The Week #311

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  • 🛝 Leo had a field trip to Children's Nature Park nearby in Asahi-ward and he liked it so much we went again on the weekend. What an incredible park, absolutely massive. I had seen it on maps for years, but never went because it was usually the middle of summer and existing outside in summer in Japan is sub-optimal at best. The park is so large and green you can't even tell you're in Yokohama any longer. Seems like a fantastic place to go for a run.

    We rode down a big rolly slide that cuts through a playscape. Afterwards we went to the small...petting zoo? It wasn't really a "petting zoo" petting zoo, but for a 10 minute block, we'd sit in our assigned space and they brought out a basket with a guinea pig that we could pet. 
  • 🇬🇧 As part of Leo's intensive English class this summer he had to take a short online speaking placement test. 3 minutes before he started writing down what he was going to say in katakana so he didn't forget. He was able to answer a few of the questions, and but he seemed to go blank when they used the word "describe" (not a word that I use very often with him). So while he'll likely go to the beginners class, the tl;dr is that they're going to re-test on the first day. But this experience has been huge for Leo's motivation to learn and use English. Immediately afterwards he was like "I need to write a book to show how good I am". So we'll see if we can surf this wave for a while.
  • ⌚️ I splurged and picked up a Casio GBD-200 after thinking about it 4 months or so. It's halfway between a regular G-Shock and their full-needs-charging-every-couple-days smart watch. I settled on the GBD-200 rather than a G-Shock with multiband-6 or similar because I wanted the super-legible memory-in-pixel display, big easy to press buttons and multi-timezone support. The fitness tracking (step counter and run tracker (without GPS, unless paired with your phone) are bonuses. Is what I wanted to write, but the seller on Amazon has not shipped it for whatever reason (and hence has missed the 2-day prime).