Saturday was the first Saturday in quite awhile that it did not rain- yahoo. Scott and I took the girls by train to Tachikawa, to the Showa Kinen Park. Several friends have told us this is a wonderful park, but it was even better than we expected (per Maya "this park is so much more than I expected Mom...I thought we could come here, ride some bikes, look at nature and go home"). Although it took us a little over an hour to get there by train, with several transfers, it was well worth it. The park is an old Air Force base, and is HUGE. Greenery, trees, grass, open space, fantastic paved bike trails, and an unbelievable Children's forest for the kids. They had play gyms, climbing areas, a "mist" park with a big cement tunnel shooting out mist and water, square (yes, square) grass mounds- many, many of them- for the kids to climb up and down, a big castle, dragons- huge dragons- for the girls to climb on, rock areas to climb, and these HUGE white mushroom like tarps that are springy, and shaped like hills- it is like a huge trampoline covering the whole hillside! Unfortunately, this area was being prepped for the busy season, and was one of the only areas shut down while we were there. This park also had paddle boats, mini golf, kayaks..it was just a blast. We rented bikes and biked around only a portion of the park, it was so large. We are definitely looking forward to going back and doing some more exploring.



I also found out that two of my good friends from high school- Caroline and Michelle Kuether- were actually born on this Air Force base!! Their mom planted two trees in their honor at the base when they left Japan....next time, I am going in search of these trees!!

We took the girls to a Yakatori restaurant- it is the first time we have attempted to take them out to eat here in Japan that wasn't TGI Friday's or The American Club (which serves American grill food- hamburgers, chicken nugget, grilled cheese, etc). It went better than expected- they ate some chicken sans wasabi :), some Miso soup and Hanna even tried just a touch of a friend chicken wing...I did bring a PB&J sandwich for them, which they also ate! A friend from Portage, who had done an assignment in Switzerland when her kids were young, told me that she never went anywhere without snacks or a makeshift meal for her kids, because you never know if you are going to find a place that serves/has food that your kids will actually eat- best piece of advise I could have gotten!