Japanese

Bohdin wanted to move on to our next country which is Korea. There are not that many books for his age about Korea so I decided to supplement with a visit to the Korean grocery store. I had checked out a cookbook and the recipes looked really good. While buying red chili paste the kids were hungry and we ordered Korean sushi from their snack bar. Bohdin has been wanting to try bibim bap but when I looked at the picture I just wasn't sure. Sushi seemed a safer bet. Maybe we'll go back another time. The sushi took forever to make because they made it fresh. It had beef, tuna, carrot, cucumber, egg, and something yellow I couldn't identify. It was warm and tasty. On the way out of the store I noticed a sign for the Japanese festival the following day in Lexington. Bohdin really wanted to go.

When we woke up Saturday morning there were geese right outside so the kids fed them. Then we went to Costco for tile I had seen the previous day. We now have tile for the future kitchen. Buddy had to go back to pick up the tile so the kids and I headed to Lexington without him. Bohdin and Nyla said they had a good time. The only reason we went is because we're studying geography. Bohdin really enjoyed the martial arts demonstration. He didn't get much else out of it. He tried origami, we heard drummers, we saw kimonos but didn't try them on. There were bonsai trees, a tea ceremony, and calligraphy. The other favorite of the kids was the balloon game. I thought it was a very elegant design. There was a pool filled with water filled balloons with a piece of elastic attached. The child is given a piece of paper with a sort of S shaped metal hook. The child needs to use the metal to hook the elastic loop before the paper falls apart in the water. They let the kids take a balloon even if they failed. The balloon becomes a sort of punching toy because of the elastic. As we were walking out Bohdin's balloon popped. He went back for another try. I sat nearby and fed Cora while he did this. He somehow came back with two balloons. In addition he was able to get the balloon up before the metal hook fell off.

As I was feeding Cora I realized I had made a mistake. She had been asleep the entire time we were there. That meant she would most likely be awake for the drive back. Evening is her most alert time. We made it just past Lexington before we had to stop. It didn't work well and we had to stop again in just a few miles. This time we stopped longer. It didn't work. Cora became fussy a few miles down the road again. A loud motorcycle passed us and she quieted for a moment. The vacuum at home can sometimes calm her so I wanted to follow that motorcycle. It was going way to fast though. I pulled back over into the right lane and had a brilliant idea. The rumble strip makes a lot of noise. For the next many miles I would wander onto the rumble strip several times per minute. I surely looked like an idiot driver. I know this because nobody would stay behind me. I cleared out the traffic around me. It worked though. Everything was going great until we reached the construction zone and our rumble strip disappeared. Cora became fussy again so we all started singing quietly to her. She finally fell asleep as we reached the outskirts of town.