We're grateful for international travel, even though it's discombobulating

Massive leaves in Singapore

It's been two weeks since I last wrote here, but it feels like a lot longer because of all the things that I've done in that time. July will also be a strange month, but I don't think it will be as hectic...for starters, we have no plane tickets booked for the month!

But we're glad to be in Australia for a bit now (till early August). We've already enjoyed spending in-person time with our younger two sons, with some close friends, and with our home church. We're not here because of any particular crisis or event, but rather, because we've "showed up" because we can. David's got a long summer break, and I work from home so I can be mobile. So we've seized the opportunity to be in Australia this month.

Singapore: tall buildings

Since I last wrote, we've had adventures in multiple airports and three countries, so it's hard to know what to write about all that. We've enjoyed the people we met and opportunities we've had. It's been several years since I've had the chance to go to other countries (other than Australia) and meet with colleagues serving in other places, so that was a good opportunity.

In Singapore we had a couple of days rest before coming back to Australia. We tried to do a bit of tourist stuff, but had failed to plan ahead and purchase a SIM card that would give us local rates, so it was challenging trying to get around. But we did get to see a bit, and got our heads around their trains (if not their buses). David had a cold—which I also got, but not until after we got to Australia—so that clipped our wings a little.

View from our hotel room in Singapore

One of the many stunning flowers 
in Singapore's botanical gardens:
the Showy medinilla or Rose grape.

Butterfly orchid

In some ways we feel at home in both Japan and Australia and south-east Asia isn't as strange to us as it was in the mid-90s when we both encountered it for the first time. Additionally, this visit to Australia hasn't been preceded by months of packing up and saying goodbyes, but it's still come with it's own "transition" stress. 

Last week we were very tired, yet still trying to "do stuff" like medical and optical appointments, and seeing our kids. And making mistakes. The biggest one was me determining, last Wednesday, that we could get together with our two younger sons to watch a locally famous footy match at one of their houses. Except I got the date wrong! The match isn't happening until tomorrow night...but no one questioned my wisdom (I had most of the details right and apparently am usually pretty reliable on facts). It wasn't until just before the usual starting time of the match that someone messaged to say I'd gotten the date wrong! Nonetheless it was a "happy mistake" and we enjoyed hanging out together for several hours—a new thing as we figure out how to visit our adult sons.

Moon orchid!

A good measure of how settled I am is my ability to manage menu planning and grocery shopping. As we're staying with friends, I'm not in charge of very much, but have planned to make or contribute to several meals or events in the coming days and today went shopping for some of that. It was messy, not at all efficient. The grocery store was my local for the year we last lived here and wasn't too overwhelming, but getting my head around planning has been a bit more challenging than I'd like to admit. Especially when you consider that I'm supposed to be back at work (working remotely this month), making various responsible editing and writing decisions!

This week, in addition to catching up on work that I haven't been able to attend to in the last fortnight, we have various appointments and times to catch up with family and a few others. We're enjoying this opportunity to spend the month here and looking forward to what else it brings.

Our pizza party (fake State of Origin party)

Loving Australia's gum trees and soft
end-of-winter-day light.

Wedding week (the short version)

On Saturday our eldest son got married. I have not been as close to a wedding since my own 27 years ago. It was a very special experience! 

We flew to Cairns (far north Queensland) on New Year's Day. It was a red-eye flight (this seems to be the most common flight from Japan to Australia, we haven't flown anything else in 20 years of flying from Japan to Queensland). We're getting too old for overnight flights! We arrived at our accommodation as the sun came up and slept most of the morning and into the afternoon. We slept again that night and drove four hours south to Townsville the next day.

Townsville is a coastal city of around 200,000 people. We've driven through there once, and had lunch there once. It was new territory! Our first meal in the city was with our son and his fiancé. Such joy! It's been six months since we saw him and this was just the fourth time to see them in person together.

The weekend was a quiet one, but I did get started on something I'd been pondering ever since they got engaged in late August: what was I going to wear to this summer wedding? I haven't been in a place where I could buy summer clothes, so this had had to wait (almost every girlfriend was asking me...). I had three friends on quick-dial to give me advice from change-room photos and I found a dress quickly in a most unexpected place. Our future daughter-in-law recommended a second-hand shop close to where we were staying and she was right, they had a large selection of classier outfits for amazing prices. 

On Sunday we had the joy of worshipping with the soon-to-be-married couple and meeting some of their precious church family.

Scrambling over rocks at Magnetic Island.

Monday we put on our tourist hats and caught the ferry out to Magnetic Island with our son. It was interesting to see an island I grew up knowing the name of, but never had any idea exactly where it was or what it looked like. It wasn't as touristy as I'd expected. The buses also didn't run as often as we'd expected them to, so we got stranded for a while in the middle of the day. Lots of "shoulda's" but it all turned out in the end. The day ended back in Townsville with a casual meal with our son and his fiancé. We lingered a long time in conversation after the meal, it was a night we didn't really want to end. We've not spent much in-person time with our new daughter-in-law, but we're growing to love her!

Tuesday was quiet. We took a walk along the Ross River, and also did a little more shopping, and I found low-priced accessories to go with my dress.

Wednesday was a work day and the start of the influx of the rest of our family into Townsville. We helped decorate the church for Saturday. David worked on chair-shifting and high-strung auditorium decorations. I ironed tablecloths and curtains for several hours. My parents arrived mid-morning in their motorhome (yes, the one we drove around Tassie) and helped out for a bit too. It was tiring, but a great day to meet more of the young couple's biological and church family.

Thursday we met my own mother-in-law and then late at night welcomed our younger two sons at the airport. We also had coffee with the senior pastor of the church—he and his wife have a special part to play in the story of the young couple, so it was good to have a brief time with him.

Friday was the day for meals and hospitality. We had breakfast as a family of six for the first time: us, our three sons, and soon to be daughter-in-law. I'm glad for the advice from an older friend to lock in this event. Then we hung out with our younger sons for the rest of the day. Took them shopping, had lunch, and played host to another wedding guest. Dinner was a BYO picnic on The Strand (park on the coast in the centre of the city) with our wider family who had joined us in Townsville by then. It was also a worthwhile time to spend together before things got a bit more formal the next day.

Saturday morning was quiet, thankfully, and then the wedding at 3, coffee with family and friends at a nearby coffee shop while we waited for the couple to return from their photoshoot, and reception at 6.30.

That's a short one-sentence paragraph! It was a beautiful, simple, God-honouring ceremony. I was nervous beforehand, but didn't cry. David, however, lost it twice—once while the bride was walking up the aisle and again as he prayed on the platform for the newly married couple.

The Bridal table at the reception. 

There were lots of family photos afterwards: thankfully all inside in air conditioning. I definitely underestimated how busy it would be. I didn't have a pocket, so kept having to give my phone to others. And I didn't take many photos, but did get a few special ones, including a selfie with the bride and groom.

We left at 5 for a local coffee shop with family and a couple of friends. While we were gone key people transformed the church into a reception venue with stunning fairy lights surrounding a dance floor. This was no small feat—the church is a former gym, complete with exposed steel beams and basketball hoops. But it was gorgeous. I'm looking forward to seeing more photos from others; again I didn't take many.

The most unexpected element of the evening was the dancing. First of all, I ended up dancing with my son after their first dance. The song they were dancing to repeated, so on the spur of the moment he grabbed me and she got her father. No practice...just shuffling around together and saying precious things. But later the dancing got a lot more wild, including the Macarena! Most of the guests ended up dancing, and for the first time in my life I was on a dance floor with both my sisters (and my mum shooting evidence). It was a lot of fun after all the serious planning and logistics.

It's no secret to those who know me well that I love a good, deep conversation. One of the best conversations I had the whole week was on the day after the wedding. I had some things that needed to get to our son and daughter-in-law's house before we left the city (and country), and ended up giving them to the pastor's wife. We had a very special, short conversation before the service which will continue to give me a lot of joy. Our son is far from us, but, as well as a beautiful new wife, he has people nearby who love him and understand him well.

We're now back in Japan, after a day and a half of travel, but like Mary, the mother of Jesus, I have many things to treasure and ponder in my heart (Luke 2:19).

'Twas the week before Christmas

I did my usual Monday grocery shop this week and was a little overwhelmed by the crowds. It was hard to get a park in the huge carpark under our local shopping centre (there are more than 3,000 car parks at the centre, the majority of them are undercover). And in the grocery store itself there were lots of people "hunting in packs" and more notable were those who looked like they'd been at it for a long time: their trolleys were full to overflowing, they held long lists, their eyes were bleary, and occasionally they could be heard on the phone consulting other important parties. It was pretty crazy.

'Twas the week before Christmas, 
when all through the mall,  
shoppers descended like a mad summer squall 

—penned by David Marshall, Dec '23

Because we're about to travel and be guests of our parents, I wasn't buying much, but I know our mums are probably stressed about all this, just as these (mostly) women appeared to be. I hope that we will be able to be gracious guests and not cause too much trouble!

But really, what I want for Christmas is not the "perfect" meal or decorations or presents, I just want to honour our families by spending time with them, some of whom we haven't seen for more than five years. We put so much emphasis on making this celebration "just right" that we can easily forget the more important things.

Obviously, as a woman of Christian faith, the most important thing to me is that we're remembering that this is about Jesus, the son of God, the miracle that God came to earth to be one of us. Without that event, this celebration would never have started. Unfortunately, as we all know, in many places, he's completely forgotten, overtaken by many other aspects of the season. And even those of us who are Christians can let the general fervour and busyness of the season overtake the meaning of the story that has grown a little too familiar to us.

A bit of a blurry photo of the outdoor
carols service that our eldest son's church
ran for their community. He's on the guitar
on the left of the picture. It was fun to join in
this and encouraging to hear the origin
story of the season told clearly.

But I think it's also a great time to celebrate what else God's given us. For many of us that includes family and friends. I'm thankful for being able to be physically with family this year. It's a great time to get together and be thankful (Australians, especially, without any culture of thanksgiving celebrations separate to Christmas). It's also wonderful time to gather with our communities, with "our people", and be thankful for where we get to live and the people we get to do life with. To be filled with joy at the various fun things planned for this time of year, especially when we know life can be too full of pain and drudgery. 

It's a time of year when things get magnified: bad things can seem worse and small positive things can make a huge difference. Let's take time to acknowledge the good and the joy. And let's release some of those high expectations we have of ourselves and of others, be faster to apologise and to thank, and not so fast to criticise. Let's take pleasure in the small things.

Settling always takes longer than you think

We've already been in Australia for over two weeks and it's been really hard to find time to write! The most writing I did this week was our prayer letter, but finishing off a blog post was next on the agenda.

I wrote these few paragraphs 48 hours after we landed in Australia: 

I hesitate to write in the heat of the moment. Often a bit of time between an emotional experience and writing about it is helpful. But I also know that this new-to-Australia feeling will soon slip away and I’ll miss an opportunity to capture how fragile I feel when I’m newly back in the country. 

Yes, it’s less than a year since I left, but it feels much longer. I guess in part because the cumulative time we’ve been away is getting pretty big. Certainly the majority of my adult life has been now spent in Japan. 

Stepping back into Australia is not like coming home after a short holiday. It’s both familiar and unfamiliar. It’s scary and intriguing. I feel a little like an alien trying to read the cues so I don’t mess up. I look and sound like I belong (mostly), but that’s not what it feels like on the inside. One of our early stops is always a branch of our bank. We need to double check our memory of our PIN numbers is correct, and change our contact details. 

Believe it or not, it’s all a bit scary till you get back into the groove. (I’ll come back to this later in the post.)

We’re in Cairns for a few days rest before we plunge into life in south east Queensland. I have to give a plug for the staff at Bank of Queensland in town here. They were friendly and helpful, and not at all shocked by having these vagabond Aussies who’ve been living overseas and moving to Ipswich dropping in on them in Cairns.

Wednesday August 2

We're now almost completely moved into our house now, eight days after we first walked into the house. That's a great relief, as we've been living out of suitcases since mid June. (I think this was the day that we unpacked books onto a bookshelf…we don’t own many books here, but just having them out of boxes is a big step towards feeling like we’ve settled for the time being.)

Saturday Aug 5

Back to today. I’m sitting on our front deck (yes we have one!) It’s mid-winter and I’m in a t-shirt with a light flannie (flannelette or flannel shirt for the non-Aussies). Amazing weather, but pretty usual for this place. The forecast maximum today is 23 (about average for this week), it’s not quite that warm yet, but the sky is blue with a few fluffy white clouds and I can see a lot of trees from where I sit.

This suburb (Springfield Lakes) is fairly closely packed with houses. It’s a relatively new suburb and the blocks are much smaller than the average Australian block, but it feels comfortable to us. It’s not as crowded as Japan. There are footpaths and grassy verges everywhere. It’s a convenient location: very close to shops, the train station, cinemas, post office, bank, even a free public pool. But it’s also very suburban and relatively quiet. Add to all that is a lot of parkland and footpaths through bushland and beside bodies of water.

We’re really happy with this location and with this house and so thankful that God provided us so quickly with a place to make our base for these 12 months. When we moved in last week, it was our sixth beds in July and we were very happy to stop.

Although we haven’t really stopped. We’ve stopped moving and stopped living out of suitcases and in a one-day-at-a-time mentality, but the act of settling into Australia has moved to a different level. Now we’re working on things like getting medical appointments, filling out forms for various reasons, proving our identity and our suitability for working with kids. And also working on young-adult-children type stuff like researching part-time jobs, uni Open days, getting Medicare cards for sons, etc. And gyms. Our youngest son is very keen to join a gym, and we’re doing what we can to help both of them feel settled, so this is a key piece. Up till now he’s had free access to a school gym, so paying to go to a not-so-cheap Australian gym is harder to swallow.

We also don’t have our own car yet. Thankfully our eldest son has lent us his car, but we’re actively searching for our own wheels. Car shopping is new, we haven’t done this in Australia for more than a quarter of a century. David is out this morning looking at used car lots, and yes, I decided to leave him to it and stay home!

This week also held OMF medicals, psychological debrief, driving an hour to meet my parents for lunch (they live 120 km or 1½ hrs away), and grocery shopping (which deserves another complete post). As well as dipping our toes back into ordinary church life: young adult Bible study for our son and ladies Bible study for me.

And that’s not even including the subplot of David’s work laptop simply stopping working just days before we left Japan and the saga of him trying to figure out what to do about that! Finally yesterday both his new laptop and the backup data arrived, so thankfully that distraction is nearly over.

But back to the idea that life back in Australia is a little scary at times. Not that we’re afraid, it’s just that most things take extra effort because none of it is familiar. It doesn’t take much to tip us into confusion. We’re also struggling to keep longer lists in our heads, resulting in frequent disorganized behaviour and amusement from those who are closest to us.

On Monday I went grocery shopping before I’d had my mid-morning coffee (the first coffee of the day). A bad idea at the best of times, but when I was planning to do my first big grocery shop for the household, it nearly undid me. I stood so long in one part of the huge cereal aisle that an employee asked if she could help me (and normally the employees there don’t speak to customer unless spoken to). Thankfully I managed to get enough food to last us through to yesterday, when I did a top-up shop (with coffee on board). 

It feels good to be getting back into my groove in the kitchen. This afternoon I’m planning to do my first baking in my new kitchen. I’m looking forward to that. It’s another sign that I’m starting to feel settled here.

This has turned into a long rambling post. But it’s probably fairly indicative of the sort of conversation you might have with me if you managed to pin me down anywhere for any length of time just now!

I have lots of other things I’d like to write about, but I’ll keep them for now. The debrief on Thursday with the psychologist challenged me to think about dreams I might be able to follow, or pastimes to pursue during this year when our time is more flexible. I think that writing is one. Usually my time is quite bound by editing deadlines, but I’m much more free from those these next 12 months. We’ll see what eventuates. But for the short-term, at least, I hope to be blogging more often.

Food, awkward conversations, and trust

I've had time to think about a lot of things. Here are some of them:

Providing food for an itinerant family (on a budget)

As I explained in my last post, we've been travelling around Queensland in the last month, sometimes with our own kitchen and sometimes with family (and the presumption that they will organise meals). Planning and grocery shopping has moved to a slightly higher challenge level. I've mostly stuck with the simple options, but trying to keep things healthy means not every night can be pies, pizza, or sausage rolls. Not to mention that I just get bored too easily. 

But cooking dinners without a pantry means you're often missing those important extras like salt, vinegar, or flour—the things I think of as staples, that you buy once every few months, but not for a flying visit of a few weeks. And as one who is not only on a budget but is averse to waste, it's not easy to come up with good meals for hungry young men (not to mention David and me).

Here are some of the evening meals I've ended up making:

• sausages and veggies
• chicken wraps
• bacon, eggs, and damper (like soda bread, it's quick wheat bread made with baking soda as a rising agent, not yeast)
• dry rub (garlic flavour) on chicken drumsticks, with rice and veggies
• BBQ (beef patties on bread rolls)
• Japanese curry (roux bought in shops)
• roast lamb

It's a mix of things that we enjoy about Australian food, plus some comfort food we're familiar with from home in Japan. It's worked fairly well, though I'm also dealing with the unfamiliar electric stove/hob. In Japan we use gas, and it's a quite a mental shift to go to electric again. Gas is just so fast! The stove top at our current abode is also complicated—I needed to pull out the instruction manual a couple of times! Plus, adjustments are needed due to the different types of equipment in a kitchen that's not my own, for example, where we are right now has a rice cooker (yay!) but no "rice" cup (180ml). Also there's no potato masher or big-sized tongs.

We're only in our own place until the end of this month. Then David and our youngest son go back to Japan. I'm here with our middle son for another six or so weeks, during which we'll be living with other people. That's going to provide different challenges, too, I'm sure. But at least they'll have a pantry with staples in it.

Spotting a missionary out of their “natural” habitat 

Have you ever spotted a missionary out of their "natural" habitat? We expect that missionaries are either in their country of service, doing what ever they do. Or if they are in their passport country, they will be doing home assignment. As we've met people during these last few weeks in Australia, we've answered questions that made us realise that our presence here is a surprise, or even a tad unsettling. We're not in Japan and nor are we doing deputation. "Here to see family" seems an acceptable answer, but "on holidays" is a bit strange, especially when we're in Brisbane (which isn't really a standard holiday destination). However, if someone is willing to stick around and ask good questions, I get to explain a little about the challenges we're facing in transitioning our middle son from high school in Japan to adult life in Australia and that this is one way that we're trying to help navigate that gap. 

I anticipate it's going to get more difficult to explain in August. Then I will be back at work, but will still be in Brisbane. I work from my home office in Tokyo, and will be doing the same here in Brisbane for a few weeks. That's definitely going to be a bit tricky to explain.

But I'm not the only missionary with our organisation working in Australia. Did you know that we have quite a lot of people who work here? Their work helps us stay in Japan, but also they help recruit others to join us. I imagine they often face this challenge in explaining their roles. I know that they struggle to find sufficient financial support (yes, they are supported by gifts from others, just like we are).

Trusting God

I'm also thinking about this. We've been given the gift of time away from work, but it's been harder to "be still" in the midst of that than I might have guessed. Being still and not being consumed with lots of to-dos means there's more time to think. And of course with that comes the thoughts about "bad things that could happen", especially surrounding our upcoming flights back to Japan. I woke up yesterday morning with that all running around in my head and it took a while to shake it off.

One tempting way to avoid getting stuck in that bad place is to fill up my schedule with lot of other things to entertain or distract. 

Another way is to focus on God's character and his all sufficiency. We're so tempted to rely on our own strength: "you've got this" is the classic. In reality we're very fragile and easily knocked over. There's so much that we simply don't have ultimately control over. Even if it looks like we do, things happen that show that that isn't truly the case.

I was reminded of Isaiah 40 yesterday, but also Job 38–42. Both passages remind us of how mighty God is, and how relatively small we are in comparison. Job said: 

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted" (42:2 NIV).

Paul wrote that the Lord said to him: “'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me" (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV).

And: "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5 ESV).

And Jeremiah prayed: "Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you" (Jer. 32:17 ESV). God responded, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?" (vs 27).

The Psalmist wrote: "Why are you cast down, O my soul and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God" (Ps. 42:11 ESV).

And these things are what I should be directing my thoughts to when I start dwelling on what could go wrong!

(Check out this article for more about El Shaddai, the all sufficient God.)

Meet David and Wendy

I've been thinking about this too, and our rough plan at this point is to take a picnic lunch to Rocks Riverside Park in Brisbane on Saturday 30th July, probably from around 11.30. If you're local and would like to join us, please do. To help locate us, I'll plan to wear my bright red jumper. We don't have any chairs, so we'll try to find a table somewhere.

Convenience stores: cultural differences

I did drive past at least one convenience store/service station, and have
a photo to prove it. Actually I think these sorts of combos are increasingly
common, at least in Brisbane I think I saw quite a few.

I need some help from you today. Convenience stores are very common in Japan. There are more than 50,000 of them, check out this article to bone up on the Japanese convenient store and their long list of services. They are so common that you can count on finding one within a short walk in urban areas. When travelling around the countryside we count on being able to fairly easily find one for lunch between campsites!

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours with my language exchange friends and they asked about convenience stores in Australia.

The difficulty is that not only are common in Japan, they provide many services beyond a quick place to grab a meal. It really is difficult to think of what they might compare to in Australia. Possibly service stations come the closest, though the range of food and services that your average Japanese convenience stores offer far exceeds the average Australian service station.

I had to admit to my friends that in the 15 days I spent in Australia I never once set foot in a convenience store, I can't actually remember the last time I went to an Australian convenience store. In fact I'm not even sure where the closest one was to where I was living. That was inconceivable to one of my Japanese friends who hasn't been to Australia for more than 20 years. 

One day in Brisbane I was on foot and looking for a place to have a mid-afternoon snack and had to think about where I might find something like that outside the large shopping centre in our neighbourhood. I ended up at a service station and bought a Magnum (on our list as a "missed food" from Australia, and one that can't be mailed!).

So here are my questions for you:

• Do you know where your closest convenience store is?
• Do you ever go to convenience stores?
• What would you buy at a convenience store (in Australia, or wherever you are outside of Japan)?
• If you're away from home and need to buy a small snack or "something to keep you going", where would you go to buy it?

Relatively pricey

When we first came to Japan in 2000 it was a significantly more expensive place to live compared to Australia. Since then prices haven't changed dramatically in Japan, but they have in Australia. 

Living away from Australia for large chunks of time puts the changes there into something like a time-capsule for us. When we return we notice the changes there more dramatically than those who have experienced them in small increments.

This last time we lived there (2014/15) we especially noticed how expensive going out to eat was compared to Japan. The fact that we now have much bigger boys who are much more hungry, doesn't help. But in Japan we can feed them a reasonable-size meal, not too unhealthy meal at a family-style restaurant for under 1,000 yen (or just over $11). I doubt that's possible in most places in Australia.

This article that the ABC published this week confirms what we know from experience: 

"So Australians have become richer, but Australia has become much more expensive. Japan has seen its income rise by far less, but prices haven't moved much at all."

So when we return in July, part of re-entry experience will be figuring out what a "good price" for common products are, as well as getting used to the fact that things just cost more. 

Yikes. I'm looking forward to shopping, yet I'm not looking forward to it either!

Long johns

Have you ever worn long johns? I hadn't, not before I came to live in Japan. Now they are my daily companion throughout most of December  and usually into March.

You can see in the photo how I survive winter in a non-centrally heated and poorly insulated Japanese house. Layering! Two pairs of socks, ugg boots, two layers on my legs (the black is the long johns). My boys are bemused, but I don't care. I do what I've got to do.

My first encounter with long johns was a surprise. We were visiting a potential supporting church in Canberra, Australia during winter in 2000, this was before we'd left for Japan or even been given permission to go. We had a young toddler at the time and were only just keeping things together as we did this travelling circus called deputation. 

A lady I'd never met grabbed me after church and asked me if I had long johns. I'm from Queensland, I'm not sure if I'd even seen long johns before. She said, "Let me buy you some." What?!? 

A stranger buying me long underwear . . . it was out of my comfort zone. But at the time we had no regular income so I wasn't about to say no to someone willing to buy me something I supposed I might need if I was going to study Japanese in a city where they have snow on the ground for almost half a year.

So we walked to a nearby shop and she bought me my first pair of long johns. We landed in Sapporo in December that year where temperatures dipped well below zero at night and barely made it above zero during the day. I was so glad of that spontaneous gift (it must have been spontaneous, surely, I really can't remember much about it).

Recently I discovered Heat Tech, a brand of winter clothing developed in Japan by UniQlo, an affordable clothing store here. It's great: not bulky, feels stylish, great colours (I have a teal shirt that could be under or over-wear) and dries quickly (definitely an issue on a cold, wet winter's day). The long johns don't look like underwear at all, more like tights or leggings. This season I've also bought a couple of their shirts and I'm tempted to buy socks too, but I already have a lot of socks in my wardrobe, so I think I'll wait.

Here's a short article about Heat Tech (please note there is a little bit of language you might find offensive), about how it was developed and what it's made of.

Tiny clothes

In addition to tiny streets they have tiny clothes in Japan. Which means of course that even average sized Westerners have to buy large sized clothes. 

These are the labels on two hoodies I own. One bought in Australia and one here. They are actually approximately the same size despite what the labels say! 

Needless to say this can be demoralizing when buying clothes. But I am thankful that I am short enough to buy clothes. I have expat friends who are too tall or whose feet are too big to shop at regular stores here. 

A year ago I was having reverse culture shock in finding that I fit into clothes much smaller than I remembered: http://mmuser.blogspot.jp/2014/08/culture-shock-while-clothes-shopping.html

35 yen margin

I was saved by only 35 yen today (about 40 cents). It's something that catches me every time I come back after an extended time in Australia.

Japan is a cash society. So all my daily transactions are in cash. I've never tried to pay for groceries with a plastic card, whereas in Australia I do that all the time. It's not unusual to carry more than 10,000 yen of cash (AUD$115) in my purse. 

I paid for 250 yen for coffee this afternoon with a 10,000 yen note! No problem.

But this morning I nearly ran out of cash in my purse. I stopped at three different shops for groceries this morning (hunting for capsicum), my last stop was our usual grocery store and the total of my bill was 35 yen under what I had on me. Phew! 

It wouldn't have been the first time that I'd run out of cash at that store. It's always embarrassing! (Here's a story from last time we came back, a double embarrassment that time as I went into the wrong house and called for my husband and his wallet.)

Another cash difference here is that not only do they not blink if you give them a large denomination note for a small purchase. Neither do they appear to mind if you root around for the exact change. It is easy to end up with too many one and five yen coins, so I usually try to use them as often as I can, even if it is, say a 2,543 yen purchase, I might give them 3 x 1,000 in notes, plus 3 yen, or 43 yen if I had it. No problem. I don't do this so often in Australia. But of course we don't have any one or two cent coins in Australia, so this isn't so much an issue.

It's always an adjustment to go either way. Going back to Australia I need to remember my pin number and how to sign my name! Lots of fun, keeping me on my toes.

Quirky bag a new favourite

We've had a few big days recently, catching up with more people, as well as continuing to tick off the boxes of things that need doing. Tomorrow I'll tell you about our debrief with the psychologist, well I won't tell you everything, but just a bit.

In the meantime here's a light post that won't take much to write (or read).

A couple of weeks ago I met a friend at a local cafe, it is run by the Salvation Army and next door to the cafe is a second-hand shop. After a delightful catch-up time I slipped over to quickly browse their current stock. 

This was an unexpected find, but I'm loving my new $5 bag! I can't tell if someone's made it out of a denim skirt, or if it was manufactured to be a bag. It looks like a legitimate skirt, in that it even has a size tag inside the band. The pockets are handy and the shoulder straps are a perfect length.

Grocery shopping gets harder

I love our walk-in pantry here. Pity it will soon
have to look as bare as this again.

Grocery shopping at this end of home assignment is tricky. I don't want to buy large refill bottles and only use a small portion of them. As it is we'll give a good amount of partly-used pantry and household items away in our last week. 

Shopping early on in our time in Australia, after I got over the re-entry culture shock, was fun. I could buy all sorts of things that I only dreamed about in Japan. We've enjoyed endless bread rolls, chutney, Mars Bars, BBQ sauce, Shapes, etc. Now it is trickier. 

More so, I think, than when we're leaving Japan. Japan specialises in small packets. That often drives me barmy as I'm catering for a hungry family of five. But when you only want a small amount of something because you're closing your kitchen down soon, it is great.

This morning I had to buy 50g of mustard power. That was the smallest amount I could buy. I doubt I'm going to use a quarter of that in under seven weeks.

The up side is that we can give this stuff away to people who will appreciate it. Our church family, several of whom live very close to the line each week.

In the meantime, I'm trying to be careful not to indulge. But it takes brainpower, and self-control. 

But grief also walks alongside me as I struggle to control my trolley in the long aisles. I'm going to have to walk away from these Australian delights soon. But it does help to remind myself that I was pretty happy in Japan without them (and a little thinner).

The significant endless roll

I pulled out this roll of wrapping paper this morning to wrap my mother's day present. My husband said, "Oh, the endless roll."

And he's right. It is the same paper we've wrapped all the birthday presents, Father's Day presents, and almost any other sort of present with all year. With one exception: we had one roll of Christmas-themed wrap.

To me it symbolises how temporary our year in Australia has been. We've lived simply. Not bought unnecessary things that would end up in storage next month. We've borrowed rather than buy. Made do, rather than buy. We're now preparing to give some more of our stuff away, including some presents we received for 21st birthday celebrations and our wedding (17 ½ yrs ago). Things that would probably have a place in our home if we were planning to make our home here in Australia in the near future, but we aren't.

It is different to the life we lead in Japan. There we have a greater sense of permanency, though we still try to live simply. Life as a missionary in a rented Japanese house forces restraint on you.

I seem to recall that if I were to get any more gadgets in my Tokyo kitchen (like a coffee maker), then I'd have to give something away just to fit it in my cupboards. Not that I have a large number of gadgets, but Japanese kitchens aren't built for storage. Mind you, I have a large kitchen by Japanese standards!

But we do have a whole drawer of wrapping paper.

Here we've borrowed camping chairs and sleeping bags. There, we've just bought three more of each (secondhand, to replace old ones we've outgrown).

Here we're giving away most of the few toys we own, because they will have been outgrown in three years time. There we have a lot of toys and games the boys are looking forward to being united with again, especially Lego.

Here we live with our suitcases in easy reach. There the suitcases are more inaccessible.

One day we'll return to live in Australia and then we'll invest more in material possessions. Just now, though, we're living with other people's things. Mostly we've not been able to choose much of what we live with here, it's been lent in response to an appeal for "the missionaries who are coming home". 

And it's been gratefully received. The cost of setting up a home just for a year would have been a waste of money. Storing all the furniture and all the other things that go into a home would have been prohibitive too.

Please don't get me wrong. We've had a comfortable year, an amazing year. It's just that every now and then something like a roll of wrapping paper reminds me that we're just temporarily here and that's affected our choices.

But again, I'm reminded of these verses: 

19-21 “Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being" (Matthew 6, The Message). 

So, heaven first, then (at present) Japan, and third comes Australia. Sounds weird, but put that way Japan is home just now, still a temporary home, but it feels slightly more permanent than Australia.

Doing shopping and stuff

This morning David and I had a "shopping date". We headed off to a shopping centre and attached a list of stuff that needed attending to. It was great to do this without the hinderance of children. We ended up shopping in parallel to each other, keeping in touch with which shops we were each at, but each doing our own thing. Stopping in the middle to have morning tea coffee/milkshake (our second for the week). I also came away with a skirt from Katies that was originally $59.95 for only $17, that was great too. A lovely productive morning!

This week has really been about settling back into preparing for the remaining five months. Our minds are turning back to Japan. It's brought into focus things that need preparing for/doing/buying before we go back to Japan. It's also meant a number of emails setting up appointments/making enquiries etc.

I spent a good number of hours putting together our prayer letter over the last two days too, which also produced a flurry of emails from folk who want to meet up with us in the coming months.

Some examples of things we've worked on this week:-

• made an optometrist appointment for one child
• enquired about some immunisation that our 15 y.o. missed and the medical centre didn't ring us about (though they said they would)
• enquired about making a psychologists appointment for debriefing
• sought the contact details of theOMF medical advisor for this area to talk about a referral the school in Japan requires
• found out David's timetable for this semester and trying to get our minds around how that will work with our one-car family
• arranged to get together with various people here in Brisbane over the next couple of months as well as in Canberra when we're there at the start of next month
• trying to get more details about our obligations in Canberra
• trying to line up a car for us to use in Canberra
• investigating courses in design and writing, thinking ahead to taking up my magazine editing role again
• David's been continuing preparation for the courses he's teaching later this month
• trying to line up a couple more church meetings
• shopping for remaining school supplies, new clothes/shoes for David and me, new sheets for some beds in Japan

Quite an array! It's good to be productive, I hate being bored.

Re-entry shock: party plans

Last night we pampered our feet. But I
had no idea that Body Shop not only
has retail outlets, but direct sales
consultants too.

Last night I went to a social night at church for women of the church. It turned out to be a party plan type thing (though there was no hard sell, mostly fun).

I've been to only a couple of Tupperware parties in my life. But since coming back to Australia 4 1/2 months ago I've been to Tupperware, Norwex party and now a Body Shop party last night. The latter two in the last week. I haven't bought a thing! My goal in each case was spending time with people, working on getting to know them better.

But here's the thing, it's a reverse culture shock problem for me because I had no idea how many Australian women are into these direct selling things. Both selling and buying. It's been quite an eye opener!

I wonder, do Japanese women do this?

Culture shock while clothes shopping

I spent this morning shopping in an Australian shopping centre. Most of that shock about that has worn off now. 

But I'm still a little shocked at the clothing sizes. In Japan I usually need to look for L or XL sizes (photo proves it). Here I'm buying 10s and 12s plus one 8 today, depending on the brand and how tight I'm happy to wear. These are probably M or even S sizes. That's a bit shocking, but a good shock! I'm not a large person, so to have to buy such apparently large sizes in Japan is a bit of an indignity.

I wasn't shopping for jeans or long pants today, but if I had that's when I would have run into difficulties in Australia for my legs are often shorter than the short-legged pants here. Whereas in Japan, when I can get pants that have the right waist size, are almost always a perfect length (see here for an example of shopping in Japan for trousers).

So, it was a joy to have the time to shop on my own this morning for clothes and now I have some new clothes to welcome spring. I took a couple of boys shopping this afternoon for a brief period at a second hand store, but that experience is probably best untold! The morning's session was far nicer.

Culture shock–grocery shopping

It is common for missionaries to talk about the re-entry culture shock of grocery shopping. Japan to Australia isn't as bad as from a country like the Philippines. Check out this missionary's photo comparisons:
http://www.djiboutijones.com/2014/08/culture-shock-in-pictures-grocery-shopping/

This is one of the stores I regularly shop at in Japan. There
are usually more bikes than cars in the "car"park.

Our experience isn't quite as stark, but it still is a challenge. To go from almost no choice on some things to large amounts of choice is hard. 


What makes it harder is that you actually "want it all". When we're in Japan there is food we miss. There is food we dream about. Choices we wish we had. Then, all of a sudden, we are presented with all the possibilities of our dreams. It is tempting to buy it all.

Then there is the financial challenge on a couple of fronts.
1. We're used to how much things cost in Japan, especially most groceries. We know what a good deal is and when something is too dear. We don't know that anymore in Australia. Not only are we not used to dealing with Australian currency any more, prices have changed while we were away. It is no longer clear what is a good price.

There are four aisles this long, way smaller than
a large supermarket in Australia. But then, they
don't stock everything I want. But they do have all
the regular things I need, so I'm happy.
The shopping trolleys are small too.

2. There are a lot of set-up costs involved in moving country. We had a lot of help  in setting up the large items in our house, and I mean stacks, to the point that we now have two microwaves, two vacuum cleaners, three printers, and seven mattresses in our house. Despite this we found ourselves reeling a little under the various other things that we needed to purchase, including school uniforms and books. Setting up the pantry has been an expensive deal too, even though I'm a cautious buyer. It's been important to me, because I know that a well set-up pantry will save us money in the long run. This is especially as I look at prices for take-away and restaurant meals in Australia and realise that feeding my hungry family of boys will really eat into our budget, if we rely on take-away meals too often.

Some people suggested early on that to deal with the stress of grocery stores I should go to smaller ones with less choice. Unfortunately those smaller stores are usually more expensive, which would have exacerbated the financial stress I was already feeling.

I'm not writing this to complain. We have enough. We have a lot more than some people in this country! I am very thankful. But I'm writing this as a portion of what my lengthy answer would be to the question: "How are you settling?"