When the new school year begins on April 8, all Japanese public schools will be on a five-day school week for the first time ever. For my kids, that means no more school on Saturdays. For me, it means no more cappuccino.
When we were planning our move to Japan two years ago, we knew we'd enroll our children in a regular Japanese elementary school. But I didn't like the idea that they would have to go to school every other Saturday. I thought it would interfere with family time. I thought it would prevent us from taking weekend trips together.
Then we got here, and I learned how expensive it is to travel in Japan. It's easy to drop more than 100,000 yen for an overnight trip for a family of four. Suddenly, the idea of staying at home on weekends didn't seem so terrible. And if we were going to be in Tokyo, it didn't seem so bad for the kids to go to school for a few hours on Saturday.