School for the girls starts on the 7th of April. It's actually the beginning of the Japanese school year so they will be joining fresh new classes. More so for this school too, because two primary schools in the area have just merged into the one, so the rooms will be full of new "first time here" students. Admittedly, not many will look as tall and pale as our girls.
What they needed for school was fairly simple:
Sports clothes - white shirt, dark shorts, red/white reversible hat.
Lunch mat & small bag to put it in
Face cloth & sweat towel
Indoor school shoes
Draw string bag for carrying the sports stuff/washers/lunch stuff to and from school
Coloured pencils (pens are not allowed)
Everything else they had (every day uniforms are free dress); outdoor/running shoes, lead pencils, sharpeners etc. We got most of the things from the local department store and I was feeling pretty chuffed that it was all organised.
For those wondering - Japanese people are very particular about wearing shoes and not wearing shoes that have been outside (considered dirty) inside the house. This also extends to school, which is considered an "inside" place. Every student (and staff member) arrives at school in one pair of shoes and then in the entry way, changes to their inside shoes to wear while in the buildings of the school. If they need to go outside (like for sports), they will change back. It's a whole thing. Anyway, back to school gear.
I had thought we could get away with out the draw string bag for the sports stuff, since the girls could really easily just chuck it into their school bag, but I was talking to the mum friend I'd made, and realised it would be better if the girls just had a bag. As always, I was reticent to buy something that was gross polyester, generic and not well made. It was the perfect opportunity to make a bag.
The girls and I took a trip to Nippori, which is known as "Fabric Town" in Tokyo, for the entire street of fabric stores right across from the station. They knew what they were looking for: Sophie wanted cats and Rachel wanted cows. Sophie was in luck pretty early on with a variety of different cat fabric. She picked out a purple cat print about halfway through, though she did partially regret it when we saw a "cats as sushi" print a little later on.
Rachel's cow fabric was much harder to find. One shop even had a swatch of cow fabric on the walls (a check with cute cows on it), but when we asked, the shop guy looked and told us that it was all gone. We wandered up and down all over the place when we were eventually in the five level Tomato store about half way back down the street. The number of times I went up and down the stairs, mostly to level four, is a bit ridiculous, but we emerged (from the abyss of shopping, as Sophie would say) victorious, with a lovely cow print in hand.
We came home and I used my housewife to start prepping fabric into all the parts I needed to make two drawstring bags, very similar to Steve's koi bag from just after Christmas. I was thankful that I'd decided to take my real sewing scissors, but everything else from the housewife did the job.
The other fun feature of these bags were the cute Pokemon patches. The girls were fading towards the end of our shopping trip, and I distracted them while I was trying to figure out how much cord I needed to buy for the straps/drawstring by letting them look at the patches on display and then telling them they could have one each. Rachel has a Pawmi and Sophie has an Eevee.
I spent a couple of hours that first night prepping things, then a few hours each the two days getting the sewing done while the girls and I chatted, listening to podcasts, music and musicals. Hand sewing success. The girls have been mostly amiable about their new life in Japan, though as we get closer to the start of school, there have been some big emotions to help them navigate. Hopefully this handmade reminder of how much I love them as they go to school will give them some security in a new and unfamiliar place.
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