Tea and shopping

Well, the tea with the (very nice) university president wasn't as much of a disaster as I had feared, but it wasn't exactly the kids' shining moment, either. We got everyone showered and dressed up (no easy task) and I donned my fancy birthday shoes from my mom, which fit in very well here, a city filled with beautiful shoes (a whole other post some day... I am going to just wax poetically about the amazing shoes I have seen in these 10 days). Olivia said I looked very fancy -- the highest compliment. By the time we left, the girls were ready for a nap... and in fact, Katie just hunkered down under the tea table in the President's office and fell asleep. He said that was fine. They also immediately took their shoes off in their office (they were too big with tights on). He was fine with that, too. He seems like a good soul. He did some of his studies in Boston and so his English was terrific -- and John's Japanese sounded good too. It would have been nice to talk with him more, but the slouching, slinking, slipping children prompted us to leave after about 15 minutes. When we got home and checked email, we had a message from one of the many people whose job it is to make our life here easier (another topic that merits a full post -- there are so many people here whose full time jobs seem to be helping us -- they come to preschool interviews, set up appointments, you name it). Anyway, this message was scheduling a formal dinner for us with the president, but he suggested that perhaps instead we could do a lunch -- on a day when the children are in preschool. Gulp. Were they that bad? As it turns out, he sent it shortly before the first meeting, so it wasn't the direct result of rude sleeping children.

Today took us to a downtown shopping district where Hiromi told us we could find many of the items on the school list. Here are a few of our finds -- all very kawai (cute).

All of the loot -- three smocks, three large towels, three small towels (and some extras we will use here), cups, silverware/chopstick sets, indoor shoes, the works.
















Close up of the kawai cups and one of the bags.












Katie and Livie picked out matching Hello Kitty smocks.











Close up of indoor shoes. The white ones for the girls were in a package labeled "School Shoes" and cost 298 yen (2.98). They didn't have Jack's size, so we hope these are OK. Probably not...
















Jack in his uniform (holding Superdog, who came on the shopping trip with us). You can see from the blue flower on his uniform that he is part of the "tulip" class.

















Jack showing the back of his hat, with a very jaunty ribbon.











Livie in her uniform (showing that certain Livie sense of style). She (and Katie) are part of the "melon" class. We will have to put her name in the middle of the green melon on her uniform.


















Katie and Livie hugging (Liv in blue) on futons in the tatami room











Katie showing off her new "First Day of School Dress"


















We didn't find the art bag and we are going to see if their backpacks will be acceptable (it doesn't look like what they have on the list, but we'll try). I also picked up a ton of labels -- again, this labeling thing is clearly something that is done many places in Japan, because right next to all of the school supplies were a whole assortment of different labels (cloth ones you can iron on smocks, sticky ones to put on your chopsticks set, etc.). The store (Akachan) was great -- not too expensive but full of so many cute things. I have already found lots of goodies I want to buy for friends and family back home. Perhaps I, like the university president, will wait to do that when the kids are at preschool...