Trip to Yokohama - Chinatown

This will be the last post before we welcome Year 2009! Woo hoo! I have made a list of new year resolutions for the year, which include doing more activities with Jonathan and teaching Justin Chinese at home. And also more outdoor trips during the weekends to visit as many places as we can during our stay in Japan.

Last weekend we went to Yokohama Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in Japan. As ubiquitous in all Chinatowns, the streets were adorned with red lanterns. Streets lined with Chinese restaurants, grocery stores, Chinese souvenir stores and pastry shops selling dim sum, dumplings and buns. Every street we passed we saw hot steam coming out from the shops selling buns. And the buns are HUGE! At 500 yen each, one bun is enough for my lunch.

Chinatown in Yokohama

I managed to buy some bee hoon, Char Siew Sauce, kae chee, red dates. This trip will definitely not be the last. I have plans to buy a whole box of bee hoon the next time. It's quite difficult to find the exact thin, fine noodles in Tokyo. The one that I bought at Food Show was thick and hard even after soaking them in water. While I was doing grocery shopping, the kids were busy doing their own shopping as well.

Guess what Jus and Jon are looking at?

"Can you buy jelly for me, please?"

And finally, we get to take a family portrait together.


After grocery shopping, we went to Starbucks for afternoon tea before heading back home. An enjoyable day for everyone especially the kids who had mooncakes along the way.

A Typical Saturday

It's 0700 hours in the morning and I hear little voice calling out to me. "Mummy, mummy, shee shee, ....." Groggily I get up from my sleep to find Jonathan sitting on his bed calling out to me. He had wet his bed. "Geez, I didn't get up to change his diapers in the middle of the night", I thought to myself.

I got up, cleaned him and removed the bedsheet and quilt cover. By then he was fully awake and didn't show any signs of sleepiness. I gave him some milk, secretly hoping that he will go back to sleep again. "Jon, finish your milk and go sleep okay?". "No" he answered back, pointing at the window where he could see daybreak. Okay, time for mummy to get up.

I lasted until 8:30am when daddy woke up. I passed the baton to him as I was dead tired and needed more sleep. Justin was still sleeping soundly in bed.

At around 9:30 am, I hear noises from a distance. Am I in a dream? Then more noises and stamping of feet outside the corridor,

BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG .........

........ BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG


Yawn! That must be Jonathan. The floors at our new place is made of parquet and he has a tendency to run around stamping his feet.

Time for mummy to wake up.

A Letter to Santa

Written by Justin after coming back
from Christmas celebration in school

Tokyo Touchdown

After spending two wonderful weekends back in Singapore, we embarked on another new adventure to the Land of the Rising Sun. The trip to Japan was rather smooth. It's never easy to travel with kids on the plane. Their backpacks were stuffed with toys and snacks to keep them occupied during the 6 hour flight.

Jon enjoyng his starter while watching Gongfu Panda

It's been almost two weeks since we arrived in Tokyo. The weather is nice and cool, about 12 degrees celsius in the daytime. The first few days were spent unpacking stuff out of the boxes.

Jon exploring the laundry area

I can play with my toys now!

The kids started exploring every nook and cranny of the house. On the third day, Jonathan pressed the emergency button in the toilet. The alarm started sounding "Po, po, po - Toire ni kite-kudasai" repeatedly. I had just walked out of the bathroom for less than 5 seconds to get a towel for the kids and Jonathan conveniently pressed the call button. **Faint!**

Being new in the house, it took me about 5 minutes to figure out where the central alarm was. Another 10 minutes of frantically searching through and reading the manual to figure out how to turn off the alarm. Imagine doing this while the alarm keeps ringing with a voice speaking a foreign language which you don't understand. Arghh!!!!!!

I was worried that (1) the system was linked to the police and someone would come knocking at the door and (2) the noise was causing disturbance to my neighbours.

My problem wasn't exactly over when I found the manual in a thick A4 file containing explanatory notes of all equipments and security systems. Instructions were in English but the security system on the wall was written in katagana and kanji. Time to fill in the gaps. It's a good thing that I can understand Kanji (Chinese characters). Instruction manual stated "Press tone-silence button", I found the button for "警報音停止 " , the "press RESET button" and I pressed the button which had "some katagana symbols then 复旧". A peaceful silence filled the house. Phew!

The culprit with an innocent smile

I later realised that the toilet alarm system wasn't SECOM but an internal one and that "Toire-ni kite-kudasai" means "Come to the toilet". Not knowing Japanese is a handicap especially when Japanese here speak minimal English. I have been surviving on simple Japanese and sign languages for the past 2 weeks. Will have to start learning more as soon as possible.