Continuing with the story about our visit to KidZania in Nishinomiya, Japan the other day, where Anthony started his play by working as a gas-station attendant and then got some banking done before searching for his next job.

It turns out that he got lucky, because as he was showing interest in a construction job, the foreman said that a job was about to start and that they had room for one more, so he didn't have to wait at all.

(Unfortunately, the uniform color is that blinding, pure orange that I have such trouble with, as I discussed in [...]

Continuing with the story about our visit to KidZania in Nishinomiya, Japan the other day, where Anthony started his play by working as a gas-station attendant. After working at the gas station, he wanted to be on the opposite end of the experience, as a driver. To drive in KidZania involves renting a car, but to do that you have to have money (which he now did, thanks to his gas-station pay) and a driver license, which he did not have.

To get a driver license, you have to attend driving school (which itself has a cost), but he found [...]

In a previous post I wrote all about KidZania in Kobe, Japan, but didn't mention anything about Anthony's experiences there because I thought I'd save them for a second post. However, being the photo-happy papa I am, this post ended up getting filled after just his first job!

As I mentioned in that previous post, Anthony had one job he really wanted to do, so we went directly there and got in line. Each session lasts about 15 minutes; and he'd have to wait during the first session, and would finally get to "work" during the second.

While waiting, he [...]

We took Anthony to KidZania yesterday, in Nishinomiya (near Kobe, about an hour and a half drive south from Kyoto). It's best described as "Vocational School meets Disneyland"... it's a place where kids get to pretend to be all kinds of things. The picture above is from the dental clinic, of course.

KidZania is a two-story indoor area filled with more than 70 different "businesses" where the kids can participate as an employee or customer. They can move from business to business, with each event taking from 15 to 30 minutes, although, like Disneyland, much time is spent waiting your [...]

I want to highlight a recent post by an acquaintance living in Amami, of his daughter's 2nd-grade class lunch and his visit to it. It's just a small slice of everyday life in Japan, but I love it.

We've never been invited to have lunch at Anthony's school, but much of what's described in that post – how the kids take turns doing different chores, and dress up with gloves and aprons and masks – matches what I know of Anthony's first-grade class.

The Amami Islands are in the East China sea in the far south of Japan, between the [...]
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