Kindergarten and luncheon

 Today was my kindergarten visit day. I went there for an hour in the morning and played with the kids. They're all so cute! After introducing myself, the kids all asked me questions about myself. I answered them in Japanese this time. They're too young to know much English. One thing they asked me that older students never did was my favorite dinosaur!

We played fruits basket and karuta. It was convenient for both me and the teachers that I already know the rules to both.

By the way, my favorite dinosaur is Therizinosaurus.

It used its enormous claws purely for herbivory.

Afterwards, there was a welcome luncheon at the BoE for me. It was also originally scheduled for last week but got moved. The principals of the elementary and junior high schools were there, and so was the mayor, and some other important people.

I was nervous about the chakunin aisatsu I had to give. I kept it short but I looked up a lot of the more formal language. Basically I just told them I was really happy to be here and thanked everyone for being kind and patient with me. I probably screwed up a little. I still have a hard time conjugating verbs sometimes.

The bento was delicious.

Here's a picture of some sunflowers.

And here's a fat bumblebee that was on the flower. I took a picture of it because it was cute!

I also got the key to this BoE bicycle today. It's a bit rusty, but it works.

 It has this little built-in lock. You can't attach it to anything, but there aren't any bike racks anyway.

This will make getting around a bit easier. If I had waited just one day to buy a new bag of rice, I could have brought it home in the bike's basket. Oh the other hand, lugging that 10kg fat sack was the closest thing to a hug I've had in a while.