A Strange Day

We had a day. We woke up this morning and were off to a great start. We had awesome french toast for breakfast. After that however it when in all directions of crazy. After breakfast there was a knock at the door. It was our neighbor. She was asking if we spoke Japanese. Now the way I figure it, I have the worst Japanese in the building. I can barely hold a conversation (with the neighborhood kids) as long as we stick to naming objects and I can ask, "What is this?" over and over. But we think that the building manager was there to replace the screens on her balcony door. He said that he would come back another day when some of the neighbors who have great skills were at home. Wow, she thought that I could speak better than she, not so! Well we played and had fun until lunch. We made our sushi for lunch. Got the recipe correct this time and we had a great lunch. After lunch it was time for "Mr. I Hate to Take a Nap" to take a nap. Jenny had to work really hard to get him to fall asleep. But it did not help that every time he got close to falling asleep the local Buddhist cult would start chanting. Now the chanting is nothing new. They do it every morning and evening at about 7:30. Chanting, pounding a drum, the clang of cymbals, it is a great alarm clock in the morning. But when Logan is trying to fall asleep and they start a banging away in the middle of the day it gets to be a pain in the butt. Well eventually Jenny managed to tucker him out enough that he fell asleep. Just as soon as he fell asleep it began to rain. No big deal you might think; it is not like they were sleeping outside. True, but the beds were out there. Here in Japan people sleep on a thin mattress placed on the floor. This mattress is called a futon. It is necessary to every once and a while to hang these futons over the railing of your balcony to air them out and let the sun shine on them. Today was the day that we had ours out there. Jenny had to pull them in before they got soaked. Just in time, and without waking Logan up. A feat I could have never accomplished I might add. After nap we headed off to Kyoto to see the Gion Matsuri festival. But I will write more about that tomorrow when our Gion Matsuri adventure is complete.