Silent Hill, New Cam, and Hiroko`s Favorite Restaurant

1st day May 31, 2006Wednesday

I am not sure what day it is in Japan. It is late at night. Hiro=chan and Toshi are asleep.
We slept in today, which was nice. I woke up to breakfast which included yellow pickled radishes that were cut into strips, miso soup, rice, and some type of tofu. We went to Hirokoﾕs momﾕs work. She is a principal at a kindergarten.

They were having a birthday party. They have one once a month for everyone whose birthday is in that month. The party consisted was more like an assembly where they presented the kids with a picture and asked them basic questions.
It was really fun. The kids loved Toshi. They played well together.

Japanﾕs population has officially started to shrink. Naokoﾕs kindergarten used to have over 100 students, now it has less then 50. It is connected to a grade school which is also shrinking. There were a lot of empty rooms. I was reminded of the video game Silent Hill, which partly takes place in an abandoned elementary school.

Hiroko, Toshi, and me went exploring while Naoko worked. We took lots of pictures. I canﾕt wait to see how they turn out. We ate lunch there. It was rice with TONS of anchovies, a small amount of fish, and a piece of fruit that tasted like honey-dew.

We came home and slept for a few hours. Later grandma (Hirokoﾕs), Naoko, Toyotoshi, Hiroko, Toshi, and me went to lunch at .....I forgot. We had noodles and dumplings. My little family went with Naoko to go shopping for a new digital camera. We got one.
We then went shopping for mugi-cha (barley tea). Naoko was so funny pushing Toshi in the store stroller and walking real close to people so they could comment on how good looking Toshi is. Hiro-chan and I laughed a lot.