hi, i'm jenn

Last weekend I was in Sanda visiting the Hori family. It had been almost 2 years since I saw them last. The girls have grown so much and it was amazing to get to play with them. I arrived at shin-kobe late Wednesday night to be greeted by Masao. We got home to Mika and Akari waiting up. After a round of gift giving and snacks of apples and strawberries, went to sleep.

  

Thursday Hi-chan (who was sleeping when I got there) had a “tummy-ache” (yeah right) so stayed home from school. Fortunately she wasn’t feeling that sick so we took a field trip to my favourite 100 Yen store, and to Toys R Us. Thursday night Hichan put on a fantastic welcome show with the help of akari.

   

Friday Hi-chan returned to school, so I spent the day just relaxing with Mika and Akari. Akari loves to eat. She eats anything she can get her hands on. She also likes to “help out” in the kitchen which, as far as i can tell, is really a way for her to get more food. Friday she decided the cake she was eating was in need of salmon pieces. Yum. She also tried to make apple juice when they ran out.

  

Masao took a half day from work Friday (which meant he got home at THREE!). When Hichan got home from school, we packed up and went to the photo studio. Now, I didn’t pack for family portraits, so the nicest clothes I have here is a pair of pinstriped pants and a sweater. That’s what I wore. Mika wore a dress, and Masao a skirt. The kids were in their normal clothes. But not for long. Studio Alice is a kid’s dream come true. There are costumes galore to chose from. Heck, you can be a Disney Princess or Winny the Pooh. It’s amazing!

The kids each picked a dress, and the helpful staff helped them to change. Then it was time for hair styles — you picked off of a sheet of different hairstyles. The hairstyles involved putting your hair back into a pony, or up in pig tails, and then adding some fake hair. I couldn’t believe it! I told Mika I was jealous of the girls’ tiaras, so next thing I knew, I had my hair up with cascading curls and a beautiful tiara too! Pretty scary!

As you can imagine, it was super fun. We took 2 rounds of pics – the first with the girls in dresses and a normal background. The second with the girls in Kimonos in front of hina dolls. It was great. So now I get Japanese family portraits! Well, Akari does call me “Hori Jenn”.

   

After pictures we went to a tofu buffet for dinner. They call buffets vikings. While the restaraunt featured tofu, it was definitely not veggie. Just a random observation.

  

Saturday we went to lunch at a steak restaraunt called Sanday. There’s a few different branches, but we went to the main one. It was stunning. The back garden has a Noh theatre. While there wasn’t a performance while we were there, but there was live music inside. The steak was great. Kobe beef baby!

     

Saturday afternoon we headed over to the fruit and flower park to catch the Kobe Monkey’s Show. I love punctuation. Monkeys are fun. So are fake Monkeys, which we saw afterwards when we went shoping.

   

Saturday night back home for a small dinner, and more chilling.

Sunday woke up, and went to the Hyogo prefecture museum of Nature and the Environment. There were cool things to look at, but all of it was Japanese.

   

Then we went for lunch at a kaiten sushi place. When we left the house, Mika gave me a Bento she had made me (for the train). Akari was jealous and insisted in bringing her own too. Only Akari brought her’s into the restaurant, and proceeded to eat it there. Don’t worry, she ate sushi too.

    

Saying goodbye is so sad. Fortunately, Akari was BAWLING which made us all laugh. When she realized I was leaving despite her very noble effort, she turned to me, said “BAKKA!” (stupid) and then refused to do so much as look at me. And my bento, in all of its hello kitty glory, rocked. It even had a note!

BUT I am sure I will see them all again soon. The Hori family RULES. Words can’t convey just how much I adore them! And next time I hope they will come and visit me in Toronto!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 2:53 pm and is filed under japan, life, pics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.