Starting today, I’ve decided to update this section with an article every day. That said, I don’t think I’ll be able to finish a full article every single day, but I’m going to make an effort to keep writing, even if I only make a little progress each day. I have no idea how this will turn out. But for now, I’ve decided to just do it. I’ve set things up so that these posts won’t appear in the list of new articles or in the listings from the top page, so writing here won’t disrupt the overall feel of the site.
As part of changing cars, I’ve decided to trade in my Honda Fit 3 (2015 S Package). The whole family wanted to go for one last drive in the Fit, so today we decided to go to Poppo no Oka. Yesterday, we went to Teganuma Park in Abiko City.
Kids seem to have an uncanny ability to start shouting, “I need to go to the toilet! I need to go to the toilet!” almost immediately, so we stopped at Buno Eki, a roadside-market-style facility. They wanted ramen, so we waited about ten minutes for the restaurant to open. I bought a melon soda from a vending machine for 100 yen and let the kids have a little each. They only stay quiet for the brief moments when they’re eating or drinking.
As soon as the restaurant opened, we handed over our tickets and they started cooking. This is where things got bizarre. The staff were just standing around waiting for the clock to hit 10:00, the official opening time. Of course, I understand that there has to be a rule. If you let one person order before opening time, everyone else will start saying, “Me too, me too,” and then there would be no point in having an opening time in the first place. I understand not preparing the food before opening. I do. But still. You’ve got kids desperately wanting their ramen, adults desperately trying to keep the noisy kids occupied, and staff just standing there waiting for the clock. What the hell is this time even for? And then, even after we handed over our tickets once they opened, it took an absurdly long time for the ramen to be ready.
“Are they out there catching the sardines for the niboshi right now? Or maybe they’re drying them? If it’s going to take this damn long, they should’ve just started cooking it in the first place.”
That’s the sort of thing I was saying. I’m naturally an impatient person, but I was clearly in a bad mood to a degree that couldn’t simply be blamed on that. And I plan to write about what made me so irritated later on.
The Chiba-Landed Dried Sardine Shoyu Ramen was, as the name suggests, a seafood-based ramen made with dried sardines, and it was very tasty. The kids ate quite a lot of it too, which was a relief.
At Poppo no Oka, there was a sign saying that parking cost 1,000 yen. I thought that was an awfully expensive parking fee for a place out in the countryside. However, once we went inside, there was a train car with lots of toys inside. It was a little dirty, perhaps because it was left out in the rain, but the kids played there the whole time. There was also a steam locomotive that my younger son absolutely loves. When they moved one of the trains a little, they even let us ride it and gave us an explanation of the train as well. It was a place where you could easily spend the whole day. There were also a lot of railway cars to maintain, so it looked like keeping everything in good condition must be quite a task. By the time we left, I had changed my mind and decided that 1,000 yen was actually a reasonable price.
A Problem Occurs on the Way Home: My Child Throws Up in the Car
On the way home, just a few hundred meters from our house, my child threw up.
I had called out from the driver’s seat, saying, “He’s going to throw up, so we’re off the highway now. Turn it off.” Despite that, my wife was letting our older son play a Nintendo 3DS in the car. He was playing while looking quite far down. I could only say, a little more firmly this time, “We’re off the highway now, so turn it off!”
On the way home from Poppo no Oka, we stopped at a supermarket to buy ice cream, some prepared food that we could eat as soon as we got home, and the kids’ favorite pizza. Apparently, my wife had also bought cheese and some fruit juice there, and she had given our son an entire bag of cheese to eat. She said, “He wanted to eat it, so I gave it to him.”
I really couldn’t make any sense of it.
First, letting him play a game in the car while looking down. Then, giving him an entire bag of cheese to eat even though it was right before dinner, simply because he wanted it. And even after he actually threw up, she didn’t do anything and just stared blankly. After that, he threw up about three more times, and all the cheese he had eaten came back out, leaving it all there together with the wrapper from the large amount of cheese he had eaten.
By the time we got home, it was already dark. While my wife and the kids were eating pizza, I brought a light, a vacuum cleaner, rags, wet wipes, alkaline electrolyzed water, and other cleaning supplies into the car and cleaned it all by myself. I was taking the Fit to the dealer the next day to trade it in, so I had to get rid of every trace of the vomit, remove the smell, and get the car clean that night. I repeatedly sprayed the electrolyzed water, pressed a towel against the area, and sucked it up with the vacuum cleaner. Anything that could be removed was taken out, washed, and left to dry. The work continued late into the night.
Poppo no Oka
The kids seemed very happy, especially with being able to eat there and even go into the driver’s cab.
| Opening Hours |
10:00–16:00 Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday (Open on public holidays) |
| Address | 1298 Sakuta, Isumi, Chiba 298-0135, Japan |
| Map | |
| Parking | Motorcycles: ¥500; Cars: ¥1,000 |
| Payment | Cash only |
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