Time flies by!

This is the last couple days of my kids’ school Spring Break.

In Japan, the school year ends in March and the new one begins in April…so on Monday, my kids will be in 6th, 8th, and 9th grades (actually they’re called: Grades 小６年、中2年、 and 中３年 (“Elem 6th”, “Jr High 2nd”, and “Jr High 3rd” grades). In Japan, elementary school is grades 1 – 6, the junior high is grades 1 – 3, and high school is also grades 1 – 3.

I can’t believe how fast they grow up!

Next March (2009), my youngest will graduate from elementary school, and my oldest kid will graduate from junior high (Japan has Graduations and Opening Ceremonies for every school a child attends…from pre-school to college).

Then, next April (2009), my oldest will start high school. So this year she’ll be taking “high school entrance exams”. Not only college, but Japanese high schools also have entrance exams.

Stressful.

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In the news, there have been alot of violent crimes against Japanese people commited by American military servicemen stationed in Japan.

It doesn’t help the image of foreigners in Japan.

The most recent was a sailor in the US Navy stationed near Tokyo who stabbed a taxi driver in the neck with a kitchen knife.

Then there was the case in Okinawa in which a group of children of US servicemen attacked and robbed taxi drivers.

And a 14-year old school girl in Okinawa claimed an American Marine raped her.

There have been numerous other cases like these over the years…but it seems like there’s been a rash of them recently.

Hopefully, the pattern stops.

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Here’s a couple more videos I put onto my YouTube page (they’re both very short…and not very high quality. I’ll try to put better videos up in the future):

A sumo match at the 国技館 (I took this video with my cell-phone camera…it’s much clearer on a small phone screen):

And here’s a short clip of 流鏑馬 (Horseback Archery). It’s hard to capture with a camera…it goes by quickly—but “Yabusame” is very fun to watch. You should check it out in person if you ever get a chance (it happens a few times a year in Japan…actually one is coming up this month):