Anpanman Museum

A friend recently wrote me on facebook and said she had missed my blog and hoped we were doing well. The blog...it started out as a way to keep friends and family informed of what we are doing on our two year journey to Japan. Now we are going on four years and it has become my scrapbook because let's face it, I really do not have the time to scrapbook, or the energy. Recently I have not blogged because we have been busy, having fun, making memories, soaking up life, and running around in a very hot city which makes mama pretty tired at night after the kids go to bed. Also, at times I want this blog to be a reflection of what is going on inside me and our family a bit more mentally and emotionally, and well, I just have not wanted to write about that lately. Life right now is good, really good, but we have been in the process of saying goodbye to many dear friends, and I just have not wanted to blog about that. Saying goodbye is hard, it just is, but in the process of saying goodbye, we have made lots of fabulous memories and have seen God provide new relationships and opportunities. Oh, and we went on vacation to Guam for a week! So, with that being said, I am going to work backwards - with what we did today and on scrapbook day, which was yesterday. Then I hope to follow up this weekend with tribute posts to the two families we said goodbye to in the past two weeks and a recap of our trip to Guam. Today we went to Yokohama to the Anpanman museum. I was a bit hesitant to go on summer vacation because I knew it would be a zoo of little kids, but we went with our friends who are in full-time preschool in the fall so I was afraid their schedule would be hard to coordinate once school started. I was not wrong - it was a madhouse. But Miss M got pictures with her favorite characters (Melonpanna and Anpanman) as they roamed about the museum. The kids enjoyed it, so that is all that matters. It really is quite a fun museum, especially if your kids like the characters, and Yokohama is a nice escape from Tokyo for the day. There are lots more things I want to do there that I have added to my endless list. And I have a feeling this will not be our last time to the Anpanman museum. Anpanman is a super hero in Japan and everyone knows about him. There are hundreds of characters that go along with the story, but he is the main "bread" character. He always saves the day on his TV show and is very popular. Supposedly the man who created Anpanman is one of the richest in Japan. I can see why watching how much money they made on this day at the museum with all the kids out of school. The husband and I have both been surprised that the characters have not taken off internationally like Snoopy because it is so loved here in Japan, but maybe the Japanese want to keep it that way - something special only to them. Who knows. Enjoy the pics of our hot, crazy, fun day.