It is five years since that Sunday when my wife and I, hand in hand, went down the dark stairs to enter the basement of the Setagaya Ward Office and get married. I remember us standing at the top of the stairs, looking down, seeing the pipes on the wall going down into the basement, […]
Our son had been excited for weeks about his upcoming birthday. He was practicing holding three fingers up in the air, and he was looking forward to the presents he anticipated he would get. We were planning to have a little birthday party for him, and even the weather seemed promising, so what could go
Picking my son up from kindergarten has become the highlight of my day. In the beginning I brought the stroller but we seemed to rarely use it so lately we have been walking home together. Or maybe I should say running, our son loves running and sometimes at night before the sun sets, if my
It has been a very unusual spring. My wife has a new job, our son has started kindergarten, and my parents from Sweden have come and left. Now summer is quickly approaching and a new normal is lying in front of me, although without me having any hint of what it will look like. Or
We almost made it all the way home from kindergarten the other day when we met our very nice neighbor out walking her dog. The dog is old and gentle and my son has grown very fond of him, and our neighbor lets my son hold the leash whenever we meet them. This day my
Having my parents visiting us in Fukoka for the first time, what do we show them? All our favorite places of course! Me and my son took his grandparents to visit various sites in central Fukuoka and Imajuku where we live, and together with my wife we all went to our most precious places within
Our son has only met his Swedish grandparents once, last summer when we went to Sweden. We stayed for a few weeks and he got to know them and play with them, and I believe he really came to love them. Fast forward nine months, a long time in the life of a quickly growing
Finally, after three years of corona and difficulties traveling, my mum and dad could make it to Japan to visit us! For our little family it is a dream come true to have Swedish grandmother and grandfather here, and through the pandemic, while hoping for the day they would arrive, my son and I have
So finally the government’s mask recommendations in Japan has changed. To put it simply, when there before was a please-wear-a-mask-everywhere-policy, there is now a please-where-a-mask-at-your-own-discretion-policy. Together with many others I have not yet fully embraced the new “freedom” of not having to wear a mask everywhere, but still there has been a visible shift in
As the cherry blossoms are the most beautiful, graduation ceremonies are held in schools and daycare facilities all over Japan. The weather is pleasant, students have their spring holiday and many of them enjoy this season having picknicks under the sakura trees and playing in the parks. After a few years of pandemic restrictions, this
There are many activities for children in Fukuoka. The last month we have been exploring some of them at the same time as enjoying the beauty of Japanese spring and sakura, cherry blossom (more on that next week). There is a toy museum in the new big LaLaport shopping mall, where the children can play
Whether at home or out and about, my son shares with me what he is seeing in a way that makes me so happy, and I feel so privileged to be able to take part of his worldview. We have a play-at-home day while the rain is pouring down, we find some old boxes and