Kite Making (Tako)

We took the children to the Eco Center this week for a kite making class. Kite in Japanese is Tako たこ also 凧 (in Kanji). The class was free and the materials were provided. Our original plan was to drop the children off for the class, but in the end we decided to stay and help out. There were a number of volunteers on site to help. One of them 山ちゃん Yamachan, helped us through the activity. He is currently a college student in Utsunomiya. The combination of his English and our Japanese got us through the class with no major difficulty.

First the children were given paper to cut to shape. The paper was very fibrous, which gave it some strength. Next the edges were folded and glued with nori (flour and water).

Once all the edges were folded and glued it was time to decorate them. Liam decided to make an いか たこ、烏賊凧 (ika tako), which is a squid kite. Colleen decided to make an たこ たこ、蛸凧, which is tako tako or octopus kite. If you have the Japanese font installed on your computer you can see that the kanji symbol for the first and second tako are different. In Japanese there are a number of words with the same sound but different meanings. This seems to happen when two kanji symbols have the same sound, but different meanings. When the words are written it is easy to differentiate them, but when spoken sometimes the context is important to figure out the meaning.

Once they were decorated, two pieces of cane were applied for structure. They were glued in and covered with small scraps of paper for re-enforcement. Once this was finished we broke for lunch to allow the kites to dry. Unfortunately Kate and I did not bring lunch as we were not planning to stay. I ended up walking to the nearest vending machine and getting two coffees and two corn in a cans for our lunch, while the children ate their bento. After lunch we walked to a field to fly the kites. I believe all the kites were successful at flying for at least a little while. Liam's and Colleen's did very well.

Here are a few of the other kites that were made.

Here is Colleen flying her kite.

Liam flying his kite.

The entire group and their creations.

We had a great time learning about and making the kites. Everyone was very friendly and I am still surprised that it was all free.

This week we also got together with the other US associates for bowling and dinner. We had a good time bowling and dinner was great. We found an item on the menu called death tomato. Liam said if someone got it he would try it. Matt decided he would get one, and so Liam agreed to hold to his statement and try it. He said it was pretty hot after he drank it, but he was a trooper about it.

Colleen had the tako yaki. (Octopus dumpling). Must have been something crazy in it. You can see the impact it had on her in the picture below.

Some of the restaurants in Japan have you take your shoes off inside. Sometimes you leave them by the door, sometimes there are boxes to put them in, and sometimes there are shoe lockers. This restaurant had the lockers. The keys were metal plates with grooves in them and kana written on the front to identify which was yours.

Here is Mike demonstrating how it works.

On the way out I saw this wicked crazy van in the parking lot. I can not imagine driving, or parking this thing in Japan. Somebody must have spent a lot of money to create this vehicle. I can't fully understand why, but it is really interesting to see. I believe the base vehicle is a Toyota Hiace. They are larger vans in Japan. I believe many times used for camping. You can see it really does not fit in the parking spot.

Well, that is enough for this week.