Summer holidays 2021

Well, we've been back nearly a week now and it's time to do some reminiscing and show you some "slides" from our time away. I didn't feel the slightest bit like writing while I was gone (though I didn't have a keyboard with me, so that was a significant deterrent for sure!). 

My days were spent in rotating between reading and eating, walking and sleeping, watching movies and doing puzzles, playing games and picking up cross-stitch again. It's truly amazing how much time can be spent on relaxing, non-work activities. 

We came back to Tokyo last weekend feeling very relaxed. I'm the only one properly back at work (David has one toe in the door, checking email and doing the odd task).

It was a great time to decompress. I thought I was doing okay before we left, except that my body was starting to tell me, in various ways, that it was time to take a break. It was hard to walk away, but so needed. We've had a rough year. It was especially great to take time away from making decisions. We'd deliberately set aside some pressing concerns until "after holidays" and we're seeing positive results from that now. Intentionally not talking about some things has given the space to think and process and make decisions that were too hard when we were stressed.

We definitely view ourselves as marathon runners in this work in Japan (and not particularly fast runners at that). If we're going to last the distance, we need to pace ourselves, and regular time away from work is an important part of that.

I'm glad to say that our "summer" isn't over yet. Not that I'm totally enjoying the heat (Tokyo's summer is oppressive and our house has poor insulation), but that the summer vibe in the house prevails, despite me spending office hours at my desk. Last night we went out for dinner and a movie (Black Widow). In a couple of weeks we're going camping for three nights. No school schedule is really nice! But I'm a bit sad that I'm not getting so much time to read . . . I read 11 books while we were away and it was awesome!

Anyway, here are a few tastes of the great outdoors from our holidays:

The front "gate". Yep, after Tokyo, it's very green.

Tiny "false" strawberry in the wild.

This is the mountain whose slopes we were situated on. We rarely saw it, though, it was cloudy 
much of the time. These fields, though, we feasted our eyes on all day long.

We were there in the middle of the rainy season, so there were lots of fun mushroom to find.

Putting my phone close to the ground, with the lens at the bottom,
I was able to see up under the mushrooms.

One day we drove 30 min north to Karuizawa, a popular summer retreat for the rich in Japan.
We almost always visit this outlet mall. It's a sprawling, luxurious place, with it's own lake and 
lawns. We caught it on a foggy day. Our purpose was finding sneakers in a larger size than you
can usually find in a Japanese store (for our tall teenager).

We happened upon this overgrown lookout while walking one day.
It wasn't well cared for, but had this interesting, and functional, water feature.

Venturing up the mountain, we walked this quiet, but well-maintained road.
It was blissfully quiet.

And yes, our usual haunt: the local park, with its park golf course. We spent three sessions here.

Another mushroom!

Green rice fields are beautiful (green being my favourite colour). We don't often get
close to them on foot, so when we walked past this one, I stopped for some photos.

In the cool of the mountains, the hydrangeas were still blooming, even as our Tokyo
ones were wilting in the heat.

Oh, and you can't have too many mushroom photos, can you?