Archive for September, 2006

Soleil Hill (ソレイユの丘)

Monday, September 25th, 2006

We went to ソレイユの丘 the other week (soleil hill) which was really great! It’s a big open farm area, with ponds, sunflowers and animals to play with. There were some rides and a big pond that the kids could swim and frolic in. I think there are some additional educational activities, such as planting flowers or veggies, or handling animals. It was also pretty well free, apart from the parking charge. The rides had to be paid for, but the pond and the animals were all free to play in or play with. There was a small restaurant there and Evan really wanted to go on the swan ride (足こぎボート – paddleboat) so we did that and had a good time. They also had some strange country-music playing in the grand-stand, complete with line-dancing, cowboy hat wearing, cowboy-boot wearing Japanese line dancers. So wierd. Nevertheless, it’s a lovely place, right by the Zushi beach.
Here’s the website if anybody is interested:
http://www.yokosuka-soleil.jp/

Learning Kanji (漢字)

Monday, September 25th, 2006

I’ve started learning Kanji now, which is exciting and the start of a very long road ahead. I’m not sure how many Kanji I’ll get to but level 4 Japanese Language Proficiency is 100 Kanji, and level 3 is 500. The book I’ve got looks very good and contains 500 kanji. I’m aiming for learning 10 kanji a week, which means I should be ready for my level 3 by this time next year. That’s the theory at least! :)

Yuriy and Lidiya

Monday, September 25th, 2006

Nicole got a call from Yuriy and Lidiya the other day, with whom we haven’t spoken to in such a long time. They’re all doing well, but Yuriy’s father passed away not to long ago, which is really sad. We miss them a lot and it will be very nice when we go back to NZ to see them again.