good old days

As if our world was not changing fast enough with a three year old toddler keeping the pace, my wife and I decided to throw in a little bit more change. We had thought our choice of Kindergarten for our son was a good one, we had made several visits, tried it a few days before we applied, and although our son did not seem unhappy about going there, my wife and I felt little by little that it was not the best fit for our very active son. We had been in a dilemma as to which Kindergarten to choose when we applied, so now we decided to try our other option instead (which I am sure I will have reason to talk a lot about in the future).

While we waited to start the new Kindergarten, I had a few days to enjoy roaming around our city with my son. What do dad and son do on a hot summer’s Monday off? Go to see some airplanes and ride some trains is not a bad choice! It has been a while since we went out riding trains just the two of us, so we were both full of excitement and anticipation. In the morning we took the the commuter train to the airport where there is a big observation deck with a great view of the airplanes waiting at the gates as well as airplanes taking off. Getting to see so many planes close up made my son very happy and he did not want to leave until I started to talk about sausage pancakes and Shinkansen trains.

At Hakata station we have our favorite little restaurant that serves American pancakes, or hotcakes in Japanese, and on the children’s plate there are sausages rolled in the pancakes and my son loves that. I also tried the sausage pancake and quickly discovered that I much rather prefer the chocolate banana pancakes I have had previous times (and I found myself jealously looking at my son’s desert pancake with fruits). In the same building as the restaurant, on the roof of the tall department store, there is a roof garden with a little train that takes passengers on a ride around the roof, and after our pancakes we took the elevator up to the roof. We were the only passengers there and went for a few laps around the building. Before we headed for the main event of the day, our Shinkansen ride, we found som tricycles on the rooftop that my son enjoyed together with some newfound friends.

It was after three o’clock when we boarded the Shinkansen for the 9 minute ride to Hakata Minami. It is amazing how many times in nine minutes it is possible to pull down the table attached to the seat in front and return it to its folded position. We were alone in the train car in the front of the train and my son was more than disappointed when the train suddenly stopped and we had to leave (I am sure he could have played with the table for another thirty minutes at least). We made our way to the ticket gate, made a commemorative stamp on a special paper, inserted our return ticket in the gate and before long we were riding the train back to Hakata station (this time playing with the cup holder instead).

On the commuter train back to our little town, my son kept talking about all the trains he had been riding. And the first thing he told his mum that night was that he rode three different kind of trains today. I am sure he was having happy train dreams that night.

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