Today is a national holiday in Japan known as Keiro no hi or Respect for the Aged day. Regular schools and many businesses close but it’s work as usual for us. Because our schedule is designed to ensure that each class meets the same number of times over the course of a year, we’ll have a different day off in lieu.

I suppose I should have done my research sooner and been in touch with our wee grandson to let him know that this is a day when children present their grandparents with gifts! Sometimes they just send them messages, however, wishing them good health and long life. We did receive a message from Drew a few days ago. I had a little difficulty interpreting it but maybe that’s what he meant! It looked like this:

z7dc0orbov ccccccccccccccccccccpksxVvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvpcpoJc09 //.;;;;B VRD5GGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

As you can see below, the little man loves the computer. His training began early.

Schools sometimes host special events in honour of the students’ grandparents for Keiro ni ho. I’m assuming that our local elementary school did something of that nature yesterday as we noticed many neighbours of grandparent age heading in that direction between 9:30 and 10:00 in the morning.