Japanese Preschool

On Tuesday we visited Leo`s preschool, what an amazing place for kids, they have large rooms for the kids, a swimming pool for summer, some of the toys they had there were scooters, pogo sticks,rope bridge between 2 trees, lots of balls, jungle gym, swings, 4 slides, play house, sand pit etc. I saw on the wall some of the photos of the activities they get up to, they have bom fires and roast the veges they grow. All the kids have we uniforms with hats, we choose Leos size. Leo goes 5 days a week, 9am till 2pm and it cost 5000 yen per month or about $80NZ per month.

The preschool is about 10mins walk or a few minutes on the bike from here. Leo is very excited about going but doesn`t start until next year.

Today 9 Dec 2011 we went to another open day at the preschool, I took some photos off the wall in the preschool.

 Could never do this in NZ would be to dangerous

 This would be unthinkable in NZ, cooking kumura on a bom fire, how cool!

 Parents would have a fit if their kids came home green from preschool in NZ, not here its all fun!

 Leo next to the xmas tree at the preschool

 Large passion fruit tree in the play ground

Kids garden area, not much happening in winter

I am in Tokyo!!

Hi Everyone,

The flights on air NZ were good, met a couple nice Japanese people on the plane on the way over.

When I arrived at Narita airport and walked through the gate my we boy Leo was so excited to see me he ran to see me right up at the gate and jumped on me. He said he was very happy to see me.

Its been quite busy here and I haven`t been able to get my laptop going on the system here so I am on a Japanese computer, everything is in Japanese!

I spent my birthday at immigartion today, it was actually quite a easy process, the Japense are so very helpful, there was a fair amount of paper work to do but it is all handled quite well and with the least amount of waiting.

On the way home we stopped in to watch a dolphin show, after the show Leo got to pat a dolphin.

                                  Leo with the birthday cake after we blew out the candles

                                     Close up of the birthday cake just about to be cut

                                                    Leo with the Dolphin

See You all for now
Bruce

House Extensions have started

Hi Everyone,

My in-laws are making the house bigger, they started on the 18th November, they will be finished next month, my mother in-law is looking forward to having a new kitchen and larger dining room. Should be good and make the house much bigger.

Father and Son builders, very good workmenship!

Check out their website http://www.reform-takano.jp/

The Before Shot

Builders just starting work

Leo watching the builders

Construction under way

Leo ready to go out, plywood cladding on

Leo hiding

Leo dancing

Builder hard at work

Electrician

Plumber , he must be good becuase he never run it up before the floor was nailed down.

Wooden Floor going down - Can see insualtion in the walls

Spot the kiwi in Tokyo

Spot the builder

Putting a new floor in

New tounge and grove floor finished. Looks real nice.

Gib board going on, looking much better now!

Kitchen end is all gibbed, Builders getting ready for new kitchen to arrive.

 Kitchen sitting in place

 Extraction Fan mounted on wall

 Bench top on and water/gas hooked up

Shot from the front

 Kitchen all installed

Another shot from the front

Feature beam polyurethaned

Leo with builder work bag, tape measure and trade mark pencil behind his ear

Preparing to put siding on

Siding going on - the siding has polystyrene in it for more insulation.

That side finished

On lookers checking out progress

 New Veranda goign up

Veranda just about finished

A while a go there was a leak in the roof and it damaged the ceiling, as part of the refit the house has a new ceiling in one of the bedrooms, they ripped everything out, reframed it all up and put new gib board up, better insulation in and put a very thick wall paper up, it looks really nice. You can see the roof, look at some of the brackets, they look shiny and new like they were fitted yesterday.

 Getting furniture in place dining table has moved an TV is there now.

 

Another spot the kiwi or am I trying to point at the fridge

Removing the balcony

Preparing the roof and house for painting

Cutting the balcony off with angle grinder, note how rusty it was hence its replacement.

The builders are really good people, even though he can`t speak much english and I can`t speak much japanese we seem to laugh about things, they work fast and work very accurate, they arrive on site before or at 8am each day with the truck loaded up with materials for the days work. If they have a big load of rubbish on their truck they go a bit early to the dump, I think the dump is a fair distance away so may try to miss the evening rush hour otherwise here to 5pm or later.