Category: Family Journal

We are just getting over jet lag incurred from the 13-hour time difference between east coast USA and Japan. It took me a full week to start sleeping my regular 8 hours. My family is enjoying being back in Pennsylvania again after last summer spent in Bolivia. Nadia and I run in the mornings and she is shown in the photo in Monocacy park, named after the creek which runs into the Lehigh river. I really feel the relative emptiness of America compared to densely populated Japan. It is so nice to have open spaces and lots of green lawns.

The Lehigh Valley cities of Easton, Allentown and Bethlehem have so much to offer for children and adults. We enrolled the children in a couple of sports camps. This past Saturday they went to a “speed and explosion” camp offered by the sports training staff of Muhlenberg College, a small, private (Lutheran), liberal arts school in Allentown. For an NCAA division III school, they have beautiful sports facilities! The kids did flexibility, agility and strength training exercises and learned about nutrition and wellness. Owen loves cross-fit so he was in his element in the weight room. Ocean and Oliver were quite sore the next day. I did a few of the excercises and mental note, 49-year old men should not be doing what 12-17 year olds are doing. The lunges almost killed me! Perhaps a “flexibility and maintenance” camp would have been better than “speed and explosion”. 🙂

This week the kids are at De Sales University in Center Valley, just south of Bethlehem. Owen is doing a hitting/defense baseball clinic and Oliver/Ocean are doing soccer. I’ll report on this later in the week. To wrap up this post, I noticed this monument to the steel industry located near the river on the south side of Bethlehem. Bethlehem Steel was the second largest steel company in the world and their mark is all over the city. I’ll be posting more about the history of the area, but hard to believe that for so many years the company was an economic juggernaut in Pennsylvania and the world and now is gone.

We had a nice stop in Seoul before heading over Siberia, Alaska and Canada to arrive at JFK airport safe and sound. It is over 13 hours flight time with 2 and 1/2 hours added getting out of the plane and out of the baggage claim area. I actually don’t mind flying, I enter in a Zen mode and just enjoy the quiet time reading and spending time with my family. Ocean is getting taller! Seoul airport is really nice so the 3-hour delay was not bad at all. I was swinging her forward on her Healy’s shoe/skates on the smooth floors of the terminal. Her shoelace came undone and tripped her once, but she was not hurt, but it really scared me.

I resisted the temptation of getting the “Baby Pure Shining Mask” male version. As I wrote earlier, the Koreans take skin care to a whole other level!

We are all fighting jet lag! I keep finding myself all of sudden hitting the wall and needing to sleep in the late afternoons. Today I slept from 4:00 PM to almost 7:00 PM. We went to the fireworks last night in Bethlehem and it was good to soak up a bit of the festivities. Fireworks are a bit overrated and I learned that we need to be doing something else while the fireworks are occurring. I wonder what else we can do to celebrate our independence from Great Britain (Amerexit). I read an article about how young the founding fathers were when they signed the declaration of independence and fought the war. Many were in their 20s and 30s. Crazy to think they had such important positions of power, but I guess with a new country, many people there were risk-takers and it was suited for younger people who were not set in their ways. Good on them!

I forget how far east the Lehigh Valley, which is only  a short drive from Philadelphia and New York. Most of the big names of the revolution visited Bethlehem and I hope during my time here to visit some of the historical places in the old district of the town. We are really happy to be back in the USA and me back in school! Loving Lehigh, Pennsylvania and spending time with family! Despite the rain, we got out and watched the fireworks.

Ocean has a strong artistic bent and is always producing art works. This week she brought home her ceramic pieces from school. She has a great eye for color and shape and they are some pretty impressive dishware from an eight-year old. Our school’s art program is excellent and it is rare that a second grader would have the opportunity to produce this many ceramics.

Nadia and I attended Oliver’s parent teacher conferences last week. He is such a cute little guy! He still writes cartoon stories of violence and technology like he did in grade 1. Ollie is shown above in front of his time machine that he and a couple of classmates constructed. He is slowly maturing and we are proud of his accomplishments. His team lost in the finals of the World Cup Soccer tourney at school in penalty kicks, but he handled it well. I loved his friend Noah’s story about Oliver’s trip to Guam. Hilarious!

Ocean recently has been taking vocal lessons at school and it culminated with a concert. You can see a bit of the video below. She really likes singing, although I think she inherited my lack of musicality. It was very special to watch her perform. She also did a duet with an older student. I’ll link to the full concert when it goes online. Ocean was a bit nervous at the start, but felt more comfortable as the song went on. Performing and presenting oneself is so important for one’s development. Good on ya Ocean!

The weather in April and May in Japan is absolutely the best! On one of my morning bike rides this week, I came across the scene above, one of the many reservoirs for the rice paddies in Minoh. The fresh green leaves, blue skies, cooling breezes, dogwood flowers and bright sun just make it delightful to be outside. I love the early sun rise in Japan, it gets light before 5:00 AM and it is a perfect time to exercise for me.

I cleaned out my daughter’s backpack and I am always amazed at the amount of stuff she collects! Her backpack is a reflection of her room. She is often making little projects with her hands like taking an aluminum container cover and converting it into a stylish hat. She also has many diaries or journals. She is a queen of clutter, but oh so creative. 

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Last night we went out to dinner and dancing with friends downtown. I recommend the Absinthe Solaar which is located on the roof of the Takashimaya department store. It is a Mediterranean style restaurant. Later we visited a nightclub popular with international people. We had a lot of laughs and special thanks to Anna Y for being an awesome tour guide! 

Finally, Owen was quite pleased with his haircut. His hair was getting into his eyes when he played basketball and he wanted a short cut for summer.  It is really nice to have him as our in-house babysitter now. He is growing up! 

I love the photo of the finish of 400 meter run during our school’s “Osaka Olympics” earlier this month. The expressions of pain on the three runners behind, the look of relief on the winner, says it all. Oliver on the far right of the photograph, leaned in enough to finish second. The 400 meters is the most painful race in athletics (track & field for Americans) and it shows on the boys’ faces. Even though the Tokyo Olympics 2020 are four years away, everyone at the school is getting into the spirit! Congratulations Oliver! Thanks to the resident professional photographer Steve for the world-class photos!

We had a wonderful day pleasing mom in appreciation for all she does for us. A beautiful spring day in Osaka with a beautiful woman! Happy Mother’s Day Nadia!

It was Nadia’s day and so we all went on a run with her in the morning, helped her clean her classroom and get ready for this week and then take her out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. She especially liked the bike ride home from the restaurant!

I also met up with my brother Andy’s college roommate, Katsu. He is from Osaka and is a proud graduate of Northern Michigan University, my brother’s alma mater. It was nice to connect with a “yooper” and we had a facetime chat with Andy. I can see why they were friends, he is a very nice guy.

Springtime in Japan is so refreshing. The flowers on our balcony are out in full force this week. It is really hard to be in a bad mood with such gorgeous days and cool nights.

It was a normal busy week for the Kralovec family. The kids are at such a fun age right now (13,10,8) and the house is buzzing with activities, ideas and energy, it is so nice to have them around! The other night I had to just laugh at my attempts at getting them all to sleep. I was reading with Ocean, and Oliver kept coming in and crawling under the bed to scare us and Owen was outside in the hallway being a typical teenager. I decided just to lay back and enjoy their enthusiasm for life rather than try to get them to go to bed. What a treasure to be a parent!

Nadia took control of Oliver’s grooming as you can see above. Like a typical boy, he has an aversion to picking formal clothes to wear, combing his hair, etc. Nadia took him to the grade 4-5 dance yesterday at the school. We really have good kids to work with and they all had a lot of fun. Oliver is a dancing machine with his signature move being the ankle grab and hand behind the head.

Sunday we explored the Minoh Hills Quasi National Park which sets the backdrop for our suburb. We found this terraced farm and little village and spent the afternoon walking around the area. It is so peaceful and relaxing up there and so close to the hustle and bustle of the city. There is a lot more to see.

On Tuesday I took the kids to the final AFC Champions League game that Gamba Osaka will be hosting in the group stage this year. They will not be advancing and with one game to go, they are currently fourth in their 4-team group. Shanghai who we saw play last time we went and the Melbourne Victory will be advancing. The video above explains why Gamba lost 1-2, they missed on two penalty kicks and one point blank shot against Suwan Samsung “Blue Wings” from Korea.

We are looking forward to Golden Week holiday, with one more full week of school and then 4 days off. We will be staying around Osaka because I am working a couple of the days and Owen has the Scholar’s Cup tourney.

Oliver made Kralovec family history yesterday in snagging a foul ball at a professional baseball game. He attended the Hanshin Tigers vs Hiroshima Carp NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball). Unfortunately, the Tigers lost 2-6. They are still tied for first with the Yomiuri Giants in the Central League with 8 wins, 5 losses and 1 tie (yes, there are ties in Japanese baseball). It is nice also that Hanshin shares the nickname of Tigers with our beloved Detroit Tigers!

It was a foul ball off the bat of Tiger’s outfielder, Kosuke Fukudome, former MLB Chicago Cub All Star. He was so excited, but I think me more so. Since a family trip in 1977 to Minneapolis and a three-game series between the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers at the old Metropolitan Stadium, I always bring a glove to games just in case we get a chance for a foul ball. In all of the professional baseball games I have attended, including MLB, minor league games, the Venezuelan Winter Leagues and now NPB, a member of my family finally caught one! It only took 39 years! Way to go Ollie!!!!

Either Nadia or the shaking of two earthquakes woke me up Saturday night. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency’s webpage, you can see at 1:55 AM an earthquake of magnitude 3.5, struck near us. The earlier earthquake at relatively the same spot had a magnitude of 4.0. Earthquakes between 3.5 and 4.0 are minor or light according to the Richter scale and will result in shaking and rattling noises. I certainly felt it and it made me understand what a major earthquake must feel like. I can see why people leave their homes after the first big one in fear of aftershocks.

Finally, Ocean found a 5-leaf clover at the local Matsuide Park.