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 […]
One of the things we like about our kindergarten is that our son gets to experience all kinds of activities. This year there has been soccer, potato digging, art exhibition visit, a visit to the rescue and emergency center. And just before the winter holidays he got to go ice skating for the first time.
This spring my wife and I started a little company together. I was doing photography and photo editing work when I was living in Sweden, and since closing my company there I have been wanting to set up something in Japan and now finally it has come to fruition. In Sweden I was working closely
This September, my son and I started to participate in online classes organized by Swedish school in Tokyo. My son has joined a group where the focus is to better learn letters, easy reading and writing as well as general Swedish culture. He has really enjoyed being part of this group with other Swedish speaking
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
One of the things I like most about our son’s kindergarten, is the different events they arrange during the year. The end of school year recital where the children perform, the summer concert, the sports day and then in autumn the art exhibition. This year a theme of our son’s class has been play with
It has been a year and a half since our son started to go to kindergarten by bus. Except for the too hot summer months when we hide in the shade of a tree playing name-the-car-games, we have made a morning reading routine out of waiting for the bus. Looking back at the first time
If I had to choose between the seasons, I would choose autumn. The colors, the air, the cool after a long hot summer, nabe (Japanese hot pot), and most of all the mountains. When we were living in Tokyo I always took the train to go and enjoy the mountains outside of Tokyo in autumn.
We had been talking about Halloween for weeks and weeks. We sorted the LEGO, collected all the black, orange and purple pieces, built Halloween houses and cars. We took out the decorations saved from previous years and put around the house. – What in particular are you looking forward to with Halloween? I asked. –
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
It has been hot this summer. It has ben hot this fall. Even with my limited experience of life in Japan I have felt it to be a special year, and when I talk to others many say that they cannot remember a summer like this. So what does a 5-year-old boy want to do