We got a late start this morning, on account of me getting up and starting the washing machine late, which meant we had to wait for it to finish so we could hang the clothes. Anyhow, with that done—and with a packed lunch of peanut butter sandwiches—we headed off to Peace Forest Park Athletic Field. That name is pretty long considering that it doesn’t give you any idea of what you’ll find there.
This “Athletic Field” is a giant obstacle course for kids and adults. We bought our tickets from the machine (you buy almost everything from machines here—more on that later) and got started. Since I had the option of skipping obstacles, I went through the course as well. I could describe it, but I’d rather just show you the pics.







After we were all worn out from the obstacle course, we checked out the Nori museum (really not for us—very limited English,) then found a playground with tall swings where R and K enjoyed swinging for ten minutes. Then we took the train to Kura Sushi, a fully-automated sushi restaurant.
By fully-automated, I mean that there was no need to speak to an actual human. When we walked in the door, there was a console for us to input the number of people in our party; the machine spit out a slip with a table number on it, and we found the table by following the signs. At the table we could either pick up plates from the lower conveyor belt, or place our own orders by way of an ipad. Our food would then arrive on the upper conveyor belt with a “ding!” and the ipad would announce which of our dishes awaited retrieval.
E had complained a bit about our choice of restaurant, but as soon as she saw onion rings and popcorn chicken on the menu she was perfectly happy. N was also happy with the selection of food. K and R discovered that they love smoked duck. Ordering was fun, but even more fun was watching the little game on the ipad every time we slid five empty plates into the plate return slot in our table. We even won one game—and the machine above the conveyor belt spit out a capsule toy for us.
Throughout it all, R was enthusing, “This is my dream! I don’t have to talk to any people! I love this!”
When it was time to go, we pressed “check out” on the iPad and headed to the cashier desk, where we inserted our ticket (from when we arrived) and our total flashed on the screen. We paid the machine—$64 for a family of six, which isn’t bad by Canadian standards.




Now we’re home, tired and very sore… but happy. And aside from E’s short-lived objection to the restaurant, everyone participated and there were no complaints. I win worldschool parenting!