Settling into Tokyo again

I've started a few blog posts in the last few days, but never got past the first couple of lines. It's been busy, I've been sick, and now we have visitors.

Some boxes of books yet to be unpacked.
We didn't move out but we did pack up
our personal stuff so the ladies sub-letting
our house had room for their own stuff.

We arrived back in the country early Tuesday morning and caught a bus to a train station three stops from our place. We were "home" by 10.30am. 

I was sick, somehow I ended up with the runs (sorry for the TMI). No idea how or why, but it wasn't painful, just inconvenient. So I spent the first day and a half of being back in the country lying down and not eating.

While I was incapacitated David juggled our house into functional shape. We'd had all our personal stuff in one bedroom and the other two bedrooms set up for two single ladies. But by Tuesday night we were able to sleep in our own beds in our own rooms. He also got some food into the house so we could eat (even if it was just grilled cheese on white toast).

On Wednesday I was still horizontal most of the day while David sorted out some bureaucratic details at immigration and the city office (actually he might have done the latter on Tuesday afternoon). He also made his first attempt at getting us Japanese mobiles. We had the lovely treat of going out to dinner at one of our favourite Italian restaurants with friends who were just about to leave for home assignment themselves.

By Thursday I was vertical, though still a little shaky. We did a family trip to Costco to stock up the larder. And in the afternoon David tried a second time to get us mobiles. I baked some packet-brownies and put the Costco stuff away.

On Friday David got up early and drove a couple of hrs across Tokyo to pick up my parents who are visiting for 10 days. I did some more grocery shopping and some bike maintenance and carport sweeping. David arrived with my parents late morning. After lunch he went for his third try at getting us mobiles, and this time succeeded.

That's the bare bones of the last few days. These days were punctuated by lots of laundry, sleep, finding places to put everything, and the excited discovery of things forgotten. The boys have, by and large, been playing with Lego and other toys they've missed for the last year.

Tomorrow after church in the morning we're heading off with Mum and Dad for some much needed holidays near Mt Fuji. One reason we've crammed so much into this week is so that we can go away and relax next week. I'm very much looking forward to it, even though it means packing again!

It's been a good start to our re-entry. Smoother than you might think, as it doesn't feel like we've been away long. Boys are already starting to catch up with friends and we're slotting back into the easy rhythms of life that we knew.