Sean's Japanese Blog

my steel mantis: Xmas day 2008

2008-12-25T04:52:00.000-08:00

Today I made a praying mantis with steel!!! and I had to use a screw-driver and a small spanner it
was very hard complicated and here it is. I got it from Santa [who managed to find his way all the way to a small apartment on Japan :))

[It was also Sean's last day in Japanese school: perhaps, he'll tell you about it some other time... In the meantime, I hope that you've enjoyed these entries..and that he'll write some more when he returns to England. That's all folks! Nigel.]

my eagle

2008-12-21T02:08:00.000-08:00

This week I made an eagle and it took me two days and my dad helped.and some parts easy some parts hard. I have built the whole
eagle

my picture

2008-11-26T01:59:00.000-08:00

Today I drew a picture of an eagle and here it is:
I drew it at school in break-time.

Also,today at school I saw five people playing different kinds of Japanese traditional instruments.

today I discovered

2008-11-21T00:24:00.000-08:00

today I discovered an amazing bug. It was like a dragonfly but it was not it had a eyes on the side
of its head.so I asked my friend that was an expert at bugs and he knew the type but I forgot what
he told me.

This past week...

2008-11-19T00:52:00.000-08:00

This week lots of things happened !! the first thing we did is bought fish, and one is going to have babies.

I had day off school because my brother Julian was in hospital. [Note the priorities here :) !] last Sunday, he got sick so we took him to hospital. After the doctor saw him, and we were about to go home, he had a seizure and then had to be kept in for three days... and I stayed at my grandparents' flat for one night.

[Julian had contracted a salmonella-like bug called Campylobacter (probably from a restaurant that served raw and cooked chicken). It took three days of drips and intensive antibiotics to make him better...]

Intermission

2008-11-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

[Sorry, we haven't been very active this week. Sean and Julian have both gone down with some bug, and blogging has taken a back seat to recovery... More soon I hope. Nigel]

School in japan (part one)

2008-11-07T18:19:00.000-08:00

[This is a dictated message, for a change, rather than self-typed]. School in Japan usually finishes before three o'clock, but we start early, leaving the house at 7:30, my Dad takes me on the first bus and then I go by myself on the second bus, and everyone else goes on the both of the buses or one bus and a train by theirselves. We arrive at school earlier if you take the two buses (around 8:20 am). At school, we do music lessons -- we play a musical instrument called a Pianica. It's a type of short piano keyboard that you blow air into to play and press the keys at the same time. Here's a picture:

Also in school, we're going to have a concert soon. I'm going to play the Pianica. But in the beginning, we sing three songs [a medley?] that the school very cleverly stuck together, and one song right at the end with all of us singing, and on all of the songs stuck together all of the classes sing each of the songs.

Once at school, a bird banged into the window, and fell into the plant pot. And we called the science teacher and he took it to the sickroom and they took care of it but it died...

The school is quite high up in the mountain, so there are hundreds of wild boars!!! The male ones have fangs (!) and the female ones don't. And we saw four when we were waiting at the bus stop near our school: there was two adults, one baby and one kid (or what they're called).

Crab hunting

2008-11-02T01:49:00.001-07:00

Today we dashed to the beach [after another visit to the onsen] to find crabs and we found three crabs one small one medium one big! but my dad got pinched by the big one. So very bravely, my mum picked it up and put it in the container.[Below is a picture of Maiko beach, where we found all the crabs].

At the Sake Factory

2008-10-31T04:59:00.000-07:00

Today [It was last week, but this is the first day to report it!], I went to [a] brewery near the harbour. [Actually, it was a sake distillery]. It was very old-looking and quiet! We went to the brewery because it was my mum's dad's birthday! and so we bought some [sake] for him. [Though it may sound strange to take children to such a place, it was more like a temple than a factory: we had a short tour and then I got to sample a great range of delicious sake, while the children played in the courtyard outside. They also had a beautiful restaurant and shop with fantastic pickles, fish, bread: we'll be back soon]

About Japanese beetles!

2008-10-22T03:38:00.000-07:00

4 3

2 1

Japanese beetles are slightly different from English ones because they have horns, to fight with other insects and each other. There are two types of beetles: there's a beetle that has one long horn, and there's another beetle that has two horns that snap together so that they can attack other things. And the one with one horn is on picture 1, and the one with two horns on each side is on picture 4.

and apparently the one with one horn has a mini horn above the long horn.

Yesterday at the beach

2008-10-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we went to the beach [near my grandparents' apartment]! First we played in the park then we made a sand castle near the water, and it was as big as me so we made a tunnel that we could fit through [then a wave swept through the sandcastle, and then we got really soggy! But since the sandcastle collapsed, and all that was left was a little block of sand. Then we made a sandcastle that had a river in itm and the waves were fine in that river, and we made it look like the real sea...We dug a really big hole that all the water got caught up in.... Later on, we let the praying mantis free...]

Visiting Universal Studios

2008-10-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to Universal Studios Japan [in Osaka]. I went on lots of rides but I could not go on the ride that I thought will be the best because I was 1 cm away from the top of the height stick. I liked the Jurassic Park ride best. After USJ we watched a funny clown who came from the US.

A Day at the Park

2008-10-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the park. There were a lot of grasshoppers, and they were hard to catch [but Ayumi managed to catch one for the praying mantis (see earlier post)!] But the equipment there was very fun to play with, and there was a 10m long slide..and I call it the "ten metre slide".

[Here is a view of Kobe from the park: as you can see, we're up on the mountain --Nigel]

A Rainy Day in Kobe

2008-10-14T03:52:00.000-07:00

Today is the Autumn Holidays at my school (like Half Term holiday). First we were aiming to go to the zoo, but since it was raining we went to the cinema. I went with my new friend. We saw a confusing film! Later on we went to lots of shops... [Here's a picture of downtown Kobe in the rain, taken by Javi Motomachi]

At the onsen (Japanese Baths)

2008-10-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the spa it was a lot of fun there. First I washed myself and then I went in to the spa. There were lots of places to sit in and lie in and you could either lie outside or sit inside or have a massage (for grown-ups!).

After that we went into a freezing cold spa and that's what cools you down from the boiling hot spas. And then we went back to our first locker, and then we got changed. Then we went to the locker for the shoes and we took some pictures of the spa and of me at the shopping centre nearby. Here it is:

My first blog (The praying mantis)

2008-10-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went up Rokko mountain. On the way we found a praying mantis. Here's a picture of it. (We also found a freshwater crab walking by the side of the road). Apparently they can eat mice. And they eat spiders and crickets. It only eats things that look alive so now we are off to look for some...ants.