are things happening or occasions and occurrences I want to share, but there are weeks where I come up with a blank
I was introduced to the abacus as a child. My grandfather was fascinated by the abacus and tried to teach me, giving me a little abacus to play with. Unfortunately, living far away from him, I never got past the basics. My wife was doing soroban, Japanese abacus, in school as a child. She remembers