Finishing up the year with joy

We've had some cold days and my office,
which gets no sun this time of year, is a 
chilly place. It's a bit hard to see, but in this
photo from Friday I had a blanket on my lap
and a heated mat under my feet, as
well as the electric heater behind me.

The last fortnight has been pretty hectic. First our first grandchild was born, then, before we'd had much time to process that, two days later we were neck-deep into running a wrestling meet at school, an intense, exhausting event.

And we really didn't stop from there. A usual full Sunday and then straight back into work for the next five days. Lots of good things, just not much breathing room in the middle. Thankfully we've remained healthy, school finished on Friday and then we had Saturday as a proper day off. 

This morning we had a visitor from the Australian OMF office–not something that we often have received in our years here, but it was a blessing to spend a few hours with this colleague who we'd barely met before today. 

This afternoon we're finishing off various home chores and a few editing/email matters for me too. Tomorrow afternoon we head to Australia to meet our new grandchild and fully immerse ourselves in that reality for 10 days or so. I guess I should do some packing soon too.

Wrestling meet admin fun. High-decibel, high-stress
workplace for 12 hours!

It's amazing to think we're coming up to nearly two years since our last child left home (in February). There'll be time for reflecting as I write my traditional last blog post for the year in a couple of weeks, but even now, as work starts to shut down for Christmas and New Year, I can't help but feel a little thoughtful. When talking with our visitor this morning, I said that we felt fairly content with how things were at present. He grabbed hold of that word "content" and was glad to hear it. And yes, it's true. We don't know what the future will hold, but for today, we're content in general with where things are at.

Yesterday David led the service at church. The theme was joy and David lead out with the fact that it was exactly (yesterday) 25 years since we first landed in Japan. [I also played the piano for worship, which was a real joy, because it's been a long time since I got to play Christmas music for worship in a church.] 

I realise that I'd shared about the anniversary in our prayer letter last month, but not here. Here is what I wrote in our prayer letter:

Here's the link to an article I wrote for our Australian OMF magazine about the anniversary: https://omf.org/au/one-day-at-a-time-25-years-in-japan/

We don't want your praise for this achievement, but I do want to share the story in a way that gives praise to God for sustaining us here this long. The reasons why people don't get to stay that long on the mission field are many and could easily have applied to us at several points in the last quarter of a century! We're thankful for the opportunities that we've had and the glory goes to God.

I'm not taking my computer with us tomorrow for this short time with our kids in Australia, so I may not get to write another blog post until after Christmas...though a short grandma-type post might be possible using my phone! In any case, I hope you have a blessed Christmas time with loved ones, whatever that looks like in your life.

P.S. And for those who asked: no, I will not be sharing our granddaughter's name or photo on this blog, just as I've never shared my kids names or photos in this public space.

Western Australia work trip

It's over a week since we arrived in Western Australia and a lot has happened. In addition to speaking at five formal meetings in the last week, we've met a handful of people over coffee/meals, as well as enjoying fellowship with our hosts. On top of that I've had three Zoom meetings with people in Japan (and other places).

Anyone who's been following us on social media will know we've been enjoying getting out and seeing some sights in this region too. We spent a few hours in Kings Park, time in Fremantle, and a day out on Rottnest Is, as well as several walks around our local area in western Perth/eastern Fremantle. We spent several hours at the Western Australia Maritime Museum too. Check out some photos at the end of this post!

To be guests has been a welcome break from being the ones in charge of the household and meals. This is the longest trip away from our kids that we've ever had in 24 years, and it's been quite enjoyable so far. When we left Queensland we were wondering if we had been wise in planning this trip. It hasn't quite looked like we'd imagined, but have had to trust God that he's had things planned that we couldn't see or imagine.

This coming week includes six more formal meetings, a couple of informal meetings, as well as being guest missionaries at a church camp before we fly back to Brisbane on Monday. I'm guessing I'll be pretty exhausted on Monday and Tuesday, and maybe even Wednesday next week!

Enjoy the following photos from this remote part of the world. I checked out that by finding some statistics. We're 4,328km from our home in Ipswich, Queensland. That would take us around 46 hours to drive, according to Google. It's around 110 miles less than the distance from Los Angeles to New York, but that trip would take around 41 hours (same source). For a European comparison, the distance is from approximately the top of Scotland to Athens, Greece. Perth is closer to Singapore and Jakarta than it is to the east coast of Australia.

One of these days, we're hoping to see more than just a tiny part of this giant state, just not this time. But a good rule to remember is to leave wanting to come back again some other time!

Perth: old and new, like many cities.

View of the Swan River from King's Park.

Another angle of the park with the river in the background.

This young magpie wasn't bothered by me or the reversing car on our driveway.

Black swans on a local lake.

Our national flower: the Golden Wattle.
This one had particularly large, vibrant flowers.

Australia 2,  the boat which famously won the America's Cup in 1983.
Located in the Western Australia Maritime Museum.

After wandering around Fremantle for a few hours we had a decadent afternoon tea.
This cake is called Death by Chocolate, and despite sharing it, we couldn't finish it.

Out on Rottnest Is. The colour of the sea was spectacular
all the way around the island. I used to associate colours
like this with tropical islands, but that's not true of Rottnest.

We had lunch with this view (180 degrees, actually), with almost
no one else around.

No private vehicles are allowed on the island, so if you're able,
bikes are the perfect way to see the sights. It seemed like every five minutes or so 
we were hopping off our bikes to check out a new scene. Stunning!

Quokkas are native to the island. The ones in the populated part of the island 
were quite bold, but we did see three in another part that were more timid.

Working: this group of around 50 people from two or three churches
 gathered on Friday night to hear about OMF and mission work in Japan.
They provided a yummy dinner too! It was a great evening, but I
came home exhausted!

Cliffs at Point Walter Reserve on the Swan River.

Cute shaded beach on the river. With my pale skin
a rare beach with shade is worthy of attention!

Life keeps me flexible

We're in the midst of wrestling again, after a hiatus of several years. Our last big year of wrestling was 2016-17. There have been bits and bobs of wrestling in the years since, but, for various reasons, neither of our younger two sons are as passionate about the sport as their big brother is. Plus there's been injury (and a pandemic!)—last season our youngest son only wrestled once before being sidelined by a concussion. This year he's a senior and has gone out for wrestling one last time. It's taken me a while to back into the roll of things. I've just looked back at some of the blog posts I wrote during our eldest son's high school wrestling career, and it was a very intense time. This doesn't feel as big, perhaps because wrestling isn't our youngest son's main sporting passion.

So tomorrow, for the first time in several years, I'm hopping on the team bus (before the sun comes up) and heading to a day-long wrestling meet at a US army base. The blog posts I read this morning reminded me of the friendships forged in the past at these meets, but sadly I don't think any of those people will be around tomorrow (at least none of the CAJ wrestling-parents from the past). We'll see what eventuates. At least David will be there!

Our son is the "heavy-weight" of the team, in the 215 lb (97 kg) weight class. He's been watching live wrestling since he was very young (he attended his first meet was when his big brother was in Grade 7 and he was in Grade 2). And he competed on and off since he was around 10, but never with such big guys! He's won twice this season already, so we'll see how he goes tomorrow, the last meet before Christmas.

Then on Sunday we've got a friend from my uni days coming to visit with her family. They are in church ministry in Australia, but they have a strong interest in mission. The weather is looking good, if a bit chilly, so, after church we're planning to head to my favourite big park (in our van) for a picnic. Monday is going to be a bear as we recover from all that! Tuesday and Wednesday next week are also big ones, with various meetings/responsibilities downtown.

In between all of that I've got some baking to do: fudge that people have ordered, snacks for Sunday and for the school's seniors (a once-a-month encouragement organised by the parents of the class), and a usual amount for our own family to snack on.

Holidays are coming up too: with some time in the mountains before Christmas, and then our eldest son is coming to visit for Christmas from Australia for the first time in 3 ½ years! I'm looking forward to the break, and have a few books lined up. I should probably pick up my cross-stitch again, I don't think I've touched it all year.

Meanwhile, I've got some editing to do before we go away, and some writing. I'm excited to have been asked to do a "small" writing project for our US office: a series of blog posts about preparing for home assignment. It's really helpful for me to have a background project like that to work on, one that doesn't have tight deadlines and multiple moving parts and people. Plus it's a project that engages my writing brain more than my editing brain—it's nice to be on the other side of the relationship sometimes, it keeps me limber.

Big weeks coming up

The first time my parents visited us.

Yesterday I went to the airport to get my parents. This is the third time they've visited Japan, in fact it is 14 years and one day since they first visited us in Japan.

The first time my parents visited we were living in
Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan.
We drove along the west coast of the island on an
incredible day where the sea was almost glass-like.
Great memories!

I don't go to the airport very often. It's a long way away from where we live, even though we live in Tokyo. I travelled through three prefectures yesterday. The airport isn't in Tokyo, it is out the other side in Chiba prefecture and we travelled back through the prefecture to the north of Tokyo called Saitama. The whole trip took six hours.

But it took them longer. They were up for nearly 24 hours. Australia is not as close as you think, once you factor in especially if you don't live close to an international airport. We were all pretty tuckered out by the end and a bit slow to get going this morning.

In order to blog I need my own quiet headspace to write. I can often manage it with just my family around (though I usually try to do it while they're all out of the house, at least for nine months of the year), however add two more people to the household and things get more hectic. Not to mention that it's been two years since I've seen them, so I want to spend time with them. So I won't be here that much in the next couple of weeks, but we do have some big events happening (that's why they're here):

26th (Friday): Middle school graduation (8th grade) for our middle son in the evening (along with a dinner for students and parents beforehand and dessert for everyone afterwards).
27th (Saturday): Parent-organised lunch at school for 8th graders and their extended families.
30th (Tuesday): Our eldest son's last assessment, which is a presentation that combines all the research he's done this year on a global issue: Gender Inequality in Sports. We're invited to this and he presents to a teacher panel who grade him.
31st (Wednesday): Parent-organised banquet for seniors and their parents. This one I've been very much involved in organising since September last year (I wrote a little bit about it here). It's a fancy affair and we'll have photos. I just hope it all goes well.
2nd (Friday): High school graduation for our eldest. Wow, I feel too young for this. During the week leading up to this our son also turns 18, officially an adult in his country of birth!
9th (Friday): School finishes for grades K - 11.

So I suspect that though I won't be here writing lots, I might be posting photos...

Sweet Potato Soup

I've been trying to cook ribs for three days! They're not something readily available in Japan, just a treat we get once in a while and usually from Costco. But these last three days have seen a bit of juggling with my weekly menu. 

I switched the meal I'd planned for Saturday with Friday's meal so as to give our Australian visitor from Taiwan a taste of Japan (we had Stir Fried Pork and Noodles or Yakisoba).  Then she ended up staying with us another night, but the meal (ribs) I'd planned for Saturday night wasn't big enough for six of us. So I switched the ribs with the meal I'd planned for tonight: Sweet Potato Soup. 

Finally we have the ribs on tonight, though I was distracted at the time they should have gone in the slow cooker (my preferred method of doing ribs), and we had to resort to baking them in the oven and probably finishing them off in the microwave for the sake of speed.

But back to last night's soup—it was delicious, if I may say so myself! Our guest asked for the recipe and so I wondered if others might like it too. It is very quick and easy not to mention filling and inexpensive. Dairy-heavy, though.

All the important ingredients are easily available in Japan, though coconut milk might take a little bit of hunting for it is easily bought when you see it and kept in a can on the shelf for when you need it.

My mum gave this to me as a cutting out of a newspaper some time ago. It's taken me some time to get around to adding it to our repertoire, but really I'm glad I have now.

Ingredients
750g sweet potato, peeled and chopped
2 tsp oil
1 med onion, chopped
2 tsp red curry paste (I didn't have any of this, so I used 2 tsp curry powder instead)
2 Tbspn lemon grass, chopped (I didn't have this either and didn't substitute anything for it)
2 cups milk (dairy or soy)
1 cup coconut milk (light, if you wish and have it available)
2 tsp fresh coriander, chopped (optional, I didn't use this)

Method
1. Place sweet potato in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until sweet potato is soft. Then discard cooking water.
2. Heat oil in a frypan. Sauté onion, curry paste/powder, and (optional) lemon grass until soft.
3. Remove from heat and add mixture to the cooked sweet potato. Add milk and coconut milk. Blend or process mixture until smooth and creamy.
4. Reheat but do not boil. Stir through fresh coriander, if you wish.
Serves 4.

I doubled this last night and it served five of us with leftovers (one boy doesn't like sweet potato, he had tinned chicken noodle soup).

Enjoy! (Sorry no photo, I didn't plan to blog about it and now the soup is gone.)

A different Saturday to the ones that have come before

After two months of Saturdays full of cross-country, it's been a bit different today to have nothing. We did have plans, though. 

Yesterday I took a couple of trains into the city to meet an OMF missionary who is here to help run training for our mission. She is an Aussie who works in Taiwan and has never been to Japan. Though her trip is short and very focused on the training (Mon to Fri), she wanted to experience a little bit of "real" Japan. She saw my post about my ride to the reservoir a few weeks ago she asked me if it would be possible for us to do that together. It just happened that that worked in beautifully with our schedule.  It also turned out that we had gorgeous weather for our ride.

This was one of the many small farms we passed along the way.

This is Christine, she's also an author, but has had books published, unlike me. It's been fun to hang out together, including a delightful picnic at the dam. We stopped along the way at various places where she wanted to take photos. It's fascinating to see our "home turf" through the eyes of an Australian who is familiar with Asia, but not specifically Japan.

The lake was sparkly! We rode further around it than I did last time, I think we probably rode about 30km. I met an elderly couple on the dam wall who looked at my heavy, dual-basketed bike and asked me where I'd ridden from. When I told them they were shocked. Japanese people generally only ride distances like that on road bikes or mountain bikes, not round-the-town, work-horse bikes.

The rest of the family had some plans too. Biggest one was buying new wrestling shoes for our youngest son who's about to embark on his middle school wrestling "career". He loves new stuff and is delighted by his bright new shoes. 

It's not easy to come down after a busy time, but I see November as an important refreshing time for us for the months to come. After November life just gets busier and busier as the school year rolls on (with a slight break for Christmas and New Year). It will be a slippery slope, especially as parents of a Senior, not to mention as parents of wrestler and track and field athletes.

Holiday plans for July

See that "pin" just south of the word Niigata, north
of Tokyo, that's where we're going. A whole new
area to explore, we've never been to this area of
Japan before. (The other pins represent other
places we've camped in the last five years.)

In the midst of this transition work, we're looking forward to holiday time we've planned in July in Japan. We're rushing back to Japan, but we don't land in the middle of work, we land in the middle of the summer holidays. 

School doesn't start till later in August and I've held off on taking back responsibilities at the magazine until then too. So we have some time to play and readjust to life in Japan! 

Good thing, because there isn't much time to relax on this side of departure. Though I am feeling a little more relaxed this week and have been able to take some reading time during the day! Or maybe that is, I'm making myself take reading time...

Anyway, here are our two planned get-aways in July.

1. My parents are visiting for 10 days soon after we get back. We're taking them to the some missionary chalets near lakes overlooking Mt Fuji. We've not been there before so it will be an adventure for us all.

2. After they leave, but before the mammoth summer crowds hit their strides in August we're headed to the west coast (only 3 hrs north-west of Tokyo) to camp in the mountains, visit the beaches and missionary friends, plus enjoy a summer fireworks display.

Though organising the above has added to the list of things we've had to do before we leave here, it's good to have something fun to look forward to. And to the boys who are complaining that they don't want to go anywhere else besides "home" in Japan, we can say, "After we finish camping we'll have four weeks to sit at home and swelter in Tokyo before school starts."

"Just us" time

Early this morning we saw off David's mother to fly back to Australia. We enjoyed her visit — her fresh wonder at this place Japan and our "Japanese" lives that has become as familiar to us as an old cardigan. We don't "gaze and wonder" much anymore in our local area. It is amazing to have someone new come along and remind us of how different our lives (or at least the superficial bits) really are to what they'd be if we were in Australia.

But it is also tiring to have all that "gazing and wondering" because, obviously as the local experts, we fill the role of "explanation givers" (even when we have no idea of the right answer). That gets wearying.

So, now we are enjoying some "just us" time at home with no big agenda to fulfil. It feels a bit like a long-lost piece of clothing that was packed away many months ago and just now trying it on again is a bit unfamiliar, yet comforting.

For most of the last two months we have been in other people's houses, or rolling along in a motor home with a tight agenda, or had someone in our house. And for the month before that We had little schedule, with the boys on holidays, but David and I still working (and not forgetting our camping adventures). Wow, no wonder I was feeling a little stressed. As a family we all enjoy routine, and there has been precious little of that over the last three months. Or if we did have a routine, it was stretched out of shape to accommodate other people as well. So, I've been feeling stretched. I'm ready to go back into shape, the regular shape of our non-holiday lives in Japan.

But I was happy to try something new yesterday, something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I tried my hand at making some tomato chutney. Earlier in the week I found some tomatoes for a cheap price and bought several kilos. I tried it using the slow cooker to reduce the heat in our house. Only problem was that it didn't boil off enough liquid so I needed to finish it off in a saucepan. But I still think the slow cooker was a good idea, because it reduced the amount of time I needed to use the hot stove. Next thing? To try to chutney out!

Guest post by my mother-in-law

Last year when we had visitors from Australia I asked them to write a guest blog post (see here from Evelyn and here from David). So now, as my mother-in-law's time with us draws to a close I asked her to write a little something too. Here are her impressions:


What can I say about my time in Japan with my family! 

A young grandma on the flying fox!

It has exceeded any expectations I might have had. To be able to actually have time with David, Wendy and their three boys and to share in their lives has been a tremendous experience. To me this has been the essence of my time here — what living in Japan is all about . . . sharing in people's daily lives. 

Now I have a wonderful vision of their home, their school, and most of all their walk with the Lord in whose presence I was able to be when I attended church with them all. Praise God indeed!

I would also mention my camping trip with them all — such a very close encounter, to enjoy the Japanese countryside, history and culture which is everywhere. Also the Adventure Trail, game of park golf, climbing step after step to visit waterfalls. 


Shall I mention shopping trips with Wendy, absolutely delightful. I have been so well looked after I am coming back!!



Well, after that rousing report, you'll all want to visit! Actually she's looked after us so well, you're definitely welcome back Mum! Next week we'll have to get back on the horse for various housekeeping matters like washing up, laundry, and vacuuming!

How hard can it be to get a conversation going?

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Friends who have two daughters. Actually, one of the daughters had lunch here earlier in the week and prompted this post. The dad is one of the most talkative men I think I've ever met. So it was interesting to see him interact with our boys and try to get some conversation out of them.

The easiest hits were the disgusting ones, like snot and toilet humour. Also sharing favourite jokes worked pretty well.

Harder were other attempts at conversation. The most memorable being this question, which he threw at our 12 y.o.:

"Tell me how your parents met."

Our son ummed and ahhhed. He had no idea. One of his brothers suggested we were at school together, but that isn't true (the truth is university, actually). So I threw a clue at them. I suggested that he could tell them the country where we first got to know each other well. Well, he knows a lot of countries and guessed and guessed and guessed . . . but he never guessed the right one: Indonesia.

It isn't that we are reluctant to talk about our romance or past, but who wants to hear? I suggested later as I said goodnight to our eldest, that when we are camping next week would be a good opportunity for us to tell them The Story. He quickly declined!

After that failure, our sole visiting incorrigible male asked, "What do you guys usually talk about at meals?" Well, that is just it. We struggle to get any decent kind of conversation going at all. Occasionally they surprise us, but usually not.

Tonight David was at the store a little late, getting last minute camping essentials (like a table), so I started dinner without him. I tried to get the boys to talk about what different things we'll have to do to get the campsite set-up. They offered a couple of useful suggestions, but within a couple of minutes of asking the question they were off down the path of, "We'll have to build a toilet . . . " Which I pointed out, wasn't true (the campsite has toilets and showers). But that didn't deter them, they were off down their favourite silly path of conversation and wouldn't easily turn back.

So I turned to my usual trick for helping them get through a meal without us fighting the whole way to have appropriate conversation. I picked up the Famous Five book and read the next two chapters.

One day . . . I live in hope!

Three more photographic memories

After yesterday's sad post, I don't know what to write today, except that we had a great family day today. Total opposite of yesterday. We played board games (in an air conditioned room, had discussions over dinner and went for a family bike ride with no complaints or arguing from anyone. Some of you must have been praying for us! Praise God for good days!

To fill in for my lack of words, I have some more photos from our visitors' time with us.

 

Our visitors spent quite a lot of time on the phone and on email dragging out of us what they could bring with them for us. We said, almost tongue in cheek, a cricket bat. Well they brought three!! Plus two sets of stumps! Oh, and heaps of Australian treats like Mars Bars, jelly snakes, Rice Bubbles, Weetbix, Turkish Delights etc.

We tried the cricket gear out in a local park:

And we travelled quite a lot of trains together. Our family have plastic cards that we just charge up periodically, but these were complicated to get for just a short time, especially for the kids. So we just helped our visitors buy tickets at every station!

One day we took a more "adult" day. Visiting some of the city centre. Both of these photos are in the centre of Tokyo. The green one is in the public part of the Emperor's Gardens. We hadn't been there before, but it is a lovely spot.

Some things I learnt from our visitors

When you live closely with other people you learn a lot about yourself and others.

In the last couple of weeks I've learned these things about us. (This is not meant as a criticism of our guests, it is just recognising that we are different to other people. That each family has their own style.)

• We live a pretty frugal life. Frugal in what we spend, eat and even how we spend our time (like watching TV, playing electronic games).
• The frugality extends to how we parent and what we allow our kids to do.
• Because we are frugal with our money we usually say no when a child asks for a treat. And so our children have learned generally not to ask. Only our eldest has an allowance, so we don't have many financial discussions with them. 
• Parenting three boys with an age spread of six years is quite different to parenting a "pigeon pair" separated only by two years.
• Our lives are fairly regulated. This is actually a comment that our visitors made about our family. This is a result of a number of factors: including children who dislike change and prefer routine; parents who are that way inclined to start with; the more children in a family the most potential for chaos reigns; and the next point contributes to this as well.
• We don't tolerate much whinging (whining) or debate. Our parenting isn't very collaborative (with the boys), as in we don't ask the boys opinions and discuss important decisions with them on an equal footing. Our older boys don't cope very well with lots of discussion, so if we are having a discussion we don't present many options and very often just tell them the decision.
• We are pretty strict about eating between meals.
• I'm less of a chatterbox than I was as a child. Is this because I have boys? On one occasion I sat with our visitors' daughter and did a jigsaw while waiting for dinner (someone else was serving it out). She prattled on and on about many things. I was tired and hungry and didn't say anything at all. Eventually she got a little exasperated and said, "Well, what are we going to talk about then?" I had no desire to talk at all...conditioned by living with guys?
• I have less tolerance for shopping than some women. I can shop, but I don't see it as a pastime and soon grow tired of it. 
• We try hard not to act like tourists most of the time. We've been trained to speak Japanese to Japanese. It was strange to see foreigners with little Japanese try to get along.
• Our diet is pretty healthy.
• Whether I believe it or not, I am fairly orderly and a planner.
• We've become more sensitive to others than Australians often are (not to say that our visitors were insensitive, just less aware than we are of what bothers Japanese). That is how Japanese manage in such a squishy society. They are very aware of the people around them and ready to react quickly if their behaviour is infringing on others or offending them.
• We are fairly fit as a family. Japanese life naturally incorporates more exercise: bikes, walking and trains (walking to trains and climbing the stairs in stations) are much more part of life for most Tokyoites than cars are.

Phew, that turned into a large list. There are probably other things too, but I think this is enough for one day. It is easy to see, when you write it down like that, that apart from the fact that we were very busy, blending two families with different styles in itself was exhausting!

Three photographic memories

After a text-heavy post yesterday, I thought I'd do something more photographic today.

 When we were up in Karuizawa, we had a "sparkler and fireworks" night of our own. Fireworks aren't illegal here. The cheap fireworks didn't work all that well, but the sparklers were a huge hit. That may have had something to do with the difficulty we had getting them to bed afterwards!

I had fun with the fireworks setting on our camera!

Walking at the volcano produced many climbing opportunities on strange larva formations. Unfortunately our "Eveready Bunny" (eldest son) led all the children on way too many climbs which was almost the undoing of our visitors' 9 year old.

We ate lunch at a road-side stall near a waterfall. One vendor was cooking these fish on a stick. He did have quite a lot who alive, waiting to be cooked. And he allowed the children to play with them – catching them in their hands. It kept the kids amused for a long time. Poor fish were probably pretty stressed, though, especially when one of the kids tried to catch five at the same time!

Feeding nine in a Japanese kitchen

Today I went back to the gym. Didn't in the least feel like doing so – the temperature hasn't dipped below 30 in our house for several days except when we dare to use our air con. One of the trainers commented that I'd been away for a couple of weeks and I told her of our visitors. Her first comment was, "Whoa, all that cooking, that's tough!" Or something equivalent to that in Japanese!

It was a bit of an exercise, cooking for nine in a Japanese kitchen. But I'm happy to say that it all went well and I had heaps of help. At times I had too many helpers for jobs. The thing that amazed me the most was that we still managed to have leftovers! It is in the back of my mind that we're close to entering more than a decade of teenage boys, so cooking for larger numbers was an interesting exercise.

In order to prepare for this event I drew up a schedule. There were so many ideas of what to do that it made sense to see how it fitted in the time available. Then I just added meals to the schedule. The meals were a little tricky. Not only did I need to look for meals that weren't hard and that kids who've never been in Japan might like, but I needed to keep in mind (as usual) that some things are expensive or hard to get. Like cheese and meat.

We had to extend our dining room table.

Here is what I ended up with:

They arrived Friday late.

Saturday: 

Lunch sandwhiches

Dinner nachos and salad

Sunday:

L: Noodles

D: Out with Japanese friends at a Japanese restaurant

Monday:

L: Convenience store picnic in the park (rice balls etc.)

D: Macaroni cheese (from scratch)

Tuesday:

Travel day to the mountains.

L: Buy on the run.

D: Hot dogs

Wednesday:

L: BYO Sandwich picnic at Volcano museum

D: Spaghetti Bolognaise (by our friends)

Thursday:

L: Buy lunch at roadside stall near famous waterfall

D: Yakisoba (Fried pork and noodles)

Friday:

L: Sandwiches for guys and kids and eat out for ladies who were shopping

D: Chicken wraps (by our friends)

Saturday:

L: Sandwich picnic at another waterfall after a walk

D: Left overs

Sunday:

L: Sandwiches

D: Japanese curry rice

Monday: (Tiny bit of shopping at outlet mall plus visiting the German Toy Museum and Children's Literature Museum)

Yakiniku restaurant

L: Yakiniku (restaurant – cooking our own meat at our tables before eating it with rice)

D: Pizza on tortillas using up leftovers

Tuesday:

Travel day and day at large park, Shinrin Park

L: Sandwiches

D: Udon restaurant (noodles)

Wednesday: (Tall building in the city plus the Imperial Palace)

L: Convenience store picnic in the city

D: Slow cooker meatballs on spaghetti plus left over macaroni cheese. This was a life saver because we came home late, exhausted and starving.

Thursday:

L: Sandwich picnic at Disney

D: Pizza and popcorn at Disney

Friday:

L: Sandwiches at home

D: Slow cooker Satay Chicken

Saturday:

L: Sandwiches

Our visitors left after lunch

I thought it was a pretty reasonable menu before we started. At least my kids would like it, so I figured others would probably too. 

However I didn't reason on such things as a dislike of sauce on pasta, on them never having had beans in mince (to help it go further) and a huge liking of cheese. We were shocked when their children piled on the grated cheese to their nachos. They were shocked when we vetoed that. Nice cheese is hard to get here (we usually buy it from Costco every few months or so), so we strictly ration it. That was something new to our friends – the rationing of cheese, but they put up with our limitations very well. 

I'm glad that I did a run of baking before they arrived because the children didn't really take to standard Japanese snacks well either. The brownies and other home baked goodies fared much better.

The other thing I didn't anticipate is that our children's appetites would be so dissimilar. My boys ate heaps more than their children did at main meals. That did help with producing left-overs, but I did tend to give them too large portions which caused problems sometimes at meals. It also meant I felt somewhat anxious that I couldn't give them food that they'd like and that they'd be hungry soon after the meal like my kids would be if they'd eaten that little.

Thankfully they brought quite a lot of cereal with them so that their children had food they liked for breakfast. And white bread with strawberry jam is readily available, so even if the offerings were unliked, there were alternatives.

Children and food! How it causes stress. Travelling with children has its own special difficulties, especially when you travel overseas. I remember when we first left for Japan and spent several weeks in Singapore when our eldest was only 18 months old. We spread Vegemite on almost everything in order to get him to eat something!

All in all, though, it went fairly well. Even the washing up, spread between four adults, wasn't a problem. We washed up about four or five times a day because of our sheer numbers and lack of space. But I do have to admit that I'm happy to be back to my five people to feed.

Green therapy

One of the things we really love about the place we often holiday in in Japan (a town called Karuizawa) is the beautiful green surroundings. A real balm to the soul after the concrete and asphalt of Tokyo. We took our visitors up there for a week and here is some of the green we saw.

Walking on a volcano

View from the volcano

One of the lanes in Karuizawa.

A local stream

David H. at a local waterfall.

A children's literature museum in the area.

Riding the streets of Karuizawa

Three of the four parents on a local walk.

Evelyn enjoying a local stream.

A local walk with our young female visitor dancing.

Our seven bedroom "mansion". The two families used both the upstairs and downstairs apartments of the OMF holiday house. Wonderful. The children enjoyed playing hide and seek here! We also did a trial set-up of our new tent in the front yard. Some of the children slept overnight in the tent.

On the way back to Tokyo – a view out of the car.