Big camping goal

We started camping back in 2011 because we wanted to see more of Japan (on a missionary's budget). Back in 2017 I wrote a post that showed, using a jigsaw puzzle, how many prefectures we've visited (either driven through, or stayed a night) And just to clarify: a prefecture is like a state, and—aside from Hokkaido, which is bigger tham Tasmania—they're a lot smaller than Australian states! So it's been an informal goal for some time, but recently I've found myself saying, "We want to camp in every prefecture before we retire." Someone asked me this week how many prefectures we've already camped in, and I wasn't sure. 

So I took some time to figure it out. I think it's 14, so we've got a fair way to go to get all 47 in before we retire (granted, we've theoretically got more than 15 years left). Given we camped in five of these in a single two-week trip, we can probably manage to knock a few off fairly quickly in a summer "camping tour". For example, one trip to Shikoku Island (the smallest of Japan's four main islands, which is roughly one quarter of the size of Tasmania) and we'd be able to visit the four prefectures on the island fairly quickly. Japan doesn't seem so large when you realise that we come from a country that is about 20 times larger and hence the prefectures are a lot smaller than our states.

These are the prefectures we've camped in, some of them multiple times: Hokkaido, Akita, Niigata, Ishikawa, Tochigi, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Aichi, Shiga, and Wakayama. (Pictured below)

These are the prefectures we've camped in (we've stayed in several others, but not in tents).

One hard aspect about this year has been how difficult it's been to plan. I had a conversation about this just yesterday. I'm supposed to be helping run a two-week onsite workshop in January. But it's really hard to know if that's going to be able to go ahead in its usual format. How much do you plan, and risk wasting a lot of time? When do you make the call?

Starting school this last month is another example. Usually we would be able to count on certain events happening: like inter-school competitions, camps, bazaars, etc. But this year we simply haven't. A week or so ago I realised that we've got a four-day weekend next month (teachers have good holidays, but there's not much choice about when you take them). October is a beautiful time to camp in this part of the world, so we're working on a plan for that. We're aiming to visit a prefecture that we've missed up till now, but really isn't that far away: Gunma. Nothing set in concrete yet, but you'll hear about it! 

Red arrow is where we live. Purple arrow points to Gunma Prefecture. Not quite
sure how we've missed camping there!

Camping, and planning for camping, are good ways for David and I to stay mentally and emotionally healthy. I'm so excited that there's one more chance before winter clamps its bone-chilling hand on the remainder of our year.

Our local area

This is Six Mile Creek, still running despite how dry everything is. We've
had short, light showers only a couple of times since we arrived six weeks ago.

We've landed in a delightful area that I didn't know existed, though we've driven past many times. We're in basically in the same area as last time, just 6 km west in a neighbouring suburb. This suburb, Collingwood Park, is about 30 km south-west from Brisbane CBD in the neighbouring city of Ipswich and about 11 km east of Ipswich's CBD. 

It used to be a mining area, though I can only find information about one mine in the actual suburb. The area has a reputation from an incident of subsiding land that happened ten years ago and resulted in a group suing the government.

In any case, there isn't any mining happening here now, but there is nearby bushland to roam about in. In researching a little for this post I discovered the suburb has only a bit more than six thousand people living here. Population density is distinctly lower than what we're used to. Where we live in Tokyo there are more people per square kilometre than there is in this whole suburb. 

We're still close enough to major roads, though, so it's a convenient spot to be located for these months. The Ipswich motorway, a major east-west road, is only six minutes from our front door. School for our youngest is only six kilometres or 10 minutes away. Yesterday I drove to a doctor's clinic 27 kilometres away and it took me well under an hour. Granted I wasn't driving at peak commuting times, but it still surprises me how easy it is to get around in this spacious city. The roads are wide too, driving on them isn't so much a "dodge-em" exercise as it can be on the tiny roads in Tokyo. It's a good thing that driving isn't nearly so stressful as driving can be in Tokyo as we're doing whole heap more than we usually do. We can reach several decent shopping centres within 20 minutes by car, including a large grocery store just down the road (1.5km, which in Australian terms is very close).

Below is the view from our front door. The road seems a long way away! We can't quite see the horizon, but there's plenty of sky. Out behind our house is scrubland. So from our windows we can see gum trees in most directions.

Below is a Jacaranda tree in the car park of our home church (located just five minutes drive from our house). Church does have a car park, something we don't have in Tokyo.

A beautiful "mackerel sky" spotted last week at our local gym, where we're all exercising at least once, if not twice a week—it's between our house and the school.

I just love the blue skies (even though I know that means no rain). That blue is so common here that you can take it for granted...unless you've lived overseas. In Tokyo we rarely see such blue sky. 

This is a eucalyptus tree (colloquially known as "gum trees" in Australia) in the scrub behind our house.

A bit overwhelmed

Today is a gorgeous day. I can see it out the window. I can even feel the temperature rise inside. At 10 a.m. I have no heater on, something that hasn't happened for months.

Our son and his friend last year in November when we visited his
home town for the weekend.

But I'm sitting inside. My nose is drippy and my breathing ragged. Periodically an asthmatic cough forces its way out.

To make it worse, I've been crying.

Not because I'm sick, but because I keep remembering...

Remembering that friend who whispered, in the midst of a hilarious board game last month in Australia, "You can't go—you realise that!"

I'm remembering the friends who couldn't say goodbye at the shopping centre and I had to say to them (after I'd hugged them), "I love you and will miss you. But now I'm just going to turn and walk away . . . "

I'm remembering the friends in Japan who lovingly plied me with questions last week about our son's transition. One who said she's been reading my posts and crying as we made this transition.

On Sunday we spent an hour on a video call with our son. The first time we've done that since I returned to Japan. It was great, but left me sad, missing him more than before.

Then last night one of his good friends who is studying at a uni in Tokyo stayed overnight with us. That was both strange and wonderful. But when I realised that he and our son hadn't connected since our son had moved, I sought to get our son on another video chat. It was a wonderful time of reminiscing for them. I learnt new things about our son. But it also made me sad, because, time has moved on and the group that they had in high school has been scattered across the globe. Yes, I know that is the way of life. But it was a reminder that this is still a time of transition for them. Our guys are yet to connect with others in their new environments in a deeper way.

So I guess, in trying to sit quietly and not work too much this morning, I just got overwhelmed with the brokenness. All the goodbyes that we've had recently. Things that won't be fixed. Can't be fixed. Because of distance.

Learning prefectures

I'm still on a quest to learn more about Japanese geography. Last year I bought a puzzle at Thrift Shop that is made up of all the prefectures of Japan (see it here). It's a bit awkward to have out all the time, so when I saw this poster on sale at our local 100 yen shop, I snaffled it up. Yes, it's all in Japanese, but the simple "alphabet" kind, so it isn't hard to read. Maybe one day I'll progress to reading the more complex "Chinese characters" that go with these places.

I've found that knowing your geography really helps when meeting people. "Where do you work?" was a question asked on Monday afternoon/evening as I interacted with people. It was great when I knew where Nagoya was, and that I've been there (camping), but awkward when I didn't know where Tottori was!

I did know approximately where New Jersey was (the place a visiting mission leader was flying back to the next day). And indeed my American geography has improved a lot since moving to Japan! We often pull out our atlas or Google maps to figure out where people come from.

Yesterday we had some little guests for the evening. They came after school and stayed till bedtime when I took them home and waited for their mum to return from a work dinner. We played with the puzzle I mentioned above. They didn't really have an understanding of prefectures, but commented on how small Tokyo was compared to all the rest of these places. Indeed! It is. All the more reason to explore other parts of Japan.

Alas no more camping trips for us for some time now. This Japan-summer is consumed with our move to Australia. Maybe next summer (though our "next summer" will really be over Christmas in Australia), really, "next summer holidays in Japan" which will be middle of next year. 

Confused? Yep, me too! Sitting in church on Sunday I had to think about what season we were actually in the middle of, literally work it through. Yes, Easter is coming up. I tell you, changing hemispheres, I didn't get jet lag, but it did exacerbate my usual "seasonal confusion". I still haven't completely adjusted back to Tokyo's winter temps, but thankfully some "warmer" days are in the pipeline (i.e. in the teens, rather than single digits).