As I’ve written before, this is a month without external childcare, which means less time to explore solo. I still really wanted to take a cooking class in Kyoto, so I decided to bring Theo to the bento box class at Cooking Sun. (Their registration form let me add a child under five for free so I took them at their word that preschoolers were okay.)
Our first bus was late, making us miss the connection to our second bus, and we ended up rushing into class about 20 minutes late and a bit flustered. However, the instructors settled us in with some tea (for me) and water (for Theo), and we joined the rest of the class in watching how to make dashi, the ubiquitous Japanese fish broth.
The class was awesome – I learned to make nori rolls, teriyaki tofu, tempura, miso soup, and sesame spinach. With advance warning, the instructors adapted the meatier dishes to vegetarian versions for me, though I told them dashi was okay. (I’ve accepted that I will be consuming dashi in Japan – it’s in pretty much everything.)
Theo spent about half of the three-hour class hanging out with me at the cooking station and the other half in a corner with a drawing pad, stickers, and Mr. Rogers.
One of the instructors also had a four-year-old son, and she was impressed with how calm Theo stayed throughout the class, saying her son would be “bouncing everywhere.” Theo was super good, with only a few bounces starting to come out toward the end. Still, I have to reflect that Japanese children have generally struck me calmer and better-behaved than Theo. Maybe the lesson to take away is that parents often worry about the behavior of their children more than other adults.
Anyway. At the end of the class, we consumed the contents of our bento box. Yum!
To help dispel some of those accumulated bounces, Theo and I headed to a playground immediately after the cooking class. The weather was gorgeous and it was a school holiday, so there were many kids. We ended up staying for almost two hours.
We capped off our day out with some green tea ice cream before heading home. Because I like to push my good luck, I’ve registered for another cooking class (with Theo) for later in our stay. Wish me luck!
