The Kids are All Right

 It was spring break, and after so long I finally took that trip to Japan that I booked three years ago.  I made one more attempt to see the hotaruika - and failed.  I stayed at a campground at the beach, and all the conditions were there...but the squid were not.  So I give up.  I'll stick to bioluminescent insects from here on out.  On the other hand, I got to do something I couldn't when I lived here before - jet all over the damn place using the Japan Rail Pass.  See, when I was here before, foreign residents weren’t allowed to use it, so all my train travel had previously been done the hard way…with lots and LOTS of money.  Not that the pass is cheap, but by day 4 it had already paid for itself (maybe…art teachers don’t do math on vacation, bitches).

So I wasn't stingy when it came to getting around.  Whether it was riding the rails up to Niigata to see the yaoi temple or hopping a train down to Kyoto for the afternoon to celebrate my best boy’s promotion to manager, the country was my oyster.  It only took me a couple of hours to make it to Kyoto…and ALL its tourists.  The Kawaii Kingpin admitted that he missed the pandemic a very tiny bit on that account, and I had to sympathize…the days when people didn’t bring their screaming children to restaurants truly were glorious, in at least that respect.

Of course, as I told him, it’s different when the children in question are your blood relatives.  My niblings are perfect, of course.  To demonstrate (and totally not because I have a lot of odds and ends blogs to catch up on), let me take you back to last summer.  I was planning to take Princess and Dirt Devil to the anime con, but a poorly timed water leak at the hotel I booked caused me to reconsider.  Instead, I took them and Monkey out for a day o’ fun with their favorite aunt.

We started at Barnes and Noble.  This is part of what makes these kids awesome; I can tell them I’m taking them to a bookstore and they’re excited about it.  After picking up some manga volumes, a movie, and some games, it was time for lunch.  Dirt Devil suggested sushi, so I found a place in West Omaha that had sushi, ramen, and a few other things, and ordered a bunch of food.  Monkey wasn’t sure about it, so we ordered a sweet and sour chicken to be sure he wouldn’t starve.  Guess what was the only thing left at the end?  They were especially huge fans of ramune.

After a quick stop at home for the bathroom we went to play mini-golf and waste money at the arcade.  Was there, perhaps, a bit of a Japanese theme going?  Whether or not I intended there to be, yes, there was.  I wish I could take credit for helping them to become the baby otaku that they are today, but in all honesty they have come to it on their own.  I mean, I DID show them Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Howl's Moving Castle, as well as a few episodes of Naruto and My Hero Academia.  But while Princess' tastes in anime and mine are nearly identical (Hanako-kun and Bungou Stray Dogs?  Yes, this is a girl after my own heart!), Dirt Devil likes One Piece.  ONE PIECE?!?  Also known as, the anime that I never even started - I read one chapter of the manga and decided this was not for me.  But he likes it.  And while Monkey hasn't gotten into anime much, he's definitely a gamer...his favorite character is Link, and when I asked him what I could bring him from Japan, he just asked for Pokemon everything.

After the arcade we went to my favorite ice cream place, Coldstone, and ate a shit ton of ice cream (Okay, I ate a shit ton...I think each of them took theirs home and stuck it in the freezer).  While this might be considered bad "mom" behavior - spoiling your kids by buying them whatever they want and loading them up on sugar - it seems like excellent aunt behavior.  Fortunately, my brother and sister-in-law are tolerant...if I want to take them out for the day, they're not too picky about where we are going.  They behave and we get along pretty well, and their parents get a day to do whatever they need to do, as responsible-type adults.  

Hopefully they'll still feel that way in a few years when they graduate and I take them on Le Grand Tour.  I'm pretty sure I already know what country they'll want to visit.