Quite a day

Lots of things happening today (despite me starting the day with low expectations).

Firstly we bought a car! It comes as a tiny surprise because we were bidding through a broker and staying in contact with him by phone and the internet. We bid Monday and Tuesday as well and nothing came of it, but today our bid won! So, we'll be proud owners of a Pearl White Nissan Serena next week (after all the paperwork goes through and the car is shipped up from somewhere south of here). Here is a photo of a Serena.

Secondly I went to the City Office on my own (something I'm generally reluctant to do, because it usually involves formal Japanese plus forms in Japanese - neither of which I'm good at) to do a minor job and it turned into a major one. We thought we'd done almost all the official paperwork necessary to settling back into Japan, but found one thing that hadn't been done. It relates to hospital insurance for the kids and involves a trip back to the City Office of our previous "city" for paperwork to retrieve to prove something or other. Anyway, not very exciting really, just more things to do.

After that language stretch, I did a little bit of shopping on the way home. I found a number of useful things, but my favourite find was probably this little chicken (timer). Now he might not be of great interest to you, but a replica of him was an integral part of our household before we went to Australia last year. He helped with discipline, told us how long we could take in the shower and even helped us cool our porridge down! We developed a wonderful affection for him.

He came on the aeroplane with us back to Australia, but we lost him at our first stop. We left him behind in our unit in Cairns and didn't notice until too late. The cleaner who found him thought it was a McDonald's toy and threw it out. Not happy. The timer we found to replace him totally lacked his charm and simplicity.

This afternoon David went on a paper chase. To sort out this morning's City Hall mess as well as jump through the hoops required to change the name on the car's registration. That is complicated here. It particularly involves proving that you have a designated parking space and requires an inspection plus several bits of paper to confirm it.

Meanwhile the boys went crazy at about 3pm, not having had the benefit of exercise like their parents. They ended up riding round and round and round our small block - for about half an hour. Complicated exercise is not required, obviously!

We finished off the day with the inaugural Family Movie Night complete with home-popped popcorn.

Quite a day. Quite a successful day. Quite a tiring day.