Snapshot: an exception?

The other day I went to the doctor. The process at our doctor is like this:

1. Turn up and turn in your "membership" card and health insurance card at the desk.

Here they are: dad loaded them up on their bike: one
on the front, one on the back, and walked them
to the pharmacy, just a few shops down the road.

2. Wait

3. Get called for triage with a nurse.

4. Wait

5. Get called to wait down the corridor outside the doctor.

6. See the doctor.

7. Wait

8. Get called to pay your bill and get your script.

9. Walk down the road to the pharmacy to get your medicine.

10. Hand in your script at the pharmacy and medicine record book.

11. Wait

12. Receive medicine and instructions

13. Pay

It's very predictable. Especially when you're just picking up routine medication (as I was).

There's a lot of waiting time, but that does depend on how many other people turned up before you. On Tuesday it was busy, but not excessively, and there were two doctors working, so I got through steps 1 to 8 in about an hour. I then broke the pattern for a couple of reasons, and came back later for steps 10 to 13.

Just before I got there, a dad had arrived on his own with two little boys, about 1 and 3. I know it was just before me, because I followed him through all these steps, just behind them. I love people watching in situations like these and this trio was fun. 

Dads on their own with little kids is not a common sight in Japan, though it is increasing. I love it when I see it, because they're breaking stereotypes.

This dad was doing a fantastic job. He had everything down: entertainment (reading animatedly to them), conversation (talking with them, answering questions, pointing out the trains out the window—our doctor's waiting room has a window where you can see trains just across the street), and shoes (shoes in Japan don't go on seats, so parents have to take them off little ones who want to climb).

Towards the end the older one started jumping, despite his dad's firm direction not to. And the inevitable happened: he jumped on a low seat and fell off onto his head. Dad was right there, grabbed him and comforted him. They were at step 7, but then got called to pay. This guy stood up with the screaming three year old on one hip, picked up the younger boy, and collected his script, while holding them both.

I came away entertained and encouraged. Of course I don't know what this family's backstory is, but it was great to see him functioning as a great caregiver for two young boys. Hopefully these two will grow up knowing their dad (too many Japanese young people hardly ever see their dads as their dads work very long hours).

Home or not

Notes that two different friends gave us yesterday. Both from people
we didn't know when we came back three years ago.

Where is home? 

That's a good question and one that keeps coming back at people like us.

The best I can say is that we have two homes. We have, now, roots in two places. Different roots, but roots nonetheless.

Consider what I've done this week:

1. I went to the doctor and got asthma medication that will probably last me through the whole of our six months away. Yes, I could get this medication in Australia. But probably it is more expensive there, so I decided to get it here and avoid the hassle of going to the doctor there for that. Our doctor here is about a kilometer from our house and an easy five minute ride. The errand was done in just over an hour, including travel. Our doctor in Australia is more than 20 minutes drive (including an expressway) from where we'll be living.

2. I got a haircut. Again, something I could do in Australia, but I did it here because again it's convenient and what I know. Also cheap (under AU$20). 

Our free "shop".

3. Yesterday we had a see-you-later party. It doubled as a way to get rid of a bunch of food stuffs that we'd not managed to use up. No one who came, came primarily for the giveaways, though, they came to see us. We had 14 adults, 9 kids, and 2 babies come over the course of the afternoon. They all wanted to see us! But most took our food with them too. All of them are expats like us and have been where we are multiple times. There is community in that shared experience.

4. I put roughly 2/5 of my wardrobe into a suitcase this morning. Not all of it.

5. I rode home along our city's rivers this afternoon (after my haircut). Saying goodbye in my heart all the way.

Our corner of Tokyo is particularly beautiful. I ride along our rivers as often as I can
while going about my life. This afternoon I rode here, probably for the last time
for six months. Just gorgeous. Those trees lining the side of the river are Cherry Blossoms
with their summer clothes on.

Considering the above, does it sound like Australia is totally home for us? I don't think so. We definitely have a home here.

But Australia is also home. Consider the things on our to do list (no particular order):

1. Have as many BBQs as possible.
2. See as many good friends as we can reasonably do so.
3. Spend time with family.
4. Spend time at our home church.
5. See a live cricket match.
6. Go to a Sons of Korah concert.
7. Have a hot Christmas.

And even (for me):

• Eat mangoes.
• Buy new underwear (yep, haven't managed to integrate into Japan that much yet, sorry for the TMI).

I'm sure there are many others.

Yep, Australia is home to us too. Part of the ever present tension in our lives is that we can never be in both places at the same time. We always have to be absent from one (and all the people who go with that place). So our hearts aren't just full of anticipation at going to Australia, they have corners of sadness at leaving our home here too.

This is where the two rivers that slice through our city (Higashikurume), join together—just down the road from us.
David and I often ride over that bridge on our way home from church.

Two more sleeps and we will farewell this home-corner of Tokyo. One more sleep after that and we will farewell Japan, but just temporarily.

Respectable, right?*

I've read this book over the last month. It's a good one. Not quite as scary as the subtitle suggests, but definitely worth mulling over. I tried to take my time reading it, but it was actually quite an easy book in terms of reading and comprehending.

The author, Jerry Bridges, spends quite a bit of time at the start laying groundwork: how bad is sin and how we're all affected deeper than we usually imagine. He also is careful to emphasise the power of the Holy Spirit and how we should deal with sin. And each chapter points us to God, not just the depravity of ourselves.

Bridges admits that some sins are more serious than others, for example, "I would rather be guilty of a lustful look than of adultery". But, "the truth is, all sin is serious because all sin is a breaking of God's law." p20

Good news
The good news that he spends a whole chapter on, is that we are forgiven through the death of Jesus on the cross, if, when faced by our sin we want to "fall on [our] knees before God in repentance and contrition over the sins [we] have tolerated in [our lives]" p30

"To the extent that I grasp, in the depth of my being, this great truth of God's forgiveness of my sin through Christ, I will be freed up to honestly and humbly face the particular manifestations of sin in my life. That's why it is so helpful to affirm each day with John Newton that "I am a great sinner, but I have a great Savior."

Sin
That was good to keep in mind as he then moved onto writing about specific sin, how they look, how they are wrong, and what we can do about them. 

For example, anxiety. This is something most of us struggle with to one degree or another. It was particularly relevant to me as we headed into another big transition: going to Australia for six months. 

How is anxiety a sin? Actually we are told not to be anxious, and not to fear, many times in the Bible. Why is it a sin? Because it is distrust of God. If we give way to anxiety, we're believing that God won't take care of us. It's also not accepting that God orchestrates everything, "providence" is the word the author uses. God's in control and anxiety is not believing that. But it's also important to realise that, this side of heaven, we won't be free of sin. So being anxious about being anxious is not really helpful!

Here is a passage I found particularly clarifying. It related especially to the sins of discontentment  anxiety, and frustration:

The importance of a firm belief in the sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness of God in all the circumstances of our lives. Whether those circumstances are sohrt-term or long-term, our ability to respond to them in a God-honoring and God-pleasing manner depends on our ability and willingness to bring these truths to bear on them. And we must do this by faith; that is, we must believe that the Bible's teaching about these attributes really is true and that God has brought or allowed these difficult circumstances in our lives for his glory and our ultimate good. p76

So Bridges says we should "ask God to give [us] faith to believe that his providential will for [us] in these circumstances comes to [us] from his infinite wisdom and goodness and is ultimately intended for [our] good. And then ask God to give [us] a heart that is submissive to his providential will when it is contrary to [our] own plans." 'p 67

No magic cure
I find that helpful. This isn't a magic cure. None of the content of the book really was new content for me. But, like the Awe book I read last year, it is restating old truths I've known a long time. Truths that I'm often not living completely true to, though I know them. I need to continue to ask God to give me a humble heart, a heart honest enough to admit the subtle sins that lurk, largely unseen to others: judgmentalism, worldliness, frustration, selfishness, pride, impatience, jealousy, envy, etc.

So I say to myself again: "I am a great sinner, but I have a great Saviour!"

* This is the second of three assignments I've completed from the workshop I went to in April. I chose to read this book and write a reflection on it. If someone wants to put their hand up as the person I "shared it with" (this is a requirement of the assignment), and even mention it over coffee sometimes, or in an email/text discussion, that would be fantastic.
The first assignment I did in three posts in May: 1, 2, & 3.

Japanese sport for kids

Here's something I whipped up over the weekend. Enjoy, and don't forget to ask if you'd like a better copy, or to be put on our mailing list.

Finishing some biggies

Some things are finishing up, finally! Here are two:


My role with getting the Summer issue of Japan Harvest is pretty much finished. Yay! I shifted dates around with this goal in mind (so that I wasn't working on the magazine during our transition, this end of things is a internet-intensive affair and I couldn't see that working while we were in this period). So, it's very satisfying to actually achieve it.









Yesterday I finished our photo album for home assignment about our last three years living and serving in Japan. This is something I've enthusiastically done before each home assignment, but this time I struggled to get time and motivation. Finally, however, it's done. I think it looks okay, I hope the print copy looks just as good.

Today I ordered a copy. I would have done it yesterday, except that I know that the company I did it through has sales often, so I decided to wait a couple of days. Sure enough, a 40% sale code came through this morning!


And soon we might even hear that we've secured a house to rent for six months. 

Lots to praise God for, even as we say our goodbyes. This morning it was to our Japanese church. Not a big affair, as we're not staff at the church, but it was still good to mark the occasion.

Not packing?

As manager of the "larder" I'm feeling quite happy at the great spans of
empty spaces on our shelves. Because we'll be back in six-months, some
of these things will be fine here. For other perishables we've organised
a See-You-Later-Party on Wednesday, which will double as a "Would you
like some ..." give-away party.

People ask at this stage: "So, have you started packing yet?"

The short answer is, "No, not really."

We're not moving out of our house, so not much packing is necessary. Just enough personal goods to make it through the next six months, on top of any work-related stuff that we need.

But, we've had plenty of other things keeping us busy. Here's a few from the last few days:

These shelves are usually very full. Some of the
containers on the bottom shelf are empty.

More empty shelves in the fridge.

• I coached the person who's taken over her job of posting the OMF blog posts as he worked on putting up the first post using Wordpress (I can hardly believe that I'm helping someone else with this...mind you, I just do the same thing every time, what I've been taught; nothing creative to see here).
• I rendered "inactive" one of the email addresses I've "manned" for many years now, the one that answers questions people ask through the oMF Japan website, someone else is doing that for now.
• David travelling to the Vehicle Registration office an hour away to officially change over the ownership (and number plate) of our new van.
• I (tried to) finish off editing a few last-minute things: several blog posts, and proofreading the Summer issue of the magazine.
• We've spent time fine-tuning our deputation material: both our basic up-front talk as well as our display stand.
• I have almost finished the photo album I created for our last three years of life and ministry and will send it to the printer soon.
• Answering questions and applying for houses to rent in Australia (this took more time than we expected).
• We hosted two friends of our youngest son for two nights. One whose parents were away for a few days and the other who is returning to live in Finland with this family next week. This was fun and they helped us eat up more of our food.
• David ordered a new phone and computer for me! Yes, new "toys". My current work computer will become our youngest's bring-your-own-device for Grade 8 when he starts at an Australian school in a month. My current Japanese phone is "locked", and so I'm unable to put an Australian SIM card in it, therefore a new phone was needed.
• On Tuesday, I rode to the park, and a favourite coffee shop: saying my goodbyes to these places.

Scheduling

I've continued to work on scheduling and communicating those schedules with the people that matter most: our family. Which meant creating a Google calendar for our family, especially so our eldest, who won't be moving back in with us, but rather spending some weekends with us, can know what we're up to. 

I've also begun writing "upcoming events" on a blackboard on our fridge so that our boys are a bit more informed about big things that are coming up. Scheduling also meant following up on some appointments and confirming, getting details straight for our diary. At this point we have three medical/debrief appointments in our first ten days in Brisbane.

I also did a bit of scheduling for our short holiday in Sydney for the first few days we're back in Australia. Booked a tour of the Opera House and read some background to it, and the discovery of Australia from a SOSE book we have in the house to the rest of the family.

That's enough of a list for you for now. It's time to switch of this computer and take down-time before bed. I've been quite tired and thankfully have been sleeping quite well. So thankful for that because many of these big transitions in the past have resulted in difficulties sleeping before the transition.

God's ways aren't our ways

Yesterday I wrote this: My next blog post might be about "God's amazing economy" in us being so dependent on others. It was one of the themes in an unusual sermon on Sunday and has come up in other conversations recently too. So stay tuned.

Today's been another crazy day: final decisions in magazine article proofreading, applying for rental properties in Australia (much more details than I thought would be necessary), two extra teenage boys in the house (sleep-over for our youngest), editing, scheduling for the latter half of the year, etc.

So it would be good to step back a moment (though that is hard...my head is full of housing possibilities—please pray that just the right house would be available for us) and think about the topic I proposed yesterday.

God's economy
I remember a conversation many years ago with a couple who were thinking of full-time ministry but shied away from the idea of other people supporting them. Their plan was to save up enough to support themselves. Since then, other things have happened that foiled that plan, but the original conversation remains in my mind. For many independent middle-class people it does seem like a strange way to live: dependent on others.

The true God doesn't live in houses like this.
This makes me sad.

"God's economy" is a phrase that a friend used the other day when we were talking about how her helping us practically (she's helping find a house, car, and furniture for us for Australia) has actually helped her. She has a lot of uncertainty in her life right now, so being able to focus on the practical details for us has been helpful to mentally. 

This article uses "God's economy" to mean a lack of social barriers, and especially those who have more sharing with those who have less. Which is a slightly different meaning to how my friend used it.

Whatever the precise definition of the phrase is, there is a sense that God goes about organising things not in the way we'd do it, but usually way better. Our friend agreed to help us many years ago because she wanted to and a long time before she knew that she'd be helped at this time by being able to help us.

I wrote a post about dependency three years ago, just after we returned to Japan last time. It is something that is a constant theme in the life of a missionary, whether it is negotiating these international moves, or relying on others' generosity for our income, or just getting around in daily life in our host country. But, as I wrote above, it is something of a foreign concept for many of our peers in Australia: middle class professionals.

In any case, it apparently is a weird way for us to bless others: by giving them a chance to serve us in our inability to carry all our own load. We are blessed to live this lifestyle, never feel tempted to pity us!

My words and thoughts are getting confusing. I'm sorry if this is hard to follow, but it's about all I can manage right now.

Isaiah 55:8-9 about sums it up:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Today's adventures

I have a bunch of blog post ideas running around in my head but things are starting to crowd in on my time and alas my blog is one of the first things to get crowded out.

But I've got a few moments now, so I'll see what I can churn out.

Park ride

Today I went for my last park/coffee shop ride. It was a gorgeous day in the midst of a bunch of gloomy, cool days. I'm so glad I seized the opportunity.

Here are some photos. Such a sparkly day!

Then I rode to a favourite coffee shop and enjoyed a light lunch with a street-view.

I did some shopping (coffee to last till we leave, plus a couple of other needs).

Orthodontist adventure

Then I went back to the orthodontist that we visited last Friday to pay the balance of a bill. 

This was a classic culture-confusion problem. Kids in Japan get extra health coverage until they start high school, yes, even non-citizens. The "start high school" thing is, of course, linked into the Japanese system, not the international school system. So we didn't register that our middle son's coverage ran out on March 31 this year. Apparently, the dentist didn't either. I tried to present the now-expired card, and she pointed out that it had expired. She didn't realise why it had expired and neither did I. So I paid the mere 200 yen for the checkup (about $2.50) and promised to email a photo of the new card.

But when I got home David realised what had gone on and we had to 'fess up to having not paid the whole bill. He called them Friday afternoon and said I could come back this week. They said "call us before you do so we can have the bill ready." The orthodontist is quite close to this coffee shop, so it was natural to just do it when I rode down there, rather than taking an extra hour's round trip in the car. 

David rang them this morning. No worries. Except that after he left to do the car-parking paperwork chasing, they rang back on my phone and I missed the call. I stiffened my upper lip and called them back (I'm not fond of phone calls and even less in Japanese). I'm actually not really sure of what happened in that conversation, except that they ended with "matte imasu" (we're waiting for you). So I left.

I didn't get to the orthodontist until just after 1pm. Here, many medical/dental places have about two hours closed in the early afternoon and I walked into a waiting room that had the lights off and the door to the "surgery" closed. So I sat and waited a while to see what would happen (and save myself another hour's journey later in the week). After about 15 minutes someone came into the reception area and from there we quickly sorted things out. I paid the outstanding 2,170 yen (about $AU27).\

Back to my ride

I rode back to the park, via this intersection where I've been fascinated by this little shrine for many months. I've driven past it many times as we've gone back and forth from the orthodontist. 

I rode back through the park, took a few more photos.

And said "sayonara". This is the little path I use to enter the park (and exit today too). Can you see it? It's hard not to feel a little envious of the people living in these houses abutting the park!

On the way home I stopped at one set of lights. I was startled to see my image reflected back at me by a little roadside mirror placed to help someone get out of their driveway.

After I got home and had a shower, I coached the person taking over my blog-posting job to get an OMF Japan blog post up, at the same time as worked with David on speaking material for Australia. 

Phew! It's been quite a day.

And now I've run out of time. My next blog post might be about "God's amazing economy" in us being so dependent on others. It was one of the themes in an unusual sermon on Sunday and has come up in other conversations recently too. So stay tuned.

Gifts with meaning

This is my Nozomi jewellery. By the way, it is
much harder to photograph jewellery than I thought!

This morning a 5.9 earthquake hit Osaka. You will probably have heard about it on the news. That's 550km from here, so we didn't feel it, but a few memories have been dredged up as a result. Yes, we live in an earthquake-prone country and news like this no longer surprises us. 

There is quiet relief that it didn't happen here this time, but sadness for those who have/are suffering. However, Japan is built for earth quakes and a 5.9 isn't a major problem for most people or structures. The news I've seen says three have died and over 200 injured. Electricity is off in many places and trains are still not running, There haven been fires and some walls/roofs have fallen. But I'm only telling you what I've read, and you have probably heard it or read it yourself.

Unique projects

However, I've been wanting to write about two social enterprises that were birthed from the level 9 earthquake that happened north of here near Sendai in 2011. These enterprises are similar to things you may have seen from much poorer countries than Japan: a group that provides employment for women, especially, and sells their goods. It's unusual to see it in Japan because this is such a wealthy country and most people can find employment if they want to.

But that changed after the triple disaster when so many people died (more than 15,000) and many livelihoods were also taken away. You can read about how these enterprises came about here: Nozomi Project and here: Megumi Project.

Nozomi sell jewellery created from broken pottery, they started with pottery that was left-over from the huge tsunami. Megumi up-cycle vintage kimonos into various gorgeous products.

I own jewellery from both groups.

These are my earrings from Megumi.

Here are two excellent articles about them from the Ethical Unicorn website: Nozomi Project and Megumi Project.

Here is a TEDx talk about Nozomi by one of the ladies instrumental in starting Nozomi (and, incidentally, she's a friend of mine).

A couple of months ago I flirted with the idea of bringing back some of this jewellry and selling it to interested people. It didn't take me long to realise I would have to wade through regulations about importing goods and also GST (Goods and Sales Tax). Sorry, I don't have the headspace or time, nor the inclination or motivation to deal with all that!

However, if you'd like to order something in the next day or two, you could have it sent to us (email me for a postal address) and we could bring it back in our luggage (though do check with them that they can get it to us by June 29). However, the reality is that postage within Japan for the Nozomi products is US$3 and worldwide is US$5, so you wouldn't be saving much! I do encourage you to get something from one of these projects, they are beautiful, quality products and have a unique story. 

Nozomi's meaningful tag line is "Beauty in Brokenness". I sent a gift to a friend from them and included with her gift was this: 

Nozomi is a social enterprise empowering women through the creating of beautiful accessories from broken pottery. Locally, Nozomi is providing jobs and community to women adversely affected by the 2011 tsunami. Globally, Nozomi is sending hope-filled pieces across the world as visible reminders that there really is beauty in brokenness.

A gift with a meaning. 

Prove it!

Even Japanese police stations have cute mascots! This large poster
was on the front of the station we visited yesterday.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we're doing a van shuffle this month. It's been nearly eight years since we acquired a vehicle and I'd forgotten how tricky that is in Tokyo.

The main complication is parking permission. If you visit this city, it's pretty obvious that there isn't much spare space. You can't just park an extra vehicle on the footpath in front of your house, or on a driveway, or even on the road in front of your house. To regulate this space problem, the police and landlords have gotten involved. In order to get a new car we've had to: 

1. Get proof we have sufficient parking space, this from the owner of the parking space, i.e. our landlord who works through a downtown real estate agent. By the time David got the forms for this, filled them out, and mailed them to the real estate office, this took well over a week to get done.

Part of the parking application where David drew a nice map of our
carport and the road.

2. Fill out a police parking application, which included the stamped Proof of Parking certificate from the "owner".  It also included having to draw a map of the space, with measurements included.

3. Take to a specific police station, all the above we took to the station yesterday, it was a nice 20 minute ride (faster than train, bus, or car). They will come and check that we've been accurate in our measurements and we can collect the permission from them next Tuesday.

Front of the police station. Typically, there was more bike-parking
than car parking. Just two cars and about a dozen bikes.

4. Inspection Registration Office: All the above, plus some other papers from the former owner needs to be taken to the (a good hour drive from here). David's going to meet our colleague (current-soon-to-be-former owner of the car) at the Registration Office. As he's in Yokohama, it is quite a long journey for him, the office is south of us in the western half of Tokyo.

All paper, nothing online. This nation is such a paradox of technological and "ancient" ways.

What I'm not sure about is that I don't think we've had to prove that we are getting rid of the car that's currently parked in this space! I don't know how that works, maybe it was part of the parking application that David filled in?

We're also part of the process with our current car, though on the other side: David will have to make a second journey to the Inspection Registration Office to make the exchange of ownership legal there too.

All this kind of makes the exchange of money that will happen in both situations seem like a minor affair!

I'm very thankful for a husband who is pretty good at these bureaucratic things in Japanese.

Gift wrapping in Japan

I don't do it very often, but occasionally, when I buy something in Japan, I ask for it to be gift wrapped as a present. Obviously not at usual check-out counter at the grocery store, but at many shops have this option and don't show any surprise at the request.

At an import shop yesterday I bought two small presents for my language exchange partners. I said they were presents and asked if they could be wrapped separately. The lady didn't bat an eyelid. She gave me a choice of wrapping and bag and then unhurriedly wrapped them beautifully. It took her a few minutes. 

She put the presents in a bag and asked if I wanted two extra bags to put the presents for my friends in. It is very common here to give something to someone in a bag or container of some sort (see a short post about this I wrote here). Just on Sunday a friend returned a book to me, she'd put it in a (reused) paper bag similar to the one in the photo.

Gift-giving is a precise art in Japan and there are many rules (see this short article for a glimpse). I'm not expert at all, in fact I'm very bad at it. The occasion in this case was that I'm going away for six months and I meet with these ladies regularly to have English and Japanese conversation practise. I was glad to give them a small token of my appreciation for their friendship and help.

Random (interesting) photos from recent days

Here are a few somewhat random phone-photos from my life recently. Yes, a bit of cheat-post, but they are about my "on the edge of ordinary" life!

Here is a place I'd like to ride to next year. It's the park we were in on Saturday (see this post) farewelling friends. It's only a bit over 7km from here, so quite doable ride (if I can get my navigation working well enough). It's called Shakuji Park and has a long-thin lake as a main feature.

The streets near the park are a bit upper-class looking. It's typical in Tokyo to see people walking on the road.

Random! This is looking through our front gate. It's been a bit damp here these last few days.

Outside my local grocery store this morning. I'll miss riding here twice a week when we're in Australia. It's a peaceful place to shop and very often there's more bikes than cars outside.

The escape route at the gym I've been frequenting. Makes you almost want to create an emergency, just so you can try it out! Though I imagine it it quite dirty.

It's hydrangea season in Japan. This was the view from our second floor down to the garden behind our house a couple of weeks ago. I love the colours! i love it that I can see them from my work-station, dining, and lounge rooms. (Close-up photo on this post.)

Continuing with the random photos, I met a couple of ladies for Bible study about 10 days ago at Krispy Kreme in Shibuya. We were fascinated by this sight as we waited in line.

This is close to the above mentioned grocery store. A path along one of our local rivers. A gazebo here has fallen into disrepair and the solution was not to fix it, but to encase it in a green fence. I guess it's awaiting funds to fix or demolish it?

Our creative youngest found a cute bookmark like this in a book a few weeks ago and set about figuring out how to copy it. He then went on to make 30 of them for a fundraiser at school last week.

Before that, I scored my own personalised bookmark. Isn't it cute?

Strangely, there has been mangoes in our local grocery store. This isn't common—the store is small and a no-frills shop, so fancy fruit isn't common. David bought me one as he knows they are my favourite fruit, but alas it was quite crunchy, even after being left for many days. I'm looking forward to splurging on mangoes in Australia!