Today, we decided to check out the studio. We didn’t get to see the studio at all yesterday, and the other moms who went yesterday said, the studio is located in a shopping center with a lot of restaurants.
After the kids left in their minivan with Mr. and Mrs. Cheng, I went back to the room and did some clean up… I did the laundry, some washing, and managed to squeeze in a nap. Yay for an extra hour of sleep!
Around noon, I went down to the lobby and met up with Lye Wan and Hui Lin to go to the studio. June & Kyo were also planning to go there to do some shopping. Supposedly, there was a ¥100 shop near the studio, which was where everyone seemed to want to go. So we called up 2 taxis and off we went.
The Ballet Lange Studio was much smaller than our usual Cheng Ballet studio. But it has a window where we, the visitors, can peek in and watch the class.
The studio was located in a large strip mall called West Court Meinohama (link to GoogleMap). There were a lot of cafes, restaurants and dessert places there. In the building where the ballet studio was, there were also other sports related studios and gyms, like an indoor tennis court, yoga studio… and a rock climbing studio!
Yesterday, some of the girls who were not joining the competition went wall climbing and it was fun. So, we thought, the little boys, Jia Kang and Luke, would enjoy it as well. Luke was excited and the whole morning he was telling everyone that he’s going to do rock climbing. But when we got there, we found out that you have to be at least 7 years old to do the climbing. And Luke was only 4… aww, too bad.
Right after Aina finished the class, she told me that her left pinky toe was in pain. And then, she showed me that there were blood around the nail of the pinky…
Oh no!
I asked her what happened, but she was as clueless as I was. She said, in the middle of the class, all the sudden the pinky started to hurt. And when she took the shoe off to check it out, it was bleeding. It had never happened before, Aina had never have bleeding nails. And now it’s happening while wearing Aina’s favorite and trusty pointe shoes… one day before the competition!
Why does this happen a day before the competition?!
Anyways, we were hungry, so I guess we had to take care of that first. And the pinky toe didn’t hurt if she walks (she wear sandals while she was there), and only hurt when she was en pointe.
Since there were many restaurants at West Court Meinohama, we chose a gyu-don fast food restaurant. I had my gyu-don with kimchi, which was fulfilling… but I forgot to take a picture of Aina’s meal.
On the way back, we decided to try the train. The distance from the studio to the train is pretty short, and it was only 3 stations away from the hotel. However, the distance from the hotel to the station was a bit far. And with the Fukuoka summer weather and humidity, most of us opted for the taxi. Except today.
The kids seemed to have fun, though. Whenever there was a bar or a handrail, they just had to do ballet stuff on it…
And they seemed to enjoy the change of scenery, too…
But as we got closer to the hotel, Aina realized that she got blisters from her sandals. WHAT? So, first a bleeding pinky toe nail, and now blisters on feet? What’s going on here? She’s been wearing this pair of sandals everywhere in Singapore for months and months… And we have walked much longer distances in Singapore compared to while we were here in Japan… and the blisters just had to show up now? One day before the competition?!
Geez… It’s like her feet fell apart right at the worst time possible…
For photos while we were in Fukuoka, there are all in Fukuoka 2017 photo album in Flickr. Other entries of this trip is at Japan 2017 Trip: Ballet Competitions.
