It's a bit of a fun episode today with my two special guests, who have been asking to appear on my show.

We'll be talking about:

• Things we like about Japan
• What we're planning for the upcoming spring holidays
• Two brand new podcasts coming out soon

Links of things mentioned in the show:

The Hugo Show with HugoN

FocusCore Podcast

SELF POWER NOW!

Got a question for our guests in the upcoming episode? Make sure you find me on Instagram @transformationswithjayne and send me your message.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the transformations with Jane podcast.

I'm your host Jane Nakata.

Coming to you from Fukushima prefecture here in Japan.

Well, it is a bit of a last minute episode this week.

I'm sorry.

It has just been completely wild over here.

In pod launch with Jane land and we have lots of new shows coming out.

Just this week.

So I have been a little bit busy and have kind of left it to the

last minute to record this episode.

Also, I had wanted to invite these two guests onto the show for a while now.

And I asked them the other day and they said, yes, we'd love to come on.

And so it was just a matter of finding the time to actually get them

on the show and to decide what we were going to talk about, et cetera.

So I'll introduce you to my guests in a moment, but first, let me just fill

you in a little bit about some of the shows that we have coming out this week.

So on the 1st of February is the launch of the focus core Japan podcast.

By the team at focus core.

And David Sweet, who is also the host of barefoot lunch.

We helped David to get his show out there.

And it's been great, fun being part of that.

If you are interested to know more about recruitment and.

Getting a job or retaining talent in your organization, those kinds of topics.

It will be a great podcast for you to listen to.

Also coming out this week is a new podcast by Debbie, just Sony called itself power.

Now.

And guest who is the first guest on the show?

It's me.

I'm very privileged to be guest number one.

And I really enjoyed talking with Debbie about some of things that

happened in 2011 and how that's given me a unique perspective on life that

has really helped going forward.

After that.

So.

If you are looking for new podcasts and you enjoy the show, this show,

I'm sure you will also enjoy.

The themes and the contents of those other shows coming out.

And there's a couple more coming in February as well.

Fingers crossed that they all work out.

So, let me introduce to you my two guests for today.

They are my son Hugo and my daughter.

Emilia.

They have been asking to be on the show and I thought, well, why not?

And let's have a go and see how it goes.

Hugo himself actually has his own podcast.

Which we work on in the holidays, we put out a little, two or three

minute episode talking about whatever he's interested in at the time.

And this is Amelia's first.

Opportunity to be on a podcast.

So, yes, I hope you will enjoy listening to them.

And they've definitely enjoyed taking part and being on the show.

So here we go.

Hi, mummy.

It's nice to be on this show today.

Are you good.

Thank you for coming on the show today.

It's lovely to have you on the transformations with Jane podcast.

Have you ever listened to an episode of my show?

Yes, when.

When one time.

One time.

Just the one time.

Oh, I see.

But you have your own podcast, don't you?

Yes.

I have one.

What's your podcast called the Hugo show.

That's right.

The Hugo show.

What kind of things do you talk about on your podcast?

But in a Minecraft and lanky box.

And those are all things that seven year old boys love.

Right.

Yes.

And what do you love at the moment?

I love plugging one.

And do you have a favorite Pokemon?

Yes.

What's he called?

What are they called?

I should say.

They are called.

Carrie L.

And touch you and all those Evie collections.

I see.

And you have made an online friend haven't you.

Yeah.

What's his name?

He's called Dawn.

Yes.

George, I don't know if you're listening, but he goes very excited to play

Pokemon cards with you soon online.

Yes.

So, what else would you like to talk about today?

Who go.

Let's talk about.

At school.

School.

what are you looking forward to about the second grade?

, I don't have anything I know about.

Second grid cell.

Um, but you won't be the new kid wearing that silly yellow hat anymore.

I have to read the,

what do you call it?

yeah, the white.

I can read.

Hat that's right.

You have.

PE that's right.

Do you use that for PE?

I don't have to wear the funny yellow hat anymore to school.

First grade.

And you've been working really hard with your English recently.

Haven't shared.

What have you been doing?

I have been doing.

talking about English.

Yeah.

And you've been practicing your reading and writing, using the Scholastic.

Hundred words you have to, uh, 100 words you should know before.

Yeah.

The grade that's right before you start first grade.

So we're doing the first book.

And it's going well, isn't it.

You're enjoying it.

And you're getting very good at reading.

And writing in English.

So I'm very happy about that.

And you're getting very good at reading and writing in Japanese day.

Slowly.

Yeah.

Yes.

Which do you prefer at the moment?

What do you mean?

Do you like writing in English?

Beta or writing in Japanese better.

both.

Oh, you liked both.

But Japanese is more better.

Then.

English because it's not too hard to write it, but the kind is really hard.

It is hard.

You're quite interested in Kanji though.

Aren't you?

Yes.

And what would you like to do in the spring holidays that are coming up?

Oh, the U S J.

We as us, Joe.

And also.

No.

Yes, that's right.

That's right.

It's an all soccer.

And.

What would you do if we went to U S J.

We're gonna go to the teammates.

And Mario and.

What do you call it?

Minions.

Then Harry Potter.

Yeah.

Is there anything else you'd like to do in the spring vacation?

Yes.

Go to Hawaiians.

That's our.

hot Springs and water resort.

Isn't it with.

Lots of water slides.

I love the water slide.

Yes.

Excellent.

Well maybe.

On my birthday.

So maybe that your daddy can take you there.

Yes, but.

Daddy.

When he was on the slide, he clicked, keeps failing off.

Did he?

Yes.

I didn't hear that story.

That's fun.

Is there anything else you'd like to say today on the show before you go.

Yes.

I will like to talk about.

Well, my life is.

Tell me about that.

I like my life.

To be all the.

Then Mia.

Ah, Mia as your.

My sister, your big sister.

You want to be older than her?

And what do you like about your life?

And like my life is I have a Nintendo switch.

That's a highlight, is it?

Yes.

Anything else?

Yes.

Japanese food.

Yeah, you love sushi.

okay.

So.

Uh, before you go.

Yeah.

Do you want to tell everybody to come and listen to your podcast?

Yes.

the Hugo show with Hugo in.

The podcast, you can find it on all of your favorite podcast players and

Hugo usually releases a new episode.

Every school holidays don't share.

So maybe there'll be one coming through.

Dick on Spotify.

Well, thanks for coming on the show today.

Here you go.

It's lovely to have you here.

Yes, but I want to talk something more like what.

Like.

Yeah.

Tell us about that.

As a lady, Sweden, but I didn't know all the words because it's

a little bit hard to say it.

Oh, you mean Swedish?

Oh at the top.

Yeah, they have special letters.

Don't they?

That's right.

They have war and ER, and.

That we don't have an English.

Oh, and stuff like that.

But you were very good at.

Practicing the Swedish words, they taught you at school.

German.

This is a bit like German.

And what else do you want to tell us about.

That's Sweden.

Let's talk about.

What kind of food?

Mm.

It's like roast beef and stuff, but again, like the school lunch.

It was disgusting.

They had terrible school.

I shouldn't nice compared to Japanese school lunch.

And get the knee school.

Lunch is good, but I don't like their soup.

It's disgusting.

Mm.

But it's much nicer than Swedish school lunch.

Isn't it.

well, I like mommy's food and daddy's food.

And you're lucky I'm quite a good chef on Thai.

Yes.

But then if the good chef, he is very good chef we're lucky.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, well, thanks for coming on the show today.

Here we go.

It's been great.

And again, sometime in the future.

All right.

Thanks.

Bye.

Hi, Emilia.

Thanks for coming on the show today.

Hi, mommy.

Yeah.

So we've just had your little brother.

Hugo.

On the show.

And he was telling us all about his podcast and things.

He likes about school in Japan and school in Sweden and things.

And what would you like to talk about today?

Living in Japan.

Yeah.

So tell us about the things you like about living in Japan.

Eating the Japanese for.

Um,

because.

When we went to Sweden, most of the food was.

meatballs and.

Curry.

Um, and.

They didn't have many Japanese.

Food then we like.

Yeah, they have a lot of salty kinds of foods.

Don't they?

Yeah, like the Christmas roast.

the ham Christmas ham that was super salty.

We definitely struggled with the amount of salt that was in the food and Sweden.

But there were some yummy things there.

Yeah.

Like the ham and the sausages and the cheese.

Yes.

And the cinnamon rolls.

Yes.

So custard rolls.

Oh, yes.

The CRA the cream buns.

They have similar bums at this time of the year.

So, I didn't know that cinnamon rolls were.

A very Swedish food until we got there.

And every shop you go to has cinnamon rolls and they're just everywhere.

Aren't they.

And they even have cinnamon roll day with a, like, just about free they're like five

kroners was had 50, 50 yen or something for a whole set for one cinnamon roll.

That's so cheap.

And that very big and very sweet and cinnamony.

Very nice.

A real.

Punched and they're their cinnamon rolls.

And carrot cake.

So, do you miss Swedish food or?

Nah.

No, you don't miss it.

That's the thing.

We can make carrot cake at our house come, we, and we can

make meatballs if we want to.

But it's a bit tricky to make a lot of Japanese food when you're not in Japan.

So you've taken up the violin recently.

How's that going?

Good.

I have been watching lots of violin videos and.

Aye.

Really want to play the violin light that.

So I'm practicing.

Nearly every day for about 10 minutes.

No 10 minutes at the moment.

But it was quite hard to play the violin when you've just starting,

because you haven't got the.

The muscles or the finger strength to do it for very long, but you're getting

better than when you first started when you couldn't even play one note.

And now you can play.

Quite a few notes in a row.

Five, maybe.

So it's coming along, isn't it?

Yes.

And in another year or two, you might be a via a YouTube violinist.

That's that's the thing.

So if you've never seen any of the YouTube violinists, I encourage you to go.

Onto YouTube and have a look and you can find all of your favorite

songs played on the violin.

By some very talented violinists Sunday and they have some really good ones.

It's quite nice to listen to those, your favorite songs without the words,

if you're like trying to study or.

Maybe your.

Yeah, trying to do some work or something.

It's quite nice.

I've quite enjoyed the violin versions of some songs that you've shown me.

I think my favorite,

Filing.

Cover song is, Good.

It's a demon Slayer theme song.

I think it was the end.

Maybe I th I thought it sounds.

Nicer on the Y.

Well, and then, um, The actual music video.

Yeah, that's the, um, key metanoia.

yeah.

Endings theme.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's pretty cool.

One isn't it?

Your teacher play that for us.

Was that.

She paid for us on the first day we went to your class and you

were really impressed when you.

Yeah.

So your teacher's a very good violinist, obviously.

Um, tell you one day you might be like her.

If you keep practicing, keep practicing.

So I was asking Hugo.

What would you like to do in the spring holidays that are coming up?

It's only a few more weeks until the end of school year.

And then we have about two weeks of spring holidays.

What would you like to do?

Um, I would like to see some friends that we haven't seen

in a long time, which is how.

Like, how does gen-ed.

Um, Awesome friends here.

Any worky?

I haven't seen for a long time.

The here go Sadie.

You'd like to go to USG, but you didn't say that.

So, yeah, I know, but I don't think we will be able to go any way.

Why not.

Yeah.

In a there's.

Corona.

And then there's.

And then there probably won't be any tickets left.

Who knows we haven't even checked yet, but.

Well, he's ready to go.

He's all.

He's he's planning for us to go.

He only wants to see the, um, The Ana.

Not animal grossing, M demon Slayer.

And Maria.

Which sounds kind of boring.

Um, I want to see the Harry Potter.

Yeah, we'll have to ask our friends.

Who've already been there for their latest tips on how to enjoy the Harry Potter

Wizarding world of Harry Potter at USG.

how to maximize your enjoyment there.

If we would have gone, I would like to see.

Just go there for two days and, um, I enjoy everything very slowly.

Um, one by one, not just like, not right.

No Harry Potter, just look at there for 10 seconds.

Okay.

Now let's go to the, um, Mario.

Section right, because you don't want to have to hurry.

Yeah, to be able to enjoy.

Yeah.

I see.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Well, let's keep that in mind.

Anything else you want to do in the spring vacation?

That's coming.

I would like to watch.

Singh.

Too.

And.

Fantastic beasts.

Okay.

Both coming out.

Really?

Yeah, But you haven't seen fantastic beasts one year.

Well, you better get on and watch that one before you go.

Otherwise that won't make any sense.

One and two.

Yeah, all right.

Well, thanks for coming on the show today.

Amelia has been lovely to have this little.

Growing up, chat with you.

And hear about.

Your thoughts and what you'd like to do for the spring holidays.

And who knows what we'll get up to, but.

Be nice to go somewhere.

Wouldn't it.

If we can.

If things are.

Okay.

And we can travel somewhere.

All right, we'll come back.

And talk to us again sometime.

Bye.

So that was Hugo and Amelia.

Giving us a little window into their lives and the things that they're

interested in and are important to them.

And I really hope we can make their wish come true.

We can get to U S J during the spring holidays that are coming up.

But I was on the website yesterday, actually looking to see how

much is this going to cost me?

And for the three of us, just to go into the park, wasn't too bad.

It was something like 20,000 yen, but to get us all.

Fast passes or, you know, those passes that let you skip the line.

Then that quickly came up to something like 70,000 yen.

And I thought, surely this can't be right.

Surely.

Truly I do.

I really have to pay an extra 19,000 yen per person.

In order not to have to wait in the line for seven attractions.

I think it was.

So anyway, if I got it wrong and you're listening and you're like,

no, no, that's not how it works.

Please let me know.

Um, because I was sort of having a small heart attack after I'd realized

that, but you know, like Amelia said, maybe she just wants to go and spend

a day and there wasn't any world and she doesn't mind if there's.

You know, if you have to stand in the line for a little bit of something, it's

all part of the atmosphere and being there and watching the people in there.

Um, magic cloaks and all of that.

So coming up next on the show, we have some guests lined up for you.

And also we have.

So coming up next on the show, we have something different happening.

I'm actually going to be recording.

A group kind of episode with two or more guests.

And we're going to be talking about some of the questions that people have

around kids and going to school in Japan.

And you know, when your kids are starting a new school,

Or maybe they're moving from kindergarten to elementary school or onto junior high

school or high school and university.

It's always a lot to learn as you transition into these new.

areas of the kids' lives.

So.

As a non-Japanese person, it's hard to know what to expect.

And.

Unless you have these SIM pie MUMAS as we call the years sort of

More experienced parent friends.

It can be hard to know.

How to prepare or what your kid needs or what they don't need, what they can

figure out themselves, what you need to do for them, this kind of thing.

So we have a variety of wonderful woman from the transmissions with

Jane community here in Japan who are going to come on the show, they're

going to answer your questions.

And they're going to talk about their experiences, which

the old different, right.

So you might be living somewhere where the situation is different.

But we can always learn from others and we can always see where

there might be similarities and.

Yeah, just really feel a little bit less alone about the whole situation.

And maybe even learn some of the things to avoid or things that you really must do.

So that episode is coming up soon.

We'll be recording that this week and it'll be out.

Yeah.

In two weeks time.

So really looking forward to that, I have a feeling it's going to be

quite long and we might break it up.

Two or three episodes.

Also another topic that's come up recently is the topic of bilingualism.

So I'll probably ask them all to talk about how that's going with

their own families, because they're all families where one is a.

non-Japanese person and they're married to a Japanese person and the living in Japan.

So.

Generally a similar kind of situation to myself.

And I know many of the other listeners of this podcast, and I know everyone who

has smaller kids wants to know from the.

Parents with older kids, what's it like, what do I need to do?

Is this the best for my kid or.

Perhaps we need to try a few different things.

So I'm sure you'll get loads of ideas . And also just maybe some

confidence that whatever happens.

It's probably going to be okay in the end.

So that's all for this week.

Thank you so much for listening.

I hope you enjoyed.

I'm meeting my two kids through the podcast.

They definitely enjoyed being on here.

And we'll see you again soon.

That's all for now.