Maritime Museum

On Tuesday after breakfast, we went to the Maritime Museum in Manitowoc. We took the school bus out of Valders on Highway 151 and so it was the first time I've seen the huge new Spancrete factory just outside of town. The whole village sits on a big deposit of limestone, and so the town's main export is stone, marble and concrete. It's the town's main employer and in fact, my brother works as a safety engineer at Spancrete. In the past few years, they've really expanded their operations, but now with the economy slowing down they are cutting back again. I asked my brother about doing a field trip at the new factory, but he said it was a bit too dangerous in there for little kids and they probably wouldn't understand much of what's going on since it's a very complex operation.

When we arrived in Manitowoc, I noticed a lot of changes since the last time I'd been there. The entire western part of town has been built up and many new businesses have opened up along the entrance into town on Highway 151. Wal-Mart had been there when I last visited, but now it's surrounded by many other stores. Tong was very curious to see "Springhill Drive", but unfortunately we didn't drive past it.

The Martime Museum has been completely rebuilt since the last time I was in Manitowoc and now it's actually quite nice. The submarine sits in the river next to the museum, not far from were they used to build them during World War II. It's the USS Cobia and although it wasn't built in Manitowoc, it's very similar to the types of submarines they build here during the war. The museum staff was very happy to welcome a group from Thailand and they even gave us a free DVD video about the USS Lagarto, a Manitowoc-built submarine that was sunk by the Japanese in the Gulf of Thailand. The kids were excited to see Thai-language on the sides of some of the boats in photos from that DVD. Apparently the Lagarto had only recently been discovered and a research mission had been sponsored by the museum to visit the grave of the Lagarto just off the coast of Koh Samui. They made a DVD about the submarine, its construction in Manitowoc, its battle with the Japanese minelayer Hatsutaka in the Gulf of Thailand, and the discovery of the sunken submarine 60 years later. So the kids discovered a small connection between Manitowoc and Thailand already exists.

The first thing we did was take a tour of the submarine. The USS Cobia has been faithfully restored and it's practically in working condition. The older kids were more interested in taking lots of photos of each other on the sub, but I did manage to prod them into asking the guide a few questions. They do allow kids to stay overnight on the submarine, but I was correct in guessing that might be a bit too scary for the kids. During the daytime it's fine, but at night I bet that sub gets pretty spooky. It's very cramped and dark down there, and I bumped my head a lot, ouch! The kids really enjoyed the tour and they certainly took a lot of photos!

I set the older kids free to explore the museum, although I think they spent most of their time exploring the gift shop! I took the younger ones downstairs to the children's area. First they tried out the fishing-simulator, which allowed them to see what deep-sea sport fishing was like. Then we went into the waterways exhibit, and they stayed in there for the rest of the day. It had large basins of water that simulated rivers, canals and dams. The kids could put boats in the water and experiment with different currents and winds. They could also use pipes to build elaborate fountains which helped them to understand water pressure. Of course, from their point of view, they just had a lot of fun! They didn't visit any other part of the museum because they had so much fun playing in that room. I only managed to catch glimpse of the rest of the museum, but it looked really nice. They had lots of boats and engines and shipbuilding equipment displayed in very interesting manner. I would have liked to explore that section of the museum more, but it was time for lunch so we had to go.

I took the kids down to Nikko's, a Thai-American restaurant not far from the museum. Again I'm trying to balance familiar tastes with new tastes to help the kids adjust. The kids ordered fried rice and tom yum soup. It was delicious, however the tastes had been Americanized to suit people here. So the tom yum soup, for example was not sour and spicy, instead it was very sweet. The fried rice was actually spicier than you'd find in Thailand, but no matter, the kids were just happy to eat some Thai food. I took some pictures of the kids enjoying their meal and I managed to catch Gird with a very funny expression. I don't know why, but whenever I take a picture of her, she's always got a strange look on her face. I think she just has bad photo luck! Haha! I promised her I wouldn't post the photo to my blog, but if you want to see it, I'm willing to sell it for the right price. Right now, I've got Gird paying me $20 a month to "remind me" not to "accidentally" upload it, but if you can beat that offer, I'll go with the highest bidder, hahah!

After lunch we went to the library. The kids have been great about updating their blogs, and so they were eager for another opportunity to get online and update everyone on what they've been doing. I'm about a day or two behind on my own blogging, so I uploaded Monday's blog while we were at the library, but I didn't get a chance to do much writing about the museum trip while we were there. I'm writing this blog on Thursday morning because I didn't have a chance to get online at all yesterday. Sorry about the delays, but usually the only chance I get to do these blogs is when I wake up at 5:00am to get breakfast ready for the kids. Yesterday, I was a little tired, so I slept late, which is why I didn't post a blog. I did upload a video, though. I've got some more videos to upload, but I want to edit them before uploading because they are a bit too long for youtube. Hopefully, I'll get those uploaded some time next week.

When we got back to the parsonage house, we had to wait a little bit for Pastor Jim come let us in because I forgot my key inside and locked us out, oops! When we got inside the kids went online to blog about their day or to chat with friends and family back home. Tong has been feeling a little sick lately, and when kids are sick that's when they miss their moms the most, so he had a little bout of homesickness. I've been trying to keep the kids busy so they don't notice it so much, but keeping them busy also increases their fatigue and makes them more likely to get sick, so it's a bit of a balancing act. Keeping them just busy enough to not be homesick while at the same time giving them enough downtime to rest, relax and recover from jetlag. So far, the kids have been doing remarkably well, but eventually they are all going to get a bit homesick.

Staying together as a group has been helpful, but once they go off to their host families, I expect their homesickness to increase, especially with the ones who are staying on their own. On Tuesday night, Tong was feeling tired and sick, and so that's when homesickness is really going to show. After a good night's sleep he was fine, and on Wednesday he was playing happily with the other kids, so the best cures for homesickness are: keeping busy during the day and getting a good sleep at night. In the next few weeks, I suspect that a few parents are going to get tearful, "I want to come home!" phone calls. That's normal and to be expected. Please check with them to make sure nothing is seriously wrong and then just be supportive. Chances are, after a good night's rest they'll be just fine the next day.