August 24, 2025, 2024: My Granddaughter’s First Stay at Hotel（孫娘がホテルに初めてお泊り）

The other day, my granddaughter, who is just 10-months old, stayed at a hotel for the first time in her life. She joined a wedding party for a friend of her father. She also got on a bullet train in Japan, the Shinkansen, for the first time. She took it from Tokyo to Nagoya.I do not exactly how much she enjoyed the trip. But she seems to have enjoyed it a lot, as long as I see her pictures taken by her parents. She also seems to have gone to the Nagoya castle.
Her first trip reminded me that it was only 3-months old that my daughter took her first flight in her life. It was about 12-hour flight from Tokyo to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It must have been very annoying to her. She had no choice but to be in a very small cot or be held on her mother’s chest during the flight. Her mother, or my wife, also had to struggle with the Dutch cabin crew for the baby. Her words were not properly understood by them. It was not due to the language problem, but due to the different customs. The cabin crew did not seem to know about or have used powdered milk. The mother had to give the baby a bottle a couple of times during the flight. And she asked one of the cabin crew in English to put lukewarm water in the bottle. But it  was hot water, not lukewarm, that the crew put in the bottle. The bottle was too hot to for her to give it to the baby. I was not allowed to be on the same flight and had to wait at the Amsterdam airport for them to arrive safely.
My daughter must have experienced the same kind of things  for her baby while she was on the trip to Nagoya.

　先日、生後10カ月の孫娘が生まれて初めてホテルに泊まりました。おとうさんの友人の結婚パーティーに参加したのです。また、初めて新幹線にも乗りました。東京から名古屋までです。　孫娘がどれほど楽しんだかはわかりません。でも、両親が撮った写真を見る限り、とても楽しかったようです。名古屋城にも行ったようです。
　この初旅行で思い出したのは、娘が生まれてわずか3ヶ月で飛行機に乗ったことです。東京からオランダのアムステルダムまでの約12時間のフライトでした。娘にとってそれはとても迷惑なことだったに違いありません。狭いベッドに寝ているか、母親の胸に抱かれいるかのどちらかしかなかったのですから。また、母親（ボクの妻）も、子供のためにオランダ人の客室乗務員と格闘しなければなりませんでした。彼女の言いたいことが、きちんと伝わらなかったのです。言葉の問題ではなく、習慣の違いによるものでした。乗務員たちは粉ミルクを知らなかったか使ったことがなかったようです。母親は、搭乗中に、何度か、娘にミルクを飲ませるため、客室乗務員に哺乳瓶にぬるいお湯を入れるよう英語で頼んだのです。でも、入れてくれたお湯が熱すぎて娘に飲ませられなかったのです。ボクは、同じ便に乗ることができず、アムステルダムの空港で二人が無事に到着するのを待しかなかったのです。　
　ボクの娘も名古屋までの道中、同じようなことを経験したはずです。