What's that sound?

Through our open windows, we kept hearing yelling and singing and shouting this morning. Hugo saw people with banners down the street. Was it a religious festival? Some kind of marathon?

I rode out to investigate.

Fortunately, I ran into an American acquaintance who explained it to my slowly churning brain. It's May Day! Not as in "leave flowers on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, and run away" May Day. This is the other May Day, as in labor unions, community action, and even---shhhh!----Communists.

(This seems to be a replica of the Daichi plant.)

If I needed a reminder I was in a foreign country, this was it! Like many Americans, I have been getting used to income disparities, crazy governors, and tirades against national health care. Imagine seeing a real-life Socialist! In public!!!! With such a shocking message: "Let's stand up and shake hands!"

I rode away as quickly as I could.

How to ride the subway

Toes in. Bag on lap. Active texting. Don't forget your black tights!

So convenient....

It was nice of Kate and William to schedule their wedding so that people in Japan could watch it at 7pm.

Alek, Hugo, and I had pizza at our friends' house.

I made some cucumber sandwiches. You can buy this white bread with no crusts here!
Alek and Hugo played with their school friend, S.

It was all very civilized.....

Although Darrin secretly loves to talk about dresses and the details of the British royal family, he chose to stay home and watch Lord of the Rings with Max.

For you....

I like this guy.

Alek: It was the best day of my life!

Last Sunday (coincidentally, on Easter) we went to Reso swimming and health club with a bunch of friends from school. Alek will tell you all about it.

This picture is showing the whole place.

These are the stairs up to the slide. You go up and wait in line, and when it's your turn, you go when the whistle blows.

Inside the slide, it's wet. You go fast. I started to ball up at the start, but I was going fast, and then I went down the slide like this most of the time (demonstrates).
That's the part where you land and go out.

That is the onsen outside. The water is hot. But I don't know; I didn't go in it.

This is the building.

Near here, there was also a hot water slide you went down on tubes. It was short. Very very short.
That is the barbecue tables for lunch.

That is the barbecue. Every family had their own grill. We ate barbecue meat. Pork, chicken, steak, corn, and shrimp.

That's the rice.

That's the barbecue when we were done.

This is the boat that we rented. I don't know how much it cost because I didn't rent it. Mommy rented it. We battled H. and Y's boat. We let S and M and S in our boat. And M.

It was the best day of my life.

Can I be done now?

one step at a time....

Why?

Why am I not losing weight in Japan?