The Aquarium

Recently, at a friend's house, Ela discovered guppies. She watched them as if she had never seen anything more interesting. I promptly decided a trip to an aquarium was important. Lucky for me, they've just renovated the aquarium in Sasebo, and it reopened last week. So a couple of us went to check it out. For a small town aquarium, it had a lot of neat stuff, like this turtle, which was bigger than Ela:

Ela was fasicnated by all the fish...

They even had 3 dolphins (two bottle nose, one other type), and they do shows every so often. This dolphin was doing a flip in mid-air.

And, since jellyfish are pretty common in the waters around Sasebo, they had a whole room devoted to jellyfish.

We had a great time, and I was delighted to discover that a year pass costs a little more than two trips, so I'll be getting a year pass next time we need something to do with our afternoon...

Bon Odori

Man I have a lot of blogging to catch up on, but now that Ela can push buttons on the computer from my lap, it'll take awhile. First on the agenda: Ela and I went to the Bon Odori dance put on by the JMSDF for the Americans. At this event, they display the Japanese version of line dancing (to oversimplify), help us learn a few dances, and do some taiko drumming. There's also a few games and lots of fair food. Since it was an event put on by the Japanese, I thought it would be a good time to try on Elly's Japanese baby-yukata:

Since it was also super hot, I thought it'd be a good time to not use the car seat in the stroller. Instead, we slathered on the sun screen and got out a hat. On the way to the park, a kind Japanese lady told me how Ela was watching the cars from her stroller. When we go there, they were passing out fans, which helped a tiny bit in the crazy July heat.

So we met up with some friends, watched some dancing, and I got a hamburger. The whole time I kept remembering how last year I was just pregnant enough to be really uncomfortable in the heat. I also realized that everyone who I hung out with last year except like two people are gone now. I'm just lucky the new folks are so cool. :-) Here's a picture of the dancing:

So we watched for awhile, while Ela had a snack, and then she conked out and we headed home.

I'd say a good time was had by all.
Coming soon: a visit to the new aquarium...

Ela goes to Junior College

This year, Ela and I went to the cultural festival at the Junior College where I used to work. I went to this festival my first year here, but couldn't take any pictures. This year, that was not the case. The festival celebrates all cultures, though Japanese culture is most promienent (since there's more Japanese people there). There were displays from China, Kora, Japan, and even a bit of Americna culture.

The college must have special ordered the weather. It poured down rain all morning, stopping right as we left the house to go to the festival, and as we left at the end, it started raining again. It was quite something.

First up on the agenda was the eating of somen, which is a summer dish in Japan. Noodles are sent down a bamboo trough in a flood of cold water. You scoop the noodles out using chopsticks as they come by, and then you eat them with a mixture of soy sauce and onion, and may be wasabi for flavor. Here's what the process looks like:


After we had eaten that, the school also provided some traditional Japanese fair, including sushi makings (no raw fish, though), Japanese curry, Yakisoba (stir-fried noodles), takoyaki (fried octopus) and french fries and fried chicken for the kids and less adventurous Americans.

During lunch, there were several activity stations set up for visitors to enjoy. You could try caligraphy, make a wish for tanabata, or play with traditional Japanese games. A kind teacher who remembered me wrote out my name and Ela's using Kanji. Then there were several demonstrations to watch.

First a girl performed some sort of martial arts:


Then there was a group of Okinawan drummers:


And then Chinese tai chi...


... and a traditional Chinese dance:

Some older ladies came to perform Japanese fan dance and the hula.

The final event of the afternoon was the Japanese version of a pinata: a watermelon was placed on a mat and people were blindfolded and attempted to break it open with a bamboo stick:

Then we got to eat the watermelon. The students all thought Ela was adorable:

And I enjoyed being back at school and seeing some familar faces.

Giggles

Here's Ela laughing at her Daddy. I love that sound!

Ela's First Meal

I tried to upload Ela's baptism several times, and each time got an error message in Japanese. I'm guessing it's too long. So we'll show you her first attempt with solids instead. Keep in mind that I was feeding her with one hand and taping with the other, Zack being at work.
Here it is!

More video to follow...

Weekend of Fire(works) and Water

My have we had a busy week! The change of command was on Thursday, so the beginning of the week was absorbed by good bye/hello parties for the former CO and the new XO. Then it was suddenly the fourth of July. Elly has already grown out of the cute sailor dress she wore for Zack's arrival home, so she wore a cute onsie for all of five minutes before dirtying it up, leading to the use of this outfit for the rest of the day:

To celebrate, we took her to the big event at Nimitz park for dinner and then we watched the fireworks together.

Elly was really less interested in the colors in the sky than in the huge crowd of new faces to examine, but we pretend that she watched anyway. She did express mild interest in the really sparkly ones that I like. As soon as the fireworks stopped we hurried her home to bed.

Sunday was Ela's baptism. Most of the pictures are on someone else's camera, but here she is with her Daddy before the service:

After the church service, a bunch of our friends from Zack's ship came to see her be baptized in a small ceremony at the chapel, then we all went out for Sunday Brunch. It was a really nice ceremony, and it was nice to have a little celebration in Ela's honor afterwards.
Then, Sunday evening, Elly and I went to one more good bye party for the former CO's son. This one was at the pool, so we got to try out her swimsuit for the first time.

Again, we have more pictures on someone else's camera, but Elly and I did actually get in the water for a short time. I waited until she was sweaty from the heat of the room, then I got in the pool and let her stand on the edge (with a little help, obviously). Then I had her sit on the edge, and finally she came in with me. She took this dip better than her baptism, so I consider it a success. We got out when the other kids started splashing around a bit.

After that crazy busy weekend, Ela had a doctor's appointment on Monday. She has been deemed healthy. She's still way at the top of the height and weight arc, but her little data points are making a nice curve, so it's okay. She handled the vaccines a bit better this time. I suspect that this is because it was the same one as last time, and her immunity is, logically, higher. We're all very glad to have her all taken care of, spiritually and physically.