Day 32: Montagu to Low Head

Sunset at Low Head

We enjoyed the peace and relative isolation of Montagu, but it was nice to get to a caravan park where we could have a good shower this day. 

On the way to Low Heads, near the mouth of the mighty Tamar River, we stopped at Ulverstone. David visited the library to print out a form our real estate needed signed and I visited yet another doctor.

Another beach, this one called “Buttons Beach”

I was not experiencing anything like the pain I had over Easter and all the nausea was gone, but I wasn’t convinced that the infection had completely gone as I still had some lingering pain and could feel a little bit of swelling. The doctor agreed and so I got a third course of antibiotics with a phone appointment to followup on Thursday. The doctor owned a motor home that he often takes to the mainland during winter (his wife hates the cold) and that helped with understanding of how transient we are at present.

 

We ate lunch and walked along the beach there—it would be a lovely spot to holiday with kids in warmer weather! We then drove another hour and a half east to the Tamar Valley, across the Batman Bridge, and north to George Town where we shopped and then took up residence in Low Heads Tourist Park. 

Day 15: Tomakin

This was a quiet day “at the beach”. We were staying in a caravan park that has reinvented itself as a holiday park, meaning most of the residents are either long term or sites rented long term as holiday “cottages”. 

We met one of them. A lady in her 50s who had lost her husband to motor neuron disease. They’d loved caravanning before he became ill and now he’s gone she’s not confident to travel about towing one on her own, but has instead bought one that’s situated onsite long term. And she loves coming there for a break.

We were there a few days before the Easter holidays so it was quiet, but they were expecting a full house over the weekend. Easter is a four-day long weekend in Australia and is known as very popular camping weekend. In early February David was working on booking places for us to stay and found it hard, even six weeks early. 

Tomakin is a small village that’s pretty seasonal. Many of the houses look like they’re holiday rental or owned as family holiday homes. 

We had a quiet day, doing laundry, tiny bit of grocery shopping, reading, and games. And in the late afternoon went for a walk down to the beach and into the mouth of the river. It was a lovely day and the walk included wonderful views, though I was finding pain increasingly playing a part of my day (and night) and this came to a head the next day, but you'll have to wait for that installation!

Splendid spring ride

I am pondering another deep post, but it's not fully written yet. In the meantime, I want to share with you some joy from my "romp" in the park today.

It's been my joy to ride to this park, and I've been doing it now for five-and-a-half years and am still so happy I made that discovery back in 2015.I haven't ridden there as often as I thought I might, but it's always worthwhile. Because I work from home, it's always good to get out, even to buy groceries. That's been even more the case in the last 13 months than in the past: I'm rarely getting out of the house during the day (aside from groceries and medical appointments). David and I are walking about three times a week, but that's usually after dark.

This time is my favourite time of year in Tokyo (April-May), the weather is often temperate and there are many, many flowers out. 

This is a small community garden I discovered last year. It was bursting with blooms.

Just outside one of the entrances to the park is a large business/home that flies a set of enormous carp flags at this time of year. It's for a traditional celebration of Children's Day in early May.

Entering the park at this time of year always takes my breath away. We don't live in as much of a concrete jungle as many imagine, but the overwhelming vibrancy of new green leaves as you enter the park gets me every time. Photos don't really capture the experience very well, unfortunately.

This park is full of wonderful mature trees like this.

I read a book for an hour with this view. It was delightfully serene much of the time. Thankfully I was pretty much ready to leave when the grass cutters started up nearby.

A particular attraction at this time in the year is the wisteria. We've got neighbours who have some of this hanging over several metres of their fence, but this is another level higher!

More trees!

On the way home I stopped at a fruit and veg store close to our station and took a road I don't normally travel. I found these radiant Bush lilies, that apparently love the shade (the road is between multi-storey buildings and doesn't get much sun).

This is all a part of a deliberate attempt to not just get exercise and enjoy the beautiful weather but do what Paul exhorted the Philippians to do:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (ch. 4 vs 8 , ESV).

 

Acquainted with grief

Another thing the psychologist asked me to think and write about was how Jesus was "acquainted with grief" (from Isaiah 53). She was suggesting that we can learn to not treat grief like an enemy, more like a friend. However, after pondering this, I think it's a better course to get to know the one who is acquainted with grief and has the capacity to heal us.

I found a good article pondering this (I have a theological issue with the second last sentence, but the rest is great): http://www.terynobrien.com/2014/04/10/jesus-man-sorrows-acquainted-grief/

This bench in Singapore reminded me of one of our loses this
year: a friend and missionary colleague who passed away
from brain cancer a few months ago. Her husband has
had a passion for photographing benches around the world,
in times past (when our boys were younger and more
willing to pose for my camera) we'd take "bench photos" and
send them to him.

Here are some quotes from the post:

He [Jesus] lived his life knowing that the people he loved and served and healed would someday turn on him. 

I am not alone. Jesus knows pain. He knows grief. He’s walked that road. He’s carried those burdens. And I can lean on Him when I get so,  so weary.

He’s the only One who can truly comfort the broken, the hurting, the grieving. . . Turn to the Messiah who is acquainted with grief and find healing in his nail-scarred embrace.

We are not alone. This secular world would like us to think that we are, that all we need is ourselves. But, deep down, most of us know that we need more than that. We usually end up reaching out to others and things that won't satisfy us in the long-term. Don't get me wrong, God's given us these people and things. It's not wrong to invest in relationships with others to help us through this life, it's just that they will never be able to meet all our needs. No matter how hard they try, they will fail (as will we, in relating to them).

The only one who won't is Jesus. Though it's not necessarily so easy to relate to him as it is to someone who is sitting across the table from you. I think becoming better acquainted with Jesus is a life-long task, one that I've got a lot more to learn about yet!

Scripture backs up the idea that Jesus will comfort us. I read the following last week:

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God" (2 Corinthians 1:2-4 NIV).

Followed by this later in the book of second Corinthians:

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (4:16-18).

That's our ongoing challenge: to keep lifting our eyes from the pain and ugliness of this world (and even from the beautiful and attractive) to our unseen God. It's a daily battle, and one that I doubt will be won by this flawed human this side of heaven.

Gifts with meaning

This is my Nozomi jewellery. By the way, it is
much harder to photograph jewellery than I thought!

This morning a 5.9 earthquake hit Osaka. You will probably have heard about it on the news. That's 550km from here, so we didn't feel it, but a few memories have been dredged up as a result. Yes, we live in an earthquake-prone country and news like this no longer surprises us. 

There is quiet relief that it didn't happen here this time, but sadness for those who have/are suffering. However, Japan is built for earth quakes and a 5.9 isn't a major problem for most people or structures. The news I've seen says three have died and over 200 injured. Electricity is off in many places and trains are still not running, There haven been fires and some walls/roofs have fallen. But I'm only telling you what I've read, and you have probably heard it or read it yourself.

Unique projects

However, I've been wanting to write about two social enterprises that were birthed from the level 9 earthquake that happened north of here near Sendai in 2011. These enterprises are similar to things you may have seen from much poorer countries than Japan: a group that provides employment for women, especially, and sells their goods. It's unusual to see it in Japan because this is such a wealthy country and most people can find employment if they want to.

But that changed after the triple disaster when so many people died (more than 15,000) and many livelihoods were also taken away. You can read about how these enterprises came about here: Nozomi Project and here: Megumi Project.

Nozomi sell jewellery created from broken pottery, they started with pottery that was left-over from the huge tsunami. Megumi up-cycle vintage kimonos into various gorgeous products.

I own jewellery from both groups.

These are my earrings from Megumi.

Here are two excellent articles about them from the Ethical Unicorn website: Nozomi Project and Megumi Project.

Here is a TEDx talk about Nozomi by one of the ladies instrumental in starting Nozomi (and, incidentally, she's a friend of mine).

A couple of months ago I flirted with the idea of bringing back some of this jewellry and selling it to interested people. It didn't take me long to realise I would have to wade through regulations about importing goods and also GST (Goods and Sales Tax). Sorry, I don't have the headspace or time, nor the inclination or motivation to deal with all that!

However, if you'd like to order something in the next day or two, you could have it sent to us (email me for a postal address) and we could bring it back in our luggage (though do check with them that they can get it to us by June 29). However, the reality is that postage within Japan for the Nozomi products is US$3 and worldwide is US$5, so you wouldn't be saving much! I do encourage you to get something from one of these projects, they are beautiful, quality products and have a unique story. 

Nozomi's meaningful tag line is "Beauty in Brokenness". I sent a gift to a friend from them and included with her gift was this: 

Nozomi is a social enterprise empowering women through the creating of beautiful accessories from broken pottery. Locally, Nozomi is providing jobs and community to women adversely affected by the 2011 tsunami. Globally, Nozomi is sending hope-filled pieces across the world as visible reminders that there really is beauty in brokenness.

A gift with a meaning. 

A Japanese hair cut

One of the things I didn't think about before coming to Japan was how it would be getting my hair cut by Japanese hairdressers.

For a long time my hair was long or medium, but pretty much all the same length, so I went long periods without haircuts (I admit to cutting my fringe myself to facilitate that). My main beef with hairdressers back then was that they invariably blow-dried my hair completely straight. To the point where my family were shocked. My hair isn't curly, but has a little bit of a wave in it . . . and I like it like that.

But now that my hair is short, it necessitates much more frequent trips to the hairdresser. I'm thankful that we've got cheap hairdressers in our area now. One hair cut costs under AU$20.

Most of the time I'm happy with the result, or at least satisfied. But last time I was not. Usually I have to "fight" with the hairdresser to get them to cut off enough, but last time even after some "fight" she still barely did more than a tidy up. So I was back there today after only about five weeks!

And it was only today that I realised that they expect that you'll be back in a few of weeks for another centimetre off your hair.  Asking them to take more off is akin to asking them to halve their profit margin (which I imagine is pretty slim anyway).

Today the hairdresser I got was refreshingly straight to the point. After I said I wanted two to three centimetres off, he asked, "So, you won't be coming back for two to three months?" Thankfully he was fine with it and did a good job (though was a little rough with the ears). I'm about as happy as I get with my hair straight after a haircut (and before I wash and style myself). 

Being unwilling to spend over an hour and much more than AU$20 on a haircut, I'll have to continue to try my luck at getting a decent cut, but be willing to "fight" for more off and if I don't get it, just go back for another cut a bit sooner!

I do wonder how strange Japanese hairdressers find it to cut my hair. I haven't had many comments, though I know my hair is finer than they are used to handling. Certainly the blow-dry-it-till-it-is-as-straight-as-Japanese-hair betrayed how little they'd seen of non-Asian hair. I did have one ask if I coloured my hair and was surprised to find that this is my natural hair colour. I guess they don't ask that now, because there are plenty of grey hairs to prove that it isn't coloured.

Our weekend away Part 2

I have way too many Mt Fuji photos from the weekend! It really is a photogenic mountain. Much like when we were at Uluru (Ayers Rock, the enormous rock in the middle of Australia), it was hard not to keep snapping photos as the light changed.

We saw two sunsets from different vantage points and I saw one sunrise also. Here are my best shots:

Sunset on the first night

Sunrise the next morning. There were a lot of cars in the carpark, but not so many people at this viewing point 80m or so from our cabin. I'm thinking most of the viewers climbed the nearby peak in the dark and watched from there. We climbed the peak too, but quite a bit later in the morning.

The path up the nearby peak. It wasn't all as wide and smooth as this, but as far as mountain climbing goes, we had it pretty easy. It was about 30 minutes up and 30 minutes back.

With amazing views from the top! Australians are used to wide blue skies, but it isn't so common when you live in Japan. The horizon is something we rarely see from ground level in Tokyo and certainly not "wide skies".

This is the little bay and town (Heda) that we drove down to and had a delicious seafood lunch at. We watched the sun set from the other side of that little peninsula (the one with the beach). The next photos are from that vantage point.

Looking back at the mountains and Heda town.

This one is one of my favourites, I think.

A mid-autumm camping trip

Last time we packed up our camping gear in July we wondered if we would have another chance to camp before we go to Australia next year. And, we threw away our big, well-used tent, because it had too many holes to mend. We bought another, smaller one, because we thought the chance of the five of us all camping together in Japan again soon was slim. But then we realised that there was this weekend in October, with no cross-country meet and two full days off school with no responsibilities. So we decided to run away for rare mid-autumn camping trip.

However, this tent trial showed us that the new (secondhand) tent we'd bought was in good shape, but too small for five to sleep in comfort. We did have a second tent, but the tent trial showed us it was actually in really bad nick and also had to be thrown out.

So, for this trip we have borrowed a large tent which is similar in size to what we've used before. 

We're also going camping with friends this time. This is our third camping trip with these friends, we really enjoy camping with them. It's really great to camp with others sometimes. Here are some reasons why:

1. Even if our children are not exactly the same ages, they'll help entertain one another, which (hopefully) frees up the adults to relax.
2. Cooking and washing up gets shared, so there feels like there's less work.
3. It's great fellowship time. In the busyness of life, it isn't easy to find time to sit and be with others. Camping provides that time (as long as you don't try to overachieve by cramming your schedule full or camping for too short a time).
4. And the secret ingredient: it helps us all to be on better behaviour! Adding in not-family, and people step their game up a little (not pointing any fingers to any teenagers here...).

Maybe you've guessed, but we've pretty much decided that camping at the end of November is too difficult with the gear we have. It's too cold. We've been there and done it, and I think the snow at last year's late November camp did our resolve in on this family tradition. It makes for good memories, and we've called a halt to making more such family memories!

This will be a new campsite for us in a newish area for us. Yay, another chance to explore a different part of this gorgeous country. It's a bit further down the valley than the camps we did in November for a few years, so should be beautiful. But instead of being on the side of a mountain, it's on a highland area, about 1,200m above sea level. Thankfully the weather forecast is showing dry and fairly warm temperatures (low 20Cs during the day and low double figures at night). So I will be packing warm clothes, but it won't be extremely cold.

We're leaving after church on Sunday and will be back on Tuesday, so keep your eyes peeled for a post mid-next week to see how it all went.

Nature refreshes

Through these trees you can just glimpse a river (which isn't
 that pretty, it's banks are reinforced with concrete)
and a train platform.

Someone said to me today, "You look tired. Are you okay?"

Same tree, swivelled a little to the left to capture the context. This is a busy
place. The building is a medical university. Just beyond the tree on the same
side of the road as the tree is the entrance to another train station. Lots of
people move through this area every day. It's a delight to have these
enormous trees brighten the journey.

I feel tired. There's a lot of reasons for that, it's normal at this stage in the school-year cycle for us, but of course we've had grief in the last couple of months to deal with. At the OMF prayer meeting I went to today a counsellor talked about building resiliency in ourselves and in others. One of the things she mentioned was taking time to appreciate nature.

On my way home from the meeting (a four-train journey), I stopped for a moment to appreciate the beauty depicted in these photos. I didn't get the best photos. I was dragging a heavy suitcase and not inclined to muck around with getting the perfect position to snap a shot.

I feel a bit refreshed by seeing these, taking a photo, and now posting them for you to see. Not to mention, admitting my sadness and fatigue to you here, which apparently is another way of building resilience and coping with distress.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back to writing here on a regular basis. I've found it difficult to do that in the last 10 days.

Thursday Therapy

Yesterday was a bit of a "meh" day. Several reasons for that:

• I am waiting on several people to do things or get back to me on stuff. They all have reasons for the delay, but my to-do list was looking like a "wait-for-so-and-so" list.
• It was grey outside, and not as warm as it often is at this time of year. I'm longing for warmer weather. Longing to get out of jackets and long-johns.
• Linked to the above, the weather for our camping trip was looking cruddy. Rain, snow, sleet, all these were forecast for the whole three days and four nights. Ugh. We'd anticipated having an epic four-family camping trip with other CAJ-teacher-families. This has been in the planning since last November and yesterday's texting conversation between them all was about whether to go ahead with our plans, or to change, or cancel them. Depressing—as I was looking forward to this trip so much.
• I really don't like being a single parent, though it's been quite a bit easier this time than many times in the past (they're older and there's only two of them), I'm still missing my soul mate and partner in running this household. I'm getting tired. Yes, these guys are at school all day, but I'm still doing "parenting stuff" at 9.30/10pm at night, past my "Cinderella Hour" and it wears me out when I can't share this. As always, my respect for single parents shoots through the roof!

However, I'd put "ride to the park" on the calendar for yesterday two weeks ago, so I forced myself out of the house and rode. Thankfully, the clouds cleared a little while I was out and there were shadows, even full sun for a bit. It was definitely good for me. 

Every day this week I've taken some "me" time during the day. 

• Monday I spent time with other parents at two prayer meetings and over lunch (this was organised by someone else and was very enjoyable social time).
• Tuesday I had a massage (yes, I do this, it is a maintenance thing, but it isn't weekly)
• Wednesday I had lunch with a friend who I haven't spent one-on-one time with for ages. It was great (unashamedly deep conversation), but too short due to unavoidable constraints on her time.
• Thursday I rode to the park.
• Friday I took lunch to a local friend who has three little ones. We also had wonderful, though understandably fragmented conversation.

I'm so thankful my work this week has given me the freedom to do this.

At the park I mostly rode around looking for signs of spring with my camera. The "major" cherry blossom trees aren't out yet, but they're very close. There were a few other trees who had a chance to shine, though. Here are some of my better captures:

A type of early blooming cherry blossom. Sorry, don't know which kind.

Magnolia. Not as spectacular, but still gorgeous after months of nude trees.

I need to work harder on getting my depth of field right (camera setting), but this was an intriguing tree called a Sanshuyu mizuki (I know this because many trees in this park have labels) or an Asiatic dogwood (which I know because of my awesome Japanese-English app).

This one is slightly better.

This tree is called a Kibushi in Japanese. There doesn't seem to be a common English word for it, maybe an "Early Spiketail"? Or Stachyurus praecox, to use the official botanical name. Whatever it's called, it's pretty.

Just about to pop!

Not a lot was blooming, but there were an awful lot of buds on the trees. Next week will be glorious, if it isn't raining!

I dared to have my camera out for a short part of my ride home (it still makes me nervous to have this equipment hanging around my neck when I'm on a bike), and I captured (but not very well, my focus was too close to me) one of my favourite things at this time of year: the pink of sakura just poking out in an unexpected place.