After 11 Years of Japanese Education now this High School in Japan Life in Japan EP 303

After 11 years in the Japanese school system, our twin girls Rebecca and Hanna have come to the end of junior high school. But we've been preparing for what comes next for a really long time now. Oh, there's another one. Look at how tiny you guys were. I still do the piece of sandwich face. For high school, will we keep the girls in the Japanese school system or do something completely different? Do you guys see? It's leading. This is the time of year of change from winter to spring and from one phase of life to another. It's almost as if you could see change happening right in front of you. Do you see that? I'm a car too. Oh, yeah. Some nice, hot. Is it coffee today, Hanna? Always coffee. Some coffee to go with the cold, cold, sleety weather and the warm kotatsu here. Look, it's just you and mom chilling here. Everybody's too lazy to get up. Not bad. And look at Joshua representing life in Japan. Aren't you cold with your t-shirt on? Way to go. Grab that Bible. Get it going. Yeah. When we moved here in 2014, a number of people encouraged us to put our kids in the Japanese school system. And we were glad we did. Since then, all four kids have been learning in ways we wish we could have learned. Do you see Sarah's kanji app? It is the coolest thing. It shows a sentence and then she has to actually write it in. I know. That's amazing. You have to do it perfectly. You have to do it perfectly? Well, that's not bad. Will school get cancelled on this snow? I'm going to love to go on snowy day. That would be so pretty. What? To Sotsugyo? Snowy day. In the snow? Imagine if Sakura was out too. That would be crazy. Over by Joe and Jen. Yeah, well that's true. Whoa. Look at the hail. Oh my goodness. Bruce's brother Paul got hail in Hiratsuka. Oh my goodness. I'm going to stand up so I can show. Hey, you're getting hail. Look at us. Is that snow? It's snow. Lots of snow. That's amazing. At least your graduation is done, huh Paul? Yes. It's a beautiful day for that. With graduation behind them, the twins now have a short break before their next big life event happens, high school. That's all while Sarah and Joshua are still finishing up their school year. Spring break in Japan is like that. Oh man. Just stick. Just stick so we can make a snowman. I really want to make a snowman. Do you want to build a snowman? Come on. Let's go and play. Those two are taking pictures. Taking pictures out there and... That one's walking in the snow. We got the best pictures ever. We're pros. We're daddy's daughters. Okay. Bye guys. God bless you. I'm going to go. I'm going to go with them. Really? Look. Wow. This one. Those are amazing. This one. I was trying to be a ballerina. Oh cool. Okay. Bye. Alright guys. Escort our Natsos. With the kids off to school, we got some work done and then got ready to celebrate the twins' graduation in their requested style, lunch. Well, did you see? It turned to rain and the sun came out. I know. Isn't that weird? It's not weird. It's Japan. And when lunch is the girls' choice, what do they choose? Well, let's just say we won't be leaving hungry. I want the ox tongue. Ox tongue. No ox tongue. Pork. So, you graduate and you ask for... Becca. This is Becca's choice? Shabu-yo. Spring break is the big breath before the oncoming plunge of high school life. The meat's in and cooking in our sauces, a sukiyaki sauce and a normal. And then we all have our different flavors like sesame and different things we can dip it in. At school, in English, there's like a listening test and sukiyaki came out. We didn't know if it was sukiyaki or sukiyaki. And we got it wrong, but the teacher forgave us. Oh, that was nice. We did not know if it was sukiyaki or sukiyaki. Which one is it? Here come the goods delivered by the robot. We're ready for the next round. Oh, yeah. There it goes. With nice full bellies, it was finally time to talk about high school in Japan. What happens now? The spring break is over. But the thing is, they're going to an international school. So it's on the U.S. school calendar. Whoa. So since we allow them to graduate from Japanese middle school, which ends in March, the school year starts in April. The international school, the school year actually only starts in August. They took the entrance exam, did the interviews. They got in to start in August. But they're going to allow them to start now on March 31st. And just audit the last two and a half months of chugaku sendensei. Whoa, big change. I'm nervous. Because we're going from Japanese school to full on English. So we've been prepping for that, though, for a while. We started prepping for that. But it's still going to be very different. Because they went to the university in America. So we felt it's time to transition them out of Japanese only and put them into English. English only, but everyone speaks Japanese. A lot of Japanese. Because English and Japanese, like, you start a sentence in English and you end in Japanese. Like, Anna, what are you going to do today? Let's play together. Kind of like that. Yeah, that. So when we've gone to visit and everything, they've seen how kids interact. So there's going to be so much Japanese. And they're taking Japanese language also. But we do need to better prepare them for university in English. So we thought, hmm, let's do the last three years in an international school. Here you go, girls. Going to be commuting. Mommy and Daddy are going to be paying. But I'll be able to understand all the parent-teacher meetings. Wow, how about that? That's going to be crazy. So we've been going over their class schedules. Yeah. They take choir. They have study hall, biology, English, algebra, world history, and Japanese composition. I hope you do awesome with that. So does that mean we're going to know what they're doing? Yes. Yes, hopefully. Hopefully. But lunch is 45 minutes long. I have back to making obentos. No! Obento Mama-chan. When you save money by making obento, do you lose money by making obento? Well, we'll see how much their food is at the school. We're probably paying like two people. It's cheaper to me to make it. When I went to school, Japanese school, we had to take obento. I took rice and beans, and everyone was like, Ew, what is that? And I was like, it's rice and beans. When did you make that? On the in-school course? Japanese people, they don't have like one thing. They have like a hundred different things in obento. They have an egg, they have sausage, they have salad, they have noodles, they have blah, blah, blah. And I have this one thing. And I have one curry rice. My food! With some apples usually. I've been complaining. Do you want me to send you some shiro soup with y'all? No. Okay, well then stop complaining about your one meal. I'll send you one tomato, one sausage. I don't have a tomato! Well, I think most people have a tomato because it adds a pop of color. I don't care about color. Schools, jobs, and homes come and go. But what doesn't change is the family. Having a stable family life for kids to come home to helps them adjust to whatever change their life goes through. So when there's any kind of break, we like to find things to do that build the family. And if it makes our home nicer in the process, well, that's an added bonus. We made it to the sea end. Okay, here we got to look at our plants. We are buying plants. You know, lavender gets big and beautiful. Do we buy it? That is the question. Yes, it is. There's strawberries. That's cool. Oh, these are pretty little, like, ground cover. Look at these. These are beautiful. Oh, look at the orange ones. These are orange. Yes, how much are they? $1.98. Oh, I think we should buy some. Okay. There's a yes. Let's get a cart. We're going to buy some. Oh, look at those. Those are kind of cool. Those are very cool. They're $1.98. We could get, like, that and that and that one and mix them. That's cool. Aren't we going to buy dirt? We're going to buy dirt. Dirt. We're just going to buy dirt. We're going to buy dirt. Look at those. They're 50% off. Oh, they smell so good. I want to smell it. Here, you smell it. How is it? Aren't those the flowers? Those the ones you want? Those orange ones? Yes. Let's get a couple of these. You guys are the chosen ones. Be happy. I think I want to get some of these little blue ones. Oh, yeah. These are cute. We'll buy two of these because that would be pretty with that. Let's get two of these. Should we get one of those in? Yeah. So we'll have two pots that are exactly the same. Can I just scooch in here? Scooch, scooch, scooch, scooch, scooch. Look at these. These are going to turn into those. Oh, yeah. Let's buy one of those. Yes. Okay. That's cool. It's like a cactus. We're running out of space. So we bought... I don't know if you can see that. We bought everything. We spent each month. Each month. Daddy came to help us. That's right. All of these were the chosen ones. That's dirt. Okay. Hopefully. Anywho. Bye. Back at home, everyone was getting things ready for the new school year. It's so hot. The dirt. We might need to go buy some pots. And it wasn't just the ladies outside. What are you working on here, Becca? I'm making Emi. Omedetou for graduating. Love you all too, man. Oh, my goodness. This is for her, Omedetou, huh? Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. There is no shortage of projects happening at the writer house right now. Joshua is working on his latest latch hook project here. Oh, yeah. Here's what his first one looked like. And what this one will look like. You have the inspiration nearby. Yep. This is what it should look like, Emi. Did you hear me? We're going to go outside and paint. Here's your chips, my good sir. Cool. What are you working on here? Taxes. I finished my Japanese ones. Oh, nice. I'm working on my American ones. So, just a reminder that if you use our link, you get a discount. Go click on it and get your taxes done. Is this our next project here? Yes. This is one we started a while ago, huh? Since America. And when we got home from America, we went to D.C. and bought wood. Yes. And now today, beautiful day. Time to do it, huh? This is paint central, huh? Look at the colors. I'm patiently waiting for a brush to be opened. Oh. Bob Ross corner here. I felt like Bob Ross this time. Becca, act like Bob Ross. Okay. So, first of all, we are going to... He's not that calm. He is very calm. Let's make a beautiful sky. Look above. Look. Look above. It's a beautiful sky. Just like that. Bobby. There's birds, too. Thank you. Yes. It got black. Barely hip. Okay. Wow. Texture. Wow. Look. That does look very cool. That's all we want. Wow. One thing we aim for each day is to have at least one meal altogether. No phones. No screens. Just sitting around, enjoying a meal, and talking. Ooh. Lunchtime. Spaghetti. Salad. Ooh. And hungry people. I made food today. Oh, you did? I did. I made salad. I didn't make it. I was cheering them on. Everything looks so wonderful. Oh, nice. Let's eat. Itadakimasu. Thank you, Jesus. Vegetable, please. Change is in the air. And once again, we will experience something new in Japan that we never had before. High school at an international school. It's our first picnic-esque day of the year, huh? No eating. Just reading, relaxing. The kids are at the park. Kids are at the park enjoying some playtime. And the parents will sit and be parents. The kids are over at that playground, playing with their friends over there. What a day. Mama-chan's got the right idea here. If there's one thing you learn about spring in Japan, it's that it's all about change. It's the season when jobs change, schools change, people move and even relocate. And nothing symbolizes change in Japan quite like the sakura. Well, this right here is a very interesting time of the year. The early blooming sakura have already bloomed. They're past bloom, actually. But it's still beautiful. And sakura is just about to happen. But it's really warm out. I would think maybe this week or next week all the sakura will bloom. And boy, I'm ready for spring this year. Let me tell you what. It'll be soon. Won't have to wait very long. Hopefully we get this awesome weather to go along with it. Because you don't always get great weather with sakura. That's for sure. But change isn't just happening for the weather and the twins. Sarah and Joshua are also heading to the end of a season and the beginning of another. Well guys, last day before spring break, right? When you come back today, you will officially be on spring break. What are you excited for on this spring break? No homework. Joshua, it's your last day of third grade. No, it's not our last day of fifth grade, Daddy. Oh, it's not? We're going to change it so we can party at some end. Oh, okay. I see.