Honoring the elderly

On September 17th was the holiday to honor the elderly. I spent the day in Sapporo.

On Tuesday, the children at the kindergarten folded origami and glued them onto postcards. The teacher wrote a small message for the children. It was really cute. They also gave me origami paper so I could fold with them.

On Wednesday, the children drew pictures of themselves at the sports festival and what they would like to remember. It was nice to watch the children, even though I didn't have much to do at the time.

On Thursday, the groups きりん、くま、ぞう (Giraffe, Bear, and Elephant) took a walk through the city. We arrived at a post office where the children could personally mail their postcards. Then we went to どんぐり公園 (Acorn Park). The rest of the time, the children were allowed to play on the playground until we had to walk back to the kindergarten for lunch. It's really amazing how many playgrounds there are in this small village. They are all relatively large and have different play equipment.

On Friday, as a reward, we took a trip with the children to a spring. We drove for about 20 minutes and the view was really beautiful because we had really good weather. At the spring, the children walked wonderfully in pairs and held hands. Other visitors greeted us and waved to us as we walked to the spring. To get there, we had to cross a bridge that leads over a small river. Not the best for someone with a fear of heights. Some of the children were also afraid when a few of them jumped around and shook the whole bridge. Since I felt uncomfortable myself, it was relatively difficult to calm the children down. Luckily, the bridge was not too long.

On the other side, we drank some of the mineral water and it was really extremely delicious. The water comes from Mount Youtei and is essentially nothing more than glacier water.
We then followed the course of the river and took a little walk. Later, we went to the adjacent playground because we had time until the return trip.

There's not much more to tell about the week, unfortunately. I didn't write much, but not much really happened either.

Best regards

Janina