Takaragaike Children's Park

"Everything looks smaller when you get older."

This is Skylar's critical observation. The Kyoto International School spent last Saturday engaged in a fierce competition of tug-of-war, the human chain, and everyone's perennial favorite, the ping-pong ball in a spoon race. All this took place at Takaragaike Children's Park--which is about 10 minutes from our house. This is the very same playground we dubbed "the playground of death" in 2001 when Skylar was three--and the slides looked like they were 30 feet off the ground (without rails), and the climbing structures all looked like personal invitations to broken bones, and the wooden maze felt like it had no exit. Seven years later, Skylar can't believe how much smaller (not to mention harmless) the "playground of death" now seems. Judge for yourself.

Unable to decide upon a team name, Skylar's team dubbed themselves the "Unknowns." The Unknowns included kids from the 1st grade all the way to the 8th and should have been unbeatable during the competition because of their secret weapon: They had the biggest, strongest kid in the 8th grade. Alas, during the human chain race visualize ten kids running around with linked arms trying to scoop up teammates into the "chain." Now visualize excessive speed, gravity, and the biggest 8th grader slipping on the wet grass and taking down all his younger, smaller teammates and you can see how The Unknowns ended up in 4th place.