Anya's 10th Birthday

The Big Bang Science Fair

Imperial War Museum

Growing & Juicing Wheat Grass

Medieval Workshop Orpington Roman Villa

Owen attended a Medieval history workshop were he learnt to make brass rubbings.

Making a Mallet in Forest School

Roman Villa Workshop

Owen attended a Roman Villa workshop at Orpington Roman Villa.  The workshop was run in a very schooley manner and Owen found it quite boring.  For example they created Roman mosaics but the kids had to copy a set pattern which did not inspire Owen to be creative or understand the creativity of the Romans.

London Recumbents - Bicycle Hire in Dulwich

Train Times & Planning Our Trip in Japan

We recently spent 3 weeks travelling around Japan.  The kids were very involved in helping us work out train times and planning transport connections.  Planning our journey presented particular problems due to the train and bus time tables being in the Japanese characters.

Travelling To Japan & Time Zones

 

I have noticed how travelling sparks a real interest in topics relating to Maths including time zones, travel time tables and currency and exchange rates.  The kids took a real interest in time and were fascinated about how we flew towards the night and arrived in the morning in Japan when it would have been the previous evening in London.

 

Family Trip To Japan 2013

Anjin at Saddlers Wells

Owen's Review

A rough thundery sea swirled and hit the bow of the ship. Suddenly, the ship crashed against the rocks of a far of land called “Japan”.

Based on a true story, the samurai on patrol found William Adams and his crew ship wrecked on their land. At the time, Japan was part controlled by Christian Jesuits who were worried that Adams would affect their influence so they tried to get the entire crew crucified as pirates. The shogun, Layasu asked to see Adams because he was curious to hear about the other side of the world he was particularly interested in the Spanish and English weapons.

The first lord of Japan had died and his son who is only seven years old is now in charge. His mother, Yododono hates leyasu and supported by the Jesuit Christians, declares war on him. Whilst at war Adam’s skills with cannons and his special technique at firing two cannons at once wins Leyasu the battle and he is rewarded the title of Anjin, samurai.  Anjin marries a Japanese lady and abandons this wife in England.  

After fourteen years of peace a final battle is declared and lady yododano is defeated for the last time the new shogun becomes the new leader and sets a strict policy that no Christians are allowed in Japan.

When I watched the play I didn’t expect it to be a comedy. I expected it to be heroic plots and characters. However Anjin played by Steven Boxer was like a pantomime actor. I quite liked the priest played by Yuki Furukawa because he was very expressive. The mother played by Yoki Sadadana was a powerful actor because she was good at expressing emotion. The scenery was poor because it was a cliché representation of Japan. They even had cherry blossom trees inside the palace. The tickets were over priced at £60 for my mum and me (which included a discount).  This means the theatre is only accessible to the wealthy.   Over all, I was disappointed and would not recommend the play.

London Transport Museum

Anti Cuts Demonstration

St John Ambulance - Essential First Aid

Rain Room at The Barbican

"Rain Room is the latest in a series of projects that specifically explore the behaviour of the viewer and viewers: pushing people outside their comfort zones, extracting their base auto-responses and playing with intuition. Observing how these unpredictable outcomes will manifest themselves, and the experimentation with this world of often barely perceptible behaviour and its simulation is our main driving force."