Japan Photo #34 revealed

Phew, I'm back at my desk for a morning after nearly a week of "other" things claiming my time. I've kept an eye on email and dealt with urgent stuff, but the less-urgent things have piled up. It's going to take a few more days to get onto more of an even keel, I think!

The easiest thing today, then, is to reveal the mystery of the luggage rack!

On Friday I went over to our Japan headquarters for meetings with our leaders, the afternoon meeting was David and my two-year review interview. Which was much more fun than the lengthy form we filled out a few weeks ago.

After that we headed home, planning to stop somewhere for dinner (having engaged someone to watch our boys after school). We were tired and I had a nasty headache: it had been quite a week! We stumbled into an Italian restaurant on the 8th floor of the department store over Ikebukuro station, one of the largest railway stations in the world, and only 30 minutes from our house.

This is where we found the luggage rack: in a restaurant. A restaurant that was semi-fancy (it had linen serviettes). And we even used the rack. It so happens that we'd received a 4-person tent from other missionaries who don't want it any more and we were carting it back home with us (no, we don't need it personally, but are going camping with friends in a couple of months and they don't have a tent).

I've never before seen a luggage rack in a restaurant, I wonder if the fact that they have quite a lot of travellers coming through there would account for it? One diner couldn't fit her luggage on the rack, though, she had a double base propped up next to her table!