A stroll in Sapporo

So I'm in Sapporo until tomorrow. It's a curious place for a Queenslander: where winter is the norm and spring/summer/autumn all together last only half the year (if you say that maximums below 16˚C are "winter"). Even now, when everyone is celebrating spring, the temperatures are below average for what we know as winter in Brisbane.

It's a place shaped by its extreme winters and you can tell that just from walking around. I've posted photos below to see if you can "read" the evidence and posted them below, but first, some flowers.

It's about 1,000 km north of Tokyo. So coming here at this time of year feels like stepping back a month or so. The flowers that were out in Tokyo in March are coming out here now. I went for a walk during our lunch the other day and snapped some gorgeous plants amidst the grey of the streets.

Can you name all of these?

And now, for some evidence that winter is harsh. The average number of snowy days in this city is 132, with nearly 6m of snow falling each year!

Can you tell what evidence of severe winters you can see in these photos? (I've put the answers in captions, but you can try to guess before you scroll down to the caption).

Not too much of this left at this time of year, but plants and
small trees are often wrapped up or bound up in
some way to protect them from the weight of heavy snow.

Double doors at the entrance to a house. So that residents can shake off
snow before entering, and also keep "outside' thing still undercover (see the bike here).
These glass doors are often sliding, so that if a lot of snow has fallen during the night, you can still get out the front door in the morning.

Marks like these are common on roads and footpaths.
They are where the snow ploughs have gone a little too "deep"
in their ploughing.

Side view of the above garages. You don't see garages like this
much in Tokyo. An uncovered carpark is a nightmare in a
climate where it snows 6m in a winter, you spend a lot of time
shovelling out the car (and most people have one here). Not
to mention scrapping off the windows so that you can see out.
We still carry a scraper in our car, a habit from our days in
Sapporo, where you often had to scrape your windows even
after a short stop at the grocery store.
The big corrugations here are essential to bear up under heavy
snow building up on top.

Covered external stairwells at entrance. Shovelling stairs is not fun,
nor is negotiating them when they are only partly shovelled.

Can you see the ladder? For shovelling the roof!

The next three photos aren't so much about excess snow, but just showing how spacious Hokkaido is. It definitely feels different to Tokyo. SO much space, so few people.

But wide footpaths are essential for snow piles. In winter the snow ploughed off the road gets piled here. Small ploughs keep some essential footpaths clear. But they really only enjoy the width in the non-snowy months (about seven months of the year).

What's on my heart

Today is the first year anniversary of our national director passing away at age 52, and also it's his wife's birthday. She's still in Japan with us and is, once again, my line manager, so we work closely together at times. (Here was my post about his death last year.)

I've had an unusually emotional day, not entirely because of this anniversary, but definitely this lay heavily on my mind and heart. And I'd done something entirely out of the ordinary for me. I've written a poem. I don't write poetry, or read it. I have no idea if this freeform verse is of any use to anyone, but it is what has lain on my heart today and it seemed to be a good way to express some of my feelings.

Dates
by Wendy

Dates: they pile up

First there was a birthday, mine.
That's all I knew.

Then I learnt others in my family had them too.

Soon other dates marched in my door:

The date school started, Christmas, family holidays, and the day school finished for the year. 

Then I began to collect dates that weren't so nice:

Exam dates, the day I had to say goodbye to my old school. 

Leaving home, goodbye to friends,

The date that marked the first time someone I knew died. 

My family expanded and there were new dates to celebrate:

Births and milestones, other's joy multiplied my own.

But sorrowful dates weren't far behind.

More farewells, more change,

More awareness that what we have is so temporary,

That our current joy can be marred at any time by more sorrowful dates that keep marching in.

There is no end, indeed, on this sad earth. 

The dates keep piling up and I can no longer keep up

The worst are the farewells that can only be marked as "thank you for what you were".

A week of training in Sapporo

This photo is of the inside of the front doors of OMF's
Hokkaido Centre (language and culture school
plus admin centre) which was built after we
graduated from langauge school.

I'm in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido—the northernmost main island of Japan. For me, Hokkaido is the place where I started my life in Japan, not the mysterious frozen island in the north that everyone in Japan "would like to visit one day". 

We spent our first 3½ years in Japan here, had our second son here, experienced four winters, and numerous other challenges, including having our son twice hospitalised in his first 14 months of life. So it's a place that can dredge up old, not-so-nice memories. 

But we have also attended numerous OMF conferences here. And have the great memory of doing our first camping-tour on this island (see one of my posts about that trip in 2013 here as we travelled in the northernmost part of the island). This is my second week-long training event up here. The other, though, was six years ago (feels like a life-time ago).

The training event I'm at is an OMF-developed training course called Project Timothy. It is part of a series of four designed to help people learn and grow in themselves and their ministry. This one is especially about gifting and looking at how God has working in and through our past to bring us to where we are now. Today we've been working on a very specific form of a life timeline. It's been rather challenging, but hopefully helpful. (I previously went on one of these courses in February 2016, in Bangkok, the one that focuses on Teams.)

The journey

On Saturday afternoon we finished Thrift Shop and I packed for my Hokkaido trip that evening. I really didn't feel like coming away, but as this was decided months ago, I went ahead, trusting that it was the right thing.

I left soon after church, catching the requisite three trains to get to the airport on the other side of the city. The photo above was the platform at my final change and quite confusing. Thankfully the station has made quite an effort to make sure people got on the right train! And yes, there was some English, or at least romaji rendering here (romaji being the use of roman alphabet to write Japanese).

The journey through the airport and the 1½ hr flight went well and then I met an OMF colleague and we travelled to the Hokkaido OMF guest home together on a bus. All very smooth and not as tiring as I'd expected. And I slept well Sunday night too, though I was a bit twitchy in the evening, being a bit people-worn and sharing a "flat" with three other ladies.

A luxury?

It's always a measure of hard and good to be away from home. I worked very hard the week before last to make sure that I was freed up to work at Thrift Shop last week and then come to this training. It was challenging, but feels good now to know that it's okay that I'm not attending to my usual responsibilities.

This week is a bit of a luxury, really. But possibly a very helpful luxury, to take time away from the usual daily grind to reflect on 40+ years of God working in my life to lead me to where I am today. I'm a reflector by nature, so this just plays to what I enjoy doing anyway!

During lunchtime I took a walk in the neighbourhood and snapped some iPhone photos. Tomorrow my post will be those photos, showing you a snapshot of now in this suburb of Sapporo, as well as some unique things about this city that has a climate unlike anything you find in any Australian city.

Thrift Shop finds

I'm already in Sapporo, but before I left I took photos of some of our Thrift Shop finds, because I know that there are a few people who really like it when I post them. So, without further ado:

This was found in free-shopping time. It's a really soft, stuffed "toy" that can be draped around the neck. I knew our youngest was looking for something really soft like the Minion he gave me for my birthday and so when I found this, I knew I was onto something. He loves it.

 More books. All these were free! And a beautiful furoshiki, a Japanese wrapping cloth (traditionally used instead of a bag), also free.

A portable art easel, for use during deputation presentations. You'll probably hear more about this later in the year.

Ice pack holder with a velcro strap for wrapping around limbs. For a sporting family, this will come in handy.

Free CDs.

This one I bought. I traditionally buy one puzzle for holidays, usually the Christmas holidays, but this year we won't be here for Christmas, so it will have to be for some other time, maybe summer next year.

Two friends who couldn't make it to Thrift Shop asked me for favours and I was able to deliver. No idea what Candy Land is, though...

My backpack has packed it in. I found a "new" one for 200 yen (AU$2.40). I used it to get to Sapporo today and it's passed the test.

I eyed off this necklace/earring set all week and when it hadn't been sold by the end, I was able to pick it up free. The other earrings were in a packet of earrings that cost me 150 yen. I pulled these out and re-sold the packet. I wore the earings today all day and they also pass the test.

I believe this was part of our youngest son's youth group costume. Following Thrift Shop they have a light competition as to who can come up with the wackiest costume sourced at Thrift Shop.

Two more parts of the costume.

And a couple of other shirts he found.

And finally, some beautiful notecards. I've got a specific use in mind for some of these in the next couple of months.

We definitely took more than we bought this year, which is a good thing (and some of the things like the above backpack and also a kitchen rug actually are just replacements for things that will be thrown out). It's so easy to accumulate too many things. Now that we're not moving out in June and potentially not even have anyone to sublet our place, the challenge to keep a lid on our junk goes up a notch. Moving is such an helpful thing for helping you figure out what you really do want and what really is not necessary.

From the depths of a Thrift Shop week

A quick post from the depths of CAJ's Thrift-Shop week (in photos).

These are the chief organisers of this year's Thrift Shop. Of course there are hundreds of volunteers not shown, we've just got more responsibility. This was what the "shop" looked like before shopping started this morning.

But back to Tuesday night, it was raining as I walked home after the initial set-up of the hardware (tables, racks etc.). I've walked this road more often this week than I usually do.

My job is the highfalutin sounding "Facilities Manger". It boils down to management of rubbish and signs. I've also kept an eye on traffic-flow (i.e. making sure that walkways are clear).

Here's some of the rubbish bags we've filled, plus a couple of other things.

Many signs! It's a temporary shop operated with a troop of volunteers. So we have what seems like hundreds of laminated signs that are easily put up and down and many of them are giving directions to the volunteers as well as the public.

Here's some of the views of the shop in pristine condition before shopping began this morning.

This is the "girls" aisle. Clothes on the left are separated into sizes.

 This is part of the men's section, with boys clothes in the background.

Toys: a very popular section.

A small "corner" for baby clothes.

On Wednesday afternoon I got a bit flat, so decided to spice things up a little with an Elmo hat someone donated for sale. Things got a little out of control with a few other Elmos from the toy department. It was worth it, hearing the giggles. There are a lot of these photos floating around now, lots of people wanted photos!

I haven't bought much, but did find some good books for only a dollar or so each.

Today was a gorgeous day. Thankfully, because it was the annual middle school science event. This year: egg drop. All the middle schoolers had to create a biodegradable container for an egg that got dropped from the third floor (or second, depending on how you number your floors). It was all quite scientific. You can see my husband here entering data about how long it took them to fall and whether or not the egg broke.

This time tomorrow Thrift Shop will all be over for another year. But we still have our hardest day ahead of us. Tomorrow the public is invited in (today was only CAJ and PTA members). It's four hours of frantic shopping (and "operating registers" for those of us doing that)! And when it's all over we get to clean the whole mess up and turn it back into a functioning gym! 

And I'm already tired! 

Gotta go and rest!

A towel in the mailbox

After you've lived in a country for a while, you get some repeat experiences, which is nice. So when I got a hand towel in the mailbox on Tuesday, I knew what was coming. 

It meant that a neighbour was having work done on their house. The towel is an upfront apology for any inconvenience the work might cause you. I presume the construction companies provide them as a usual part of their customer service.

And sure enough, the very next morning, as I was eating breakfast in my pjs, workmen started putting up scaffolding on the house directly behind ours.

Now our view of the house is obscured by fine netting.

There is satisfaction in understanding some of the unusual things about this "adopted" country.

Homesick for the Commonwealth

I was feeling a little more odd than usual as an Australian these last couple of weeks. The Gold Coast (a city down the coast from Brisbane) was hosting the Commonwealth Games.*

Most of the people we interact with locally have never heard of it. Shock! If you aren't from a "Commonwealth Nation" it's just not on your radar. That covers Americans, Japanese, Finns, Koreans, Filipinos, etc. I've even had to explain what it is to our boys. 

Even though I knew it was an event restricted to only Commonwealth Nations, it was an international event that was such a part of growing up in Australia (Brisbane hosted it in 1982 and we went to the closing ceremony) that it was a bit of a shock to find that many of my friends here have never even heard of it.

Ah, it makes me a little homesick (and usually homesickness isn't on my list of emotions at all these days). Especially when I've had almost no one to talk to about the games.

It was, therefore, a treat on Saturday to meet a new CAJ family—the mum grew up in South Africa. She knew about the Commonwealth Games and was shocked when she could talk about the sport of netball without explanation, till our American friend sitting nearby needed explanation. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this video by Netball America for an explanation, though I question the assertion that boys and girls/men and women can play on the same team. And this video for some play action from the games. I didn't know that the game actually originated in the US, at least according to the first video I've linked to here!) Netball—another big part of childhood as an Australian girl, but again, no one's heard of it! We do have one sports-mad Kiwi around who was in shock that Australia lost the final and that her country didn't even get a medal...but I digress.

As I watched my FB page fill up with photos of the games, I really wished I could have been there. Many of my friends went to at least one session.

Our son was. He was a volunteer last Wednesday as they prepared for the start of wrestling. He had to play the part of a wrestler, which included using the change rooms, doing two wrestles and "getting" a bronze medal! He also had a ticket to see live wrestling on Saturday.

I've seen this quote about on parenting:

Your heart . . .  walking around outside your body

It's true. Even though he's thousands of miiles away now, and we don't know what he's doing on a daily basis anywhere near as much. A part of my heart is still there. So I kind-of experience the games vicariously (though didn't get much of a "report" from our son).

We didn't get to see any live videos (for some reason media licences didn't consider Commonwealth citizens living in Japan), but mostly have seen a few articles and results. So, a bit of a downer, really. Not that we've had much time to be watching sports. I was, however, particularly pleased to realise that, unlike the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games has all their disabled athletes competing at the same time as the rest. Totally integrated, including the medal count. Love it!


Well, it's been too long between posts and this is a messy one. Sorry. I'm not sure, actually that you're going to get many posts from me between now and May. I've got CAJ's Thrift Shop starting this evening (runs till Saturday), then on Sunday I'm off to Hokkaido for a five-day workshop. Maybe some short, photo-heavy ones?


*What is the Commonwealth Games?

Nicknamed the Friendly Games, it is a four-yearly international event. It's been held since 1930. Here's Wikipedia's definition of the Commonwealth of Nations:

The Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of 53 member states that are mostly former territories of the British Empire.

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018) will welcome more than 6,600 athletes and team officials from 71 Commonwealth nations and territories. www.gc2018.com

The "Bobs" are back

Two years ago in spring we had a couple of birds take up residence in the bird house that our eldest son made in middle school. They laid a batch of eggs and hatched them. But once the babies were able to fly we rarely saw the family again, actually we never saw the babies, though we could hear them. 

We wondered if they'd come back the next year, but they didn't. However this year we have the same species of bird back again. Thanks to my blog (see here), I can tell you they are Parus Minors or Japanese Great Tits. For ease, we've nicknamed them the "Bobs" (from this fun song about fourteen animals with the special name of Bob).

I spent some time trying to capture them with my camera last Wednesday. Alas my lens doesn't have a great zoom, and the birds are so energetic and flighty that I ended up taking most of my photos through two layers of glass (having work to do, I didn't spend the whole day with the door open waiting for them).

My favourite: I captured one of the "Bobs" in flight!