The view from the 11 th floor of council building.

Not pretty like rows of brick buildings in UK.

The very squidy meal for a dinner!

From left, Raw Squid in Raw Egg York Sauce(egg york and soy sauce), Boild squid Marinated in Onion and Vineger, and Squid in Spicy Tomato Sauce!!

The raw egg makes squids kind of creamy and yummy!

The Big Ban

This is a place for children where they can learn while playing.

From outside, we could see flat doam type building and a tower next to it. In that tower from 4th to 8th floor is a masive indoore play area, so we were looking forward to see!

Inside, there were sience area, mechanic toy`s area, work shop corners and so on.

The corner I thought good was " Japan 50 years ago"

This is what looked like 50years ago.

Takoyaki(the batter made with wheat and water was cooked into ball shape with a little piece of octopus in it) shop. Children pretended to make takoyaki ball and sell them. the price tag was on the wall and it was 25yen,more than 10times cheaper than now.

Some toys and books were on the shelves to see and also lots of toys from those time was in a room to play.

Hunny and I liked this old telephone! There was a sawing machine in the tatami room too.

The play area in tower was an athretic corse. It`s big and goes up high but my children were expected that they cant play there freely instead of just going up in one way. so it was bit disappointing.

All in all, my children didn`t enjoy that much.....

We`ll give 3points out of 5.

At the entrance, with my old school friend`s children.

Maybe Hunny and Viz were just being bit too shy to enjoy the day....

No HesFes or Kent camp this year. I thought we just have to go without camping this year as we don`t have any camping gears and a car.

But I found the campsite which I could rent the tent, pots and pans, chopping board and knives and dishes and spoons. It`s by the Settsu-kyo river(where I have put on my blog a couple times in a past) 20minutes on the bus, and even better, the camping fee was FREE! for the takatsuki citizens!!!

I HAD TO GO!!!

I needed to book at least a week before camping, and this place was built for the educations of young people by goverment, so there were some restrictions like No alcohol was allowed at all, No foods are allowed in the tent, Need to be quiet after 10 for other campers etc. But it was just kids and I were going and I don`t do alcohol, so it was no big deal.


I kept it minimum but still there were quite lots of things to take. It was big job to get to the bus stop! But my dad came in rescue, and he carried most stuff on his bycycle. In japan, even night time tempature is quite high around 26~28c. So we didn`t need to take anything bulky, even a sleeping bags.(we haven`t got one, so we just used bath towels to put over us)

After 20minutes of bus ride, we were front of the campsite.


According to this map, we can go around the road or can go short cut up the hill.

We took the short cut, but with our luggages, it was harder way.....

After 15minutes of climing, we got to the place and checked in and were shown where everything was.

This is the cooking place. 7 or 8 groups can cook at the same time.

This is the eating place.

And this is our tent!! It`s for 6 people, big enough for 3 of us. But back in England, the tent we have is massive! So when we saw this tent, we thought this is not good standered at all!

But no need of putting it up and down!!! Fab!

Around 4 o`clock, we started cooking. There was no Gas cooker, so we needed to cook on the fire.

we could buy logs for it there as we needed, so we started to chop things, wash rice and then made fire.

With kids help, things went really well.

The pot on the left is a rice pot. The pot on the right is a stewing pot.

This night we cooked Rice and Curry, very typical food for camping!

Hunny is serving. She really enjoyed helping around fire.

Japanese curry and Rice

After the dinner it was a camp fire time. We were located on fire place from 7 o`clock, so we hurried to there to have a mini campfire and fire works. This is right after cooking on fire, so I really didn`t feel like making more fire and get hot and sweaty. but campfire is a big part of the camp, so we did it anyway. good way of avoiding mosquitos!

Next day, we started from going for a walk in a woods. Just walked around, me in front kids behind booing about this walking idea!

But later they picked up their mood when they found a frog and started to chase it!

After lunch (left over curry) we decided to go to the river.

about 20 minutes walk to the river.... but it`s all stairs keep going down...

By the time we got to the bottom, my legs were shaking! and the thought of going back up made it worth!

And then when we saw the river, our shoulders dropped with thuds!

Too Many People!!!! This is no way of relaxing after that long walk!

We had a quick dip and left there soon as we need to cook on the fire again.

We managed to put one more cooking in the next morning.

And then we tidied up, packed, and checked out.

I didn`t want to leave yet, so stayed around for bit longer. I asked(or ordered?!) kids to draw some pictures, anything about camping while I read a book. Sounds like perfect Home Ed. moment.....

Without our conversations, looks perfect!!

With these people`s help, camping was very enjoyable!

The best thing was there were lot of insects to chase and catch!

Viz loved it!

He found Kuwagata (a stag beetle ) with help of these guys and brought home and now in the box with the beetle he won at the festival. The beetle from the festival is 2inch in length and the beetles he brought back from camping is just under a inch. I thought these are going to get killed very soon, but seem to be surviving well!

This is the good way of doing the Sushi party!

Prepare the rice and other ingredients and put on the table.

People can roll it by themselves with filling of their choice.

We had... selection of raw fish (tuna, salmon,yellow tail, sea bream and prown) with sprouts and juliennes of horse raddish.


and avocado, eggs, asparagus and cucumber. Tomato is for deco, it`s not easy to wrap!

and raw salmon eggs!

yeek, I don`t really like them....!

First , spread rice on top of Nori sheet thinly(this is the point! never spread too much!)

Then top it with some fish and veges.

And wrap it up into the shape of corn.

Like this! and it`s done. you can put soy-sauce and wasabi for the flavour!

Itadakima~su!

Hunny`s work...... bit too much rice, end up in Nori sandwich!

And Viz`s work.......

erh.......

Well, doesn`t matter.

it will be the same once goes in tummy...

Takatsuki Matsuri

The Summer is the festival season in Japan and various festival is held in many places.

Takatsuki city where we live held Takatsuki festival, and as it was walking distance we went to have a look.

On the big street from a station to a council, cars were stoped and place was filled with people.

One of main event was, the prosseseion of dancers and a music band with traditiona Japanese instraments.

unfortunately there were somany people, we only caught a glimps of it. Really, we needed to get there early to take some space to watch.

Peopla were wearing kimono style costumes and head bands. It was the dance called "Awaodori" which came from south east of Japan. The lyric goes "the fools who dance and the fools who watch. if both is fool then better to dance.......!" and they move quite comicaly,so it`s fun to watch!

We walked along the street to see whats there. most of stalls were selling usual festival stuff.

I`m not a big fun of squids, but watching these on the grill on stick make them look taste lot nicer.

Really good smell was waffting down the streets!

And I have never seen these when we were kids....

Pickled whole cucumbers on stick!!

and cherry tomatos on stick too...

You might see this in England...

Hunny and Viz`s first choice was Toffee Apples!

It`s so red and sticky. after eating this their lips were coloured nicely....ell, Viz`case is whole mouth area!

Little later kids were of course hungry...

Viz chose "Tamago Senbei" which is prown fravered thin cracker made with some starch topped with brown sauce and mayonase, and a fried egg on top!

We walked along more looking into stalles. And also they had a stage in one of school near by, and they were performing dances and Japanese drums.

One thing really caught our eyes was...

The raffle for beetles!!

It had cages and boxes which had many beetles in.

Viz was keep asking if he can buy rhino beetles since the beggining of summer, and here, there was his chance to have one!!

When he did it , he could have two goes and first two red balls were came out of the box which has a little hole that balls fall out when you turn it. and second time, it was another red ball, so we thought red one was Hazure (a blank ) . But even a blank , he still got a beetle which was about 2inches length including a horn!

That made him so happy!!

And if he won the Top prise, he would get this!!

A manmos beetle of Heraqueen!!!

Oh my god, it was so beautiful!!!

It came from philippine or that area and it doesn`t fry.(maybe it`s too heavy to fry??) I was having a difficulty taking photos in a tank , and the owner kindly said ok to put it on his hand for the photo.

It was really amasing!

so, with this beetle(last festival we were with little tortoise..!) we headed home.

Hunny had her eyes on sweets stall. there were many colourfull round ball shaped sweets(hard boiled one) with many different flavours. Something we had when we were kids.

The festival was finishing at nine o`clock. While we were choosing sweets, it past nine and with the announcement, all the lights of stalles went off to force people to finish it off! So photo is bit dark and sweets doesn`t look so nice, but in the light they looks like jwelles(well, it did in my child`s eye!).

Viz and little creatures

As soon as rainy season finishes, the temperature soar up and then these little ones starts screaming!

They are so noisy!!! and they make noise from early morning till the sun goes down and some even during night. We got a little park with few trees right next to my parent`s apartment and we can see hundreds of them there. I don`t remember these were so loud from my childhood, it could be because the park was around corner of where we lived rather than right next to the house.

As soon as we get up we can hear them in the house, and sometimes we have to almost shout than talk to eachother in the house. then we`ll be released from this noise as we can shut windows to put the air-con(air conditioning).

Viz likes going down to the park with his net and box. After 20 minutes, he comes back home with his box full of Cicadas. He brings that in the house and then one starts to make noise ,others do to.... Oh my god, It sounds like bargler alarm`s gone off!!

Viz`z collection.....

Some flew away straight away, some stayed a while, and sadly some died there....

There were about 30 of them!

And this is beautiful one.

It`s a beatle called "kanabun" and this one is beautiful shiny green!

The photos not good, shame...

Sadly, the 4 weeks of my Hubby's stay flew by and was only one day left.....

He requested Sushi for the last meal. We couldn`t find suitable restaurant inTakatsuki and we didn`t want to go far as we needed to start next day early.

So, we dicided to go for chinies for dinner and buy some Sushi for lunch.

We bought some Sushi from the basement of department store ( in Japan, each department store has food floor in a basement, and it is rather nice as they have special things like meals from a first-class hotel or things you can only get from particura part of Japan(used to be as we can get them in department store now!),etc.

The selection of Sushi we got. There were Raw Tuna,Prown and cucumber with mayo, Raw Salmon,(on the left from top) and Another Tuna and Mixed pack(inc octopus, raw squid, eel, raw yellowtail) and Raw Prown(on the right).

My Hubby was very brave to try them all including raw squid and octopus!!

They were delisious, and I think it cost us ...5000yen which is about...35~40 pounds. Lot cheeper than getting one in England.

For dinner, we went to the chinies restaurant with my parents and sister.

They had a concept of "making safe for children" and their ingredients are all domestically produced and use no artificial additives.

The wooden table in a middle spins around so people can share the foods easily.

It is fun as somebody always spins it while you are just about to take the food or middle of picking up some slippery thing and end up dropping into a soup!

The day ended with full tummy, but some emptiness in the heart.

I really wasn`t looking forward to the next day to come!!!

Another hot day, another beach day!

This time, we went to swim and sunbaise to Suma beach. This is the ocean beach, and it took us about an hour on the train to get there.

Well, this just had to be done once while we were there!

Because every day in summer is hot, it`s guranteed that place is full of people. So there were hundres of shops along the beach.

When you look into it, you notice that they are selling same sort of things(few shops in a row have different foods and that blocks are repeating) but still make things exciting!

And there were few beach bars , and also beach clubs too!

This one had an event of reggae. They had some famous DJ (supposingly) and was really busy.

I wanted have a look inside but had to pay 2000yen(7pound ish?) so didn`t go in.

But music was loud and there were loads of people dancing and jumping just outside of bar!

This is the shop selling "yakitori" chiken on the stick with teriyaki sauce and was right next to the club bar.

I just tried to take photo of inside the club, but be able to see only the people in a back row holding their hands up.

After the long search of 20 of these shops, Hunny and Viz decided to have "Kakigori" (crushed ice with a syrup flavoured with fruits juice(small amount) and... flavourings and colourings... It`s bit like slush puppies, but lot more icy and not so slushy. In this heat and humidity, icecream is too thickly, so we have lots of these Kakigori instead.

and theirs one had freshly crushed real strawberries and peaches on top!

yummy!

The sun is setting. It cooled down but still hot enough to swim without getting frosen when we came out!

When we were in a water we saw lots of tiny peices of brown were floating. We concerned the quality of water first but were told those were planktons.

After the Sun has set, my Hubby who was swimming in the see found everytime he moves his body, the water shines in electric blue! we all went to have a look and when we lifted our arms out of water, we had millions of tiny sparkles on there. Those brown planktons we saw earlier was giving off these blue lights! It was beautiful and so magical!

I tried to capture that in photos but.... no good. looks like just some lights reflecting on a surface of water.

There were lots of people on the beach, but they were more on the top part of beach and I think not many people had noticed about this! We were lucky to see it!

Actually, we had some company with us on the beach. So, here we go,

My hubby and his co.

We were in a lot bigger group, but I only have photo of these guys...

and I think thoes planktons were called noctilucae.