Art appreciation and Monster Eyes

http://www.kodomono-shiro.or.jp/english/

Yesterday I spent being a mum. My eldest son was honoured with having a piece of his artwork displayed in public for a week or so. Every year the International and American schools in the Kanto Plains area (Tokyo-Yokohama and surrounding plains area) have an artwork display at the National Children's Castle in Shibuya (more down-town Tokyo than where we are, about an hour by train). There were several pieces from each year level at CAJ. So, we went and did the right thing and checked it out. 

Eating lunch on the way on a handy road-side step.

Art galleries are really not my thing, in that way I'm pretty well paired with the boys who kind of ran round everything and then wanted to go home. But I have to admit there was some amazing work there. I could particularly appreciate the ceramic work - pieces I'd pay money to own! Below are some photos of the display.

Our son's work.

Beautiful Australia by an Australian (who we don't know) living in Kanto.

After we'd "done" the artwork display we caught a couple of trains home, arriving only half an hour before the two younger ones had their swimming lesson, so the timing was good.

Then I settled to filling up the snack cupboard for the week ahead, but quickly discovered I didn't have enough butter/fat spread. So did an unexpected bike ride to get supplies, nothing like a quick ride to keep up the fitness. 

After a fortifying coffee, I cooked something old-new. My husband and I grew up eating "Jam Drop" biscuits. I've haven't made them for a long time, but they are a good choice here because they only use easy-to-obtain ingredients. However our middle son doesn't like Jam. So the whole thing is a waste of time as far as he is concerned. 

Clever mum came up with a solution - not only a new name, but a new ingredient replacing the disliked one.

So we have Monster Eye biscuits made with M&Ms instead. Half of the batch retained their old jam centres, for those who like jam. You have to admit they look and sound pretty cool (at least to a mother of boys)!