Our bathroom

This previous post with our house plan on it includes a room labelled "vanity room". This is a somewhat confusing label that Caroline picked up on, so today I'm blogging some photos to clarify that room. The room is located part-way up the stairs. You can just see in this photo taken from outside our bedroom door its location next to the bay-window. The door to the right and up a couple of stairs is a toilet door. I'll let you see in there another day (got to clean it first!).

It holds the vanity basin and mirror (on the left of this photo) plus the washing machine and dryer (above the washing machine). It is also the dressing/undressing room prior to entering the Japanese shower/bathroom (which are the yellow tiles you can see through the open door), which is a total wet-area.

This is the largest vanity basin and storage above and below the vanity basin that we've ever had in Japan. It is wonderful. Two or three people can even use the area at the same time. In our first apartment in Japan the washing machine and vanity basin were in the kitchen. In our last house the area was so narrow that it was hard to even have two adults standing in the room together.

Behind the mirrors are narrow shelves that hold all the stuff you need in a bathroom - toothbrushes, hair stuff, deodorant etc.

These rooms even have towel rails - a novelty for us in Japan. Usually we've hung towels from long wall-to-wall poles that I'll tell you about another day.

The Japanese bath/shower room is something amazing to behold. It also is large. Larger than any bathroom we've had before. That is something of a disappointment to me. I'd hoped for a smaller bathroom, not just because it is easier to clean, but because these high roofed shower rooms are hideously cold in winter. And this room is 2.83m (more than 9 feet) tall! I have to admit I am not totally excited about the colour either, but it does lend a cheery feel to the house.


A small explanation of Japanese bathing is in order. Japanese wash themselves off in a shower and then hop in a deep bath to relax. No soap or dirt goes into the bath as it is typically used by the whole family. We don't use this area in quite that fashion. When the boys were younger we bathed them (yes, soap and dirt) in the bath (ofuro it is called in Japanese). We're minimising the cleaning that that calls for and they are all showering now, occasionally relaxing in the bath after the dirt and soap is gone.

Water is expensive here, so we tend not to indulge in the deep, Japanese baths ourselves. I am not a bath-loving person myself so that doesn't bother me. Though it is a lovely thing in mid-winter to sink into a shoulder-deep hot bath and warm yourself up down to the bones!

I hope that clarifies that piece of our house plan for everyone.

Rascal's Hill

Today we went to one of our favourite places to play. It is a large park to the south of here, a good 25-45 minutes drive depending on the traffic. Its name is Koganei. It is the second largest park in Tokyo. Here is a map I picked up:

The place we always end up is called Rascal's Hill (that is what the sign says). It has a large number of different things for the children to play on. Our boys have referred to it as the "park with the tunnels" because the back-side of the hill with all the climbing stuff is covered with 1m high bushes which have had decades of children crawling and chasing through them. It is a rabbit warren of tunnels.

Today we were surprised to find very few people there. It is often quite crowded. Obviously people went elsewhere on a day that got close to 35 degrees. However there was plenty of shade to be had (the trees are magnificent and large) and a gentle breeze kept us from dying too badly from the heat.

And when it got too hot we could stand in front of this cool-wet-airblowing machine or buy cold drinks from the ever present vending machine.

But our boys were game for everything. They even rode bikes around the bike course for half an hour (cost us about $1.20 per bike to hire them).

Of course it was another piece of nostalgia. We've spent many a fun day here. By ourselves and with friends. No doubt we'll be back another day. We still have much to explore, there is an architectural museum, a eucalyptus "field", plum and cherry blossom trees, a bird sanctuary and a steam locomotive. We usually don't make it past "Rascal's Hill" but maybe one time we'll get to see some of the other wonders of this park.

House plan plus bedroom photos

Here is our house plan.

You've seen photos of down-stairs. Upstairs our room is "Bed 1" and the flowers are on the landing and in the bay window half-way up the stairs.

Over the coming days I'll put up more photos of the house from various angles. Today I've posted photos from our bedroom.


 
Out the window on the left of the first photo is where we go to hang out our washing. It is not a wide balcony, but quite functional for washing.

The wall is like a loose sandpaper. Kind of annoying for housekeeping, because it tends to shed!

Can you see where things are hanging from? This board has a gap behind it at the top from which hooks can be hung. Very useful as you don't really want to stick things into the wall.

The window coverings are the same as the ones in the lounge room. Wooden frames covered in paper. Thankfully on the outside of the house there are large window-sized metal shutters that slide into place and help us to sleep past the early sunrise (before 5am at present).

This style of room is called a "Washitsu" or Japanese style room. We call it a "Tatami room" which refers to the floor, a thick rice straw matting. Below is a close-up of the floor. It has a distinctive scent that takes a little time to get used to.

Tatami matting (cannot be lifted up for cleaning)

Then we have the cupboards along one wall. Deep Japanese cupboards designed to stack the bedding in during the day, but we're not using it for that, so there is lots of room for other things. Down the bottom on the right is our new linen cupboard, or part of it anyway. We found this lovely set of plastic drawers at a second hand shop and they are very useful. Japanese houses don't come with hanging space, but thankfully someone had previously put up rails inside the cupboards that we can use. The cupboard on the left has them too. I've taken it over and my sewing machine is in there too.

Quite a day

Lots of things happening today (despite me starting the day with low expectations).

Firstly we bought a car! It comes as a tiny surprise because we were bidding through a broker and staying in contact with him by phone and the internet. We bid Monday and Tuesday as well and nothing came of it, but today our bid won! So, we'll be proud owners of a Pearl White Nissan Serena next week (after all the paperwork goes through and the car is shipped up from somewhere south of here). Here is a photo of a Serena.

Secondly I went to the City Office on my own (something I'm generally reluctant to do, because it usually involves formal Japanese plus forms in Japanese - neither of which I'm good at) to do a minor job and it turned into a major one. We thought we'd done almost all the official paperwork necessary to settling back into Japan, but found one thing that hadn't been done. It relates to hospital insurance for the kids and involves a trip back to the City Office of our previous "city" for paperwork to retrieve to prove something or other. Anyway, not very exciting really, just more things to do.

After that language stretch, I did a little bit of shopping on the way home. I found a number of useful things, but my favourite find was probably this little chicken (timer). Now he might not be of great interest to you, but a replica of him was an integral part of our household before we went to Australia last year. He helped with discipline, told us how long we could take in the shower and even helped us cool our porridge down! We developed a wonderful affection for him.

He came on the aeroplane with us back to Australia, but we lost him at our first stop. We left him behind in our unit in Cairns and didn't notice until too late. The cleaner who found him thought it was a McDonald's toy and threw it out. Not happy. The timer we found to replace him totally lacked his charm and simplicity.

This afternoon David went on a paper chase. To sort out this morning's City Hall mess as well as jump through the hoops required to change the name on the car's registration. That is complicated here. It particularly involves proving that you have a designated parking space and requires an inspection plus several bits of paper to confirm it.

Meanwhile the boys went crazy at about 3pm, not having had the benefit of exercise like their parents. They ended up riding round and round and round our small block - for about half an hour. Complicated exercise is not required, obviously!

We finished off the day with the inaugural Family Movie Night complete with home-popped popcorn.

Quite a day. Quite a successful day. Quite a tiring day.

Hemmed in on all sides?

For anyone who is amazed that we're living in a house. Let me assure you that it is only just a house. It is very nearly attached to the dwellings beside it. Check out these photos. One from each side.

The third photo is out of a second floor window. You can see the street isn't far away either.







And from this fourth photos neither are we far from the houses behind us.

If we think about it, we could feel hemmed in, but we're fairly used to Tokyo living and it doesn't bother us too much. It would be far worse in an apartment. We've also had a year of "space therapy" in Australia. We're thankful that the inside of the house is quite adequate plus we are very close to CAJ where, once school starts, the boys can enjoy space to run and yell and climb.

Putting our roots down

This is the view when I walk out of my bedroom. On the weekend I spent some time outside braving the heat, humidity and mozzies (mosquitoes) to plant these flowers. With no front yard to speak of and only a tiny patch out the back, I felt some internal plants were the best thing. There is nothing like flowers in pots to cheer you up.

After seeing these, I turn left to head down the stairs and see the next view.

After I'd finished exerting myself I pondered the interesting fact that I'd done this less than 3 weeks after we arrived back in the country. We lived in Australia for 54 weeks without even going so far as to ponder buying pot plants. The only gardening we did there (in our new house with no garden) was to mow the lawn and pull weeds out of it.

Were we subconsciously not "putting our roots down" in Australia? Sounds a bit corny, but I wonder. When we got back to Australia we'd just "pulled up our roots" after four years of living in the same house. It had been painful. Arriving in Australia we knew that we planned to move back to Japan in 12 months (and thankfully God enabled us to do just that). I think it is quite reasonable to suggest that we tried not to put our roots down too deeply (not just in a gardening sense) in order to make the move back to Japan not quite so difficult. (Though it was difficult enough!)

Writing workshop

On Facebook the other day I encountered someone who follows this blog, but didn't know that I write. I've written a few times about writing: here and here and here. But it is probably about time I wrote again about my writing.

Four weeks today I am flying to Hong Kong for a week-long writing workshop run by our mission (OMF International). Actually it is billed as a Book-Writing Workshop. I am not writing or about to start writing a book, but I've been assured that that is okay. That it will be a place to "polish my God-given gift". However, they're not letting me get away with bludging (um, Aussie for "not doing much"). We've been give a number of pre-workshop assignments and pages of reading to do.

When I received the week's schedule the other day I went into mild panic for a short while because on two days they are giving us six hours of straight writing time. No talking allowed. Food will be provided, but it is basically eat as you work. My panic was over what on earth was I going to do with that time as I don't have a project ready to write about. My concern didn't last long. I realised that I do have a number of things on the back burner - stories that I told and retold during our year in Australia that could be turned into magazine articles or meditations. My goal was to get to these eventually, but looks like I'll be doing it sooner rather than later.

The facilities look great. Not at all what I've previously seen of Hong Kong.

I'm really looking forward to this, as hard as it will be to go away only three days after school starts. We're hoping David doesn't have too many after-school things to attend to and that if he does, someone will be found who can fill-in the gap of keeping an eye on our boys.

My tickets are booked. I'm about to venture on my first overseas trip all on my own! On Tuesday we have to pick up our Alien Registration cards. Really - that is how the Japanese translate it. Basically ID cards that foreign residents have to carry with them everywhere outside the house. Once we have those then we have to go to the Immigration Office (about 1.5 hrs drive) to apply for a re-entry visa. If I leave the country without this, then I'll lose my visa and not be able to return! Before I left Australia I truly didn't appreciate the freedom that a resident has within their own country. There are definitely more rules for foreigners.

I've been asked by various people what I am planning to do in Japan aside from being a Mum and wife. My plans included three prongs.

1. Occupational Therapy consulting at CAJ 
2. Assisting with editing the magazine Japan Harvest 
3. Freelance writing. 

Seems like I'm being thrust into working on at least one of these roles even faster than I'd imagined would happen.