Checking in from Tokyo

 Yes, we really are in Tokyo now. I'm still pinching myself. It's been another huge week! Here's a summary:

Friday (19th): this time last week we were at Brisbane domestic airport, hoping we could still travel to Melbourne for a wedding. However, as you'll recall, there was a global IT crisis that affected Jetstar. We didn't get even as far as checking our luggage in and eventually, at 8pm they told us that we could "go home" and we'd be eligible for vouchers we could use on another flight. We were sad that we couldn't go through with our plan to celebrate our friend's marriage, but in the end it turned out to be a better plan to stay home.

Saturday (20th): Saturday became a much needed rest day. I had a headache much of the morning and stomach ache after lunch. These are pretty common "major transition symptoms" for me.

Sunday (21st): This also turned into an unexpected blessing, but it was a long day! Because we'd already said goodbye to (almost) everyone at our home church, we decided to attend our sons' church. Our eldest is moving to Townsville (today) and so it was his last Sunday there after 6 ½ years. It was a moving service, with his farewell as well as a speaker from Open Doors. The last hymn was "Take my life and let it be":

The only reason I didn't cry while singing that is because I was already emotionally exhausted. 

It was very special to be there at our son's farewell to the church. It was a bookend event: I was there at his first service when he was 18. We've seen him grow as a person so much in that time. Our whole family was at the service. Our youngest has been going there regularly since he started uni in February. Our middle son, who is newly licenced and has his own car now, drove himself to meet us there. It was a special morning.

The afternoon was also special. After lunch the guys came over to the place where we'd been based for the week of our move. We hung out, as we usually do on a Sunday. Playing online board games, chatting, and eating. Our hosts joined us for some of the time, and provided us with dinner. 

Saying goodbye to the guys was hard. But we finished well, final hugs were given, and good things were spoken. God has blessed us greatly.

Then I had to pull myself together enough to finalise packing and settle down to try to sleep. The latter I didn't do very well, and ended up with only about four hours shut-eye before we had to get up again.

Monday (22nd): flying day. We left at 5.45 am, with the air temperature 2C. It was a very smooth day all round. Even at the other end, we were out of the plane and through customs and immigration at a record speed. It took longer to find the place to get our Japanese eSIM access and activate that on our phones!

We were at our organisation's guesthome by around 8.30. I showered and then went looking for cold water to drink. The temperature outside at 9.30 was still around 30C. No cold water was in evidence, so I solved it in a Japanese way. I walked a short distance down the road (in shorts and tank top) and bought a bottle of cold water from a vending machine. It was kinda surreal!

Our apartment has a very narrow hallway.
The first thing the removalists did when
they arrived was erect these protective
barriers and floor covering.

Tuesday (23rd): We were up early again and borrowed a van from the guesthome to drive us and our five suitcases 50 km across town. It took about 1 ½ hrs on the "expressway"! City traffic!

We met three colleagues/friends and the removalists/movers at the place our stuff was stored. Then followed a usual kind of moving day. The difference probably was friends who came and stayed to help start the unpacking, to stock our fridge, and host us for dinner. It was a warm welcome in more than one way (daytime maximum around 37C), and helped to soothe the sadness at the goodbyes we'd just said in Australia.

In a weird quirk of timing, we discovered the owners of our former house in this city started demolishing it this very day, the same day we moved into our new apartment 300 m down the road!

Wednesday (24th): It was hard to know where to start this morning in our small apartment full of suitcases and boxes. I felt very shaky, though, so I started slow. We unpacked suitcases and located all our clothes. David got a few remaining boxes that were stored with friends and washed clothes. We opened more boxes, shifted some furniture around and gradually started to get an idea of how we want to use this new space.

It's a small kitchen (but pretty typical for Japan).
The motorhome had more bench/counter
space! It's a challenge to figure out
how to best utilise the space.

That afternoon, while we still had a car, we went on a "vision trip" to a Japanese homeware store, thinking about how to best supplement what we had in the space we have available. Of particular concern is that we have a much smaller kitchen than we previously did, so we've needed to problem solve about what we want/need and what's actually possible. We did grocery shopping and dropped the car off to the lady who was going to drive it back across Tokyo for us.

Thursday (25th): We moved some more furniture around this morning and got things into a something looking more homelike, including putting a tablecloth on our new table. It's amazing what a small thing like that can do for the look of a place. After lunch we rode to a nearby hardware/home store looking at more options for storage and other things like earthquake braces for tall furniture. I cooked our first dinner in the kitchen (a simple spaghetti bolognaise) and went for our first walk along the river.

This cupboard didn't come with shelving,
so we bought some. Japan has amazing
options for storage.

Looking more home-like. We've got a temporary
pantry/storage thing going with the bookcase.
The boxes on the floor behind the table are where
we'll put a kitchen island/cupboard.

Ice coffee break, amidst the boxes.

Friday (26th, today): Today our mission was to register our presence with the city, including our new address. That took longer than expected, but is done. We then went on an adventure to buy a new car. Three trains there (and back) and a bit of a walk, but it was another hot day so the travel was draining. But we have put the processes into place to buy a car, though we can't finalise that for three weeks (mostly due to public holidays and paperwork). On the way home we stopped by a Japanese friend's shop to say hi. She gave me back one of my plants that she's been taking care of for the year. I was shocked at how healthy it looked!

Important paperwork at the city office. I'm so thankful
David can manage this for us both.

Our new secondhand car. The secondhand car
market is much cheaper here than Australia!
We're looking forward to zipping around in
a much smaller vehicle (half the number of 
seatbelts to what we've driven throughout our
19 years in Tokyo).

My first plant made its way home to us! Looking so healthy too.

We have two places for plants that like lots of sun: first is this small
balcony (also for clothes drying).

This is the second place that gets southerly sun,
our lounge room and that windowsill is crying out
for some plants!

It's been a huge week. I'm glad to say that my physical symptoms of transition are settling down a bit. This blog post has run a bit long and I've run out of time to reflect much more on this week, but suffice to say, that it hardly seems like we left. We no longer have culture shock when we come here. This is one of the places we call home and because we've basically moved back to the same location we know where everything is in the community. It's weird, this time, though, with no children. Earlier in the week I went into a shop I've used for nearly 20 years and I kept seeing items that I would have bought in the past for our sons. Their presence in our lives here is all over our memories and activities. It's good and right that we've all moved on as a family, but it will be a process of adjustment for us all.

Thank you for your prayers and good wishes. I'll be back soon with more reflective thoughts. It's been a very practical couple of weeks full of huge change and it will take a while for my soul to properly catch up!