Our nine-day adventure

Our journey. We visited all the named places,
but only slept in Toowoomba, Lake Cania,
Bundaberg and Sippy Downs. 

So, we've been away since the 3rd of April. Here's what we've been up to.

This map reckons we've driven 18 hrs, and over 1,300 km. Feels about that. I'm happy to be staying home most of this week!

We started out on my birthday. We attended church, the Good Friday service, at our home church then came home to pack the car for our journey.

Our stop for that night was Toowoomba, but we made a significant detour and spent the afternoon with friends at Lake Moogerah playing. Even though the weather was a bit inclement, it was fun. Our friends had adult-toys. Kayaks and a jet ski that towed a tube. Oh, they also produced a decadent mud-cake for my birthday, which pleased everyone!

I definitely felt my age after going out on the jet ski and getting stuck in weed. David and one of our sons found us and I borrowed a paddle to get us out of the weed. Jet skis are heavy!

I'm in the magenta board shorts.

That's me and my son just before we took off on the tube.

Then I jumped onto the tube with my oldest son and got towed around. I was not prepared for how difficult it would be to hang on. My hands and forearms grew tired quickly, to the point where I was flopping around like a dead fish. I should have just let go, but my stubborn nature rose to the surface again. In the end my son signalled to the driver and they stopped and allowed me to get on the jet ski.

We all had a lot of fun, though.

Then we drove to Toowoomba and had a party with my parents. Mum had bought a chocolate cheesecake for a cake. It was quite a day of celebration.

A table for sale. Yep, we're moving into the transition back to
Japan. This table I bought on lay-by when I first began
working as an OT. It is a bit small for us now. We're thankful
someone leant us a much bigger table for the year. But we've
also decided not to store the table anymore.
Anyone interested?

We caught up with several friends (couples and families) while in Toowoomba over Easter. On Tuesday we headed north to Cania Dam to meet David's sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, along with his mum and a friend of hers. We camped for three nights on a private property adjoining the dam.

The drive to Cania Dam took us through some lovely
bush on fairly quiet roads. 

This was near the dam wall, we paddled nearly 5kms
in canoes to get here. Thankfully my mother-in-law
drove with her friend and met us there. They brought the
lunch we'd prepared back at camp.

Lush grass at the dam. Yep, wrestling was
on the cards...

I took time to lie down before we paddled
back to camp. 

Relaxing after our mega paddle. Our camp fire was
situated in the yards and had a fantastic A-frame over it.
We enjoyed nearly four days of continuous camp fire! 

Here's another angle, over breakfast.

On our second full day camping we went walking in the
Cania Gorge National Park. Not hard walks,
but the destinations were intriguing rock formations.
The largest figure in this photo is my brother-in-law.
He's a farmer and it is rare for him to take four
days off for a holiday. It was great to see him relax
and enjoy being with family.

Large spider perched way above the walking
track. Would have been the size of my hand.

Mack the dog. 4 month old dog of our brother-in-law's.
He had as good a time as the people!

Closer photo of the camp fire.

This was the end of the last evening of
camping. We loved sitting around the fire.
The weather was cool enough at night for
the heat from the fire to be welcome.

I can't remember which of our journeys this was taken on,
but sometime between Bundaberg and Brisbane!

From camp, we drove to Bundaberg to spend 22hrs with friends who used to be missionaries in Japan. Their children are similar ages to our boys. It was a good catch-up time and a time of reminiscing.

Then we turned for home. Stopping near Buderim for the night so that we could get to Bribie Island for church on Sunday. At the church we did our usual spiel and David preached (which hasn't been such a usual event this time). Then we had lunch with some prayer supporters, ending up spending about six hours on the island. 

We packed ourselves into our 8-seater van for the last time on Bribie and drove straight home from there.

Three camping trips in our year in Australia. That's not bad for a family who only own a tent and no other camping equipment. We're very thankful to the three families who've lent us equipment over the year.

And, as usual, we're starting to think about our next camping trip. We're thinking about going away at the end of July in Japan before school starts, maybe to the west coast of the island.

The obvious question is: are we getting tired of all this "catching up with people" and travel? The answer is yes. It's been great to get around to see so many friends, family and supporters, but we are getting tired. We'll be glad to get back to Japan and retire to a less-social life!

I'm back...sort of

Someone noted that it's been quiet around here the last week. I'm glad she noticed. I haven't stopped blogging, just took a break to go away with my family for nine days. Combination family-holiday-meet people-deputation break. 

But now we're home again. I'm hoping to blog properly again from tomorrow. Nine days away, talking to people and thinking, gives me plenty to write about. But for now, some photos from our time away. 

Sunset at our campsite.

Cania Dam. We paddled a few k's on this.

Early morning mist disappearing.

A little further back of the same scene.

We didn't just camp, but they are mainly the photos I have.
We did see this beautiful rainbow as we drove home.

5 things we wish Japan had, maybe

Our living area heater. It does get pretty cold
and we heat only heat the rooms that we use,
but in our old house, the insulation is pretty
non-existent, so the heat tends to disappear
at an alarming rate.

You see lots of crazy lists on the internet. This one isn't bad. It's about five things that expats living in Japan wish, at times, that Japan had.

The list includes 

• larger sizes on shoes and clothes—I have some problems with the sizes in Japan, but not as much as some people because I'm the right height, see here.
• central heating/cooling

Advice for writers about editors

Some advice for writers and want-to-be writers about editors from a well-published author (he was writing about book publishing, but the same applies to magazines):

"Unless you sell a manuscript for a flat fee, any reputable publishing house will send you the changes they make on your manuscript. 

That also means it's truly a mutual arrangement. The editor suggests changes and you, as the author, have the right to reject or respond with a different wording.  

A word of caution here. Editors aren't your adversaries and they try to make it the best product possible. Try not to be defensive. Read the changes and ask yourself, "Does this improve the manuscript?" 

Remind yourself that once the book is printed, readers will think everything is your work."

From Cec Murphy's blog.

Exciting news in Japan

 Four years ago there was a disaster in Japan that is hard for us to forget. It's great to read OMF's news of what they're doing in a couple of the communities that were devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. (Sorry about the formatting here, I just couldn't get it to work and be legible. Maybe if I knew how to code...but my advice is to double click on the pages and you should be able to get them to a size to read).

That tricky "home" concept again!

While sprawled out in our lounge room the other day one of my sons said, "No long till we go home now."

Yep, 'home' is a tricky concept in our lives now.

Our local train station. Between 8 and 8.30 on school days
there are many CAJ students walking just here.

Yes it's good to be in Australia. But it is no longer 100% home for us. Neither is Japan, by the way! Now that's a little difficult to fathom if you haven't lived this lifestyle. If you've followed this blog any distance, you'll know it is a theme that comes out every now and then (see here).

Japan is more home to our boys than Australia than it is for us. They've grown up there, but we grew up here.

I had a conversation about this with a friend from uni days a couple of weeks ago. It was hard to define why, for our boys, Japan is more home than Australia, except to say that we've spent more time there than here in the last 14 years. That's the place they know better, even if they aren't totally integrated into Japanese society. In some ways the school they attend in Japan probably comes close to defining home for them. Strange, I know, but that is the case for many of the students at the school.

"Knights Castle" the CAJ playground where students love to
hang out, even big ones!

This was highlighted for me as I read this in the weekly newsletter from our boys' Australian school today:

Parents are asked to remind their students that they must depart the College immediately after the last bus leaves (except for College organised co-curricular activities) whether by foot, bus, parent or other transport.

It is a school very much built upon bus transport and the rest of the students usually get picked up by car. Probably quite a typical Australian school. You attend there during school hours, but don't hang around unnecessarily outside of that.

A bit of a dodgy photo, but this is the CAJ "oval". A place you'll find many concurrent games of soccer after school.

CAJ, our boys' Japan school, has a very different school culture. Many students use public transport, mostly trains. The school is only five minutes walk from the train station. Many others ride bikes or walk. Only a few are brought by car. But it is the before and after school culture that is even more noticeably different.

School finishes at 3.30 for everyone. I had to bribe my boys with afternoon tea to be home by 4.30 (they walked by themselves). Students typically hang out at school in the playground at all sorts of times, including weekends. It is not just their place of education, it is where they socialise and feel "at home".

It is also a place where parents feel welcome (though ID lanyards are required). We use the library, attend prayer meetings, and even just socialise on campus. Often there are out-of-school hours events like inter school sport and concerts too. Especially at the sports events there is main meal food provided for sale (fundraising for the Senior project) and sometimes that's where the Marshalls have our evening meal.

I can only give you a glimpse of the place our boys most identify as "home", you'd have to visit for a few days to get a better feel for it. Strange that it would be a school, but at least they feel they belong somewhere.

Here is another missionary writing about home, and how the whole concept of home gets messed up for us adults too.

Today's successes

I'm feeling accomplished and thankful.

Transport without a car
The problem with being reliant on bikes to get places, is that weather can intervene, as can other problems like mechanical failure. Today I woke to teeming rain. That meant alternatives needed to be found to get the boys to school because David leaves too early to take them three days a week. Thankfully a retired couple from our church who live close by were able to help out.

Life in Australia revolves around the use of cars. This
was my first car and made getting around to things
off-campus much easier. I gave many people lifts in
this oldie (older than me), she was such a blessing.

It also meant that Plan A: to ride to the bus to get to my physio appointment this morning, was in jeopardy. Plan B also failed: change appointment to later.

So I went to Plan C, which was to walk through the rain with a large umbrella, except that when I got out the door I realised that the rain had all but stopped. So, in the end I got back to Plan A and rode. I didn't even have to go with the second half of Plan C, which was to wait for David to pick me up on his way home from lecturing. Yay. 

That is a mental weight lifted off me. I know I can get to the two nearest train stations and three nearby shopping centres (within 10km) independent of a car now. Yes, I know, we've only got three months left here...but still I feel less shut-in.

Progress at the physio
I've been seeing a physio for a niggly knee issue and frequent headaches. This is something I've put off for a long time because it costs money and time. In fact I didn't even think of seeing a physio about my headaches until I filled out the New Patient form while waiting to see her for the first time. I've struggled with headaches for many years, but it seems like we're making progress on that. I'm trying to look after myself, and maybe it's going to pay off!

Medical expenses claimed
I also accomplished something this morning that frustrated me all yesterday morning. I managed to claim some medical expenses on-line with Medicare. This is a re-entry shock kind of problem. I guess all Australians have had to deal with this change, but we encounter four years' worth of changes all at once. I guess I've just missed out on this one until now because most places we've been this time at home have done the claiming as you pay them. 

Last time we were in Australia you had to go to a Medicare office to get it done, or post a claim form. Now it is done on a smart device: phone or tablet, using a website that I am thankful I discovered and registered with before coming back to Australia. However yesterday I had numerous problems that blocked me, especially my inability to get the password right and a phone that has too little space on it. I ended up getting myself blocked for 12 hours. But this morning managed to accomplish it (at least I haven't heard that it was unsuccessful yet).

Storage for our return
The fourth thing that I'm excited about it that we're also making progress in finding a place to store our household goods for the coming three years. Can't say much more than that, but it looks like God's provided a way over a big hurdle.