I’ve not had a lot of time to write blog entries recently. Work is quite busy (trying to catch up the time I lost over the New Year holidays, which is tricky because work doesn’t stop in the meantime), and, apart from keeping my Japanese blog going, I’m also trying to spend time with Mayuki.
Yesterday, the three of us went on a trip across Tokyo, to Yushima Tenjin, the Shinto shrine where Yuriko and I got married. From there, we went to Ueno Park, and had a nice walk through it before heading home. Mayuki was a good girl all day; she didn’t cry, and she slept through the boring bits (train rides, us eating), and stayed awake through the interesting ones (the shrine, the park). The shrine let us borrow a room to feed Mayuki, which was very nice of them; it meant that Yuriko could feed her at leisure, and probably contributed to her sleeping while we ate. That, of course, meant that we could eat at leisure, too.
Ueno Park was nice. It wasn’t too cold, and the weather was very clear (we saw Mount Fuji on the way into Tokyo, just peeping over the mountains), so the park looked very nice. One surprise was that the Hotel Sofitel is gone. I wonder what’s going to go up in its place. (By “gone” I mean “gone”; there is an empty space where it used to be.)
Today, Yuriko went to a kimono class. She’s been wanting to study it again for a while, and so I paid for a course as her birthday present from last year. That means that I look after Mayuki while Yuriko goes to study; it’s a bit difficult to practice putting a kimono on with a small baby in tow. So I got more time with Mayuki today; she slept for about an hour and a half, but for much of the time she was awake and wanted playing with, so we sang songs, read books, and danced round the room. Well, actually, I did the active stuff. Mayuki just watched and smiled or laughed.
She did do one active thing. We have a mobile in the living room, a gift from one of my students, and Mayuki really likes it. Today, while she was staring at it, I turned round. She turned her head back around to see it. She didn’t follow it with her eyes; her head doesn’t turn that way. Rather, she remembered where it was and turned to look back at it. Or so it seemed, at any rate.
The kimono class is every week, and Yuriko really enjoyed the first session, so I’ll get lots more opportunities to spend time with Mayuki like that.
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