Soba and Soccer

Today, Ilena successfully crossed the language barrier and got Jacob onto a kids weekly soccer class. The coaches and kids are all Japanese, but with her mounting skills (using phrases such as "soccer o-shimasu" - you can add pretty much anything to the verb shimasu, which means "to do" - noted acceptable phrases include "tenis o-shimasu" and "Starbucks o-shimasu") and the assistance of a bilingual eight year-old, Jacob was on the field in minutes. Sports is pretty universal, especially for Jacob. He had a blast. Mike will take the schedule into work to get a full translation, but we're pretty sure it meets every Wednesday afternoon and that this month is a free trial.

At the risk of turning our blog into a foodie eat-your-way-across Japan website, Mike's lunch today was worth commenting on. He went out for zaru-soba (cold soba noodles). Very tasty. With the plate of cold soba noodles, you get soy sauce and a hunk of wasabi in root form. You grind your own wasabi into the soy sauce, dip the noodles in, and slurp away. Near the end of the meal, they bring a hot pitcher of the water that they boiled the soba in, which is combined with the remaining sauce (or taken straight). Nice.

This evening, the trusty GAORA cable TV network replayed the Super Bowl. So Jacob got to watch (he was at school Monday morning, so he missed the big game). Watching the Giants win the Super Bowl with our maniac-fan son (and knowing that they had won!) is an unrivaled experience. He was smiling and jumping up and down and hugging us after the game and giving us high fives all the way into bed. Awesome! Must have been some parade back in NYC . . . .

Here are some pictures of our Wednesday evening Super Bowl experience: