I don't read paper books very often these days. Ebooks from the library are definitely more within my budget! They have other advantages too: like being able to read in bed without a light (works for camping brilliantly!) and being able to read without physically holding the book (works for reading while eating).
But somehow I've ended up reading these two large physical books at the same time. The total number of pages between them is more than 1,000! I don't have big hands and they're definitely both a handful.
Dominion is much more of a mental "handful" than Homecoming, though. For starters, the font is, I think 9! Which puts it at "dictionary" or "Bible" level. It's small. But the topic is what makes it a real mental challenge. It's covering around 2000 years of history in its 500 or so pages.
"The book is a broad history of the influence of Christianity on the world, focusing on its impact on morality – from its beginnings to the modern day.According to the author, the book 'isn’t a history of Christianity' but 'a history of what's been revolutionary and transformative about Christianity: about how Christianity has transformed not just the West, but the entire world.'" (Wikipedia)
It moves fast and the Zoom lens following events shifts in and out rapidly. The author uses big words and assumes you know a fair bit of history already. I've had to try to read quickly, which sounds counterintuitive, but by reading quickly I can catch his drift without getting bogged down by the details and lose track of where he's going with his meta narrative. I've heard this book referenced numerous times in the podcast I like: "Undeceptions". When David found it at a bookstore in Australia last year when I was "redeeming" a book voucher, it seemed like a good challenge to set myself for 2026.
Homecoming is a family saga set mostly in Australia (the font is larger, 12, I think). I think this book was given to me by a friend who was packing up to leave Japan for a time. I'm enjoying it and moving through it at quite a good pace, I might even tackle another one of this author's books in the future.
Dominion is more of a "it'll take at least six months" kinda book. Because my work involves a lot of reading and editing, I am pretty picky about the quality of the things and the genres I read in my spare time, but also prefer easy-to-digest reading. Reading Dominion is hard work and I don't always have the mental capacity to digest it after all the reading I've done at work.
I read a lot. I fell in love with books at an early age. They are my go-to for relaxation. Sometimes people ask me when I fit it in. I read if I'm eating alone (which is during weekdays most days), I read to go to sleep. I read during the night if I can't go back to sleep. I read in waiting rooms and on trains—another good reason to use ebooks, because I can access the library app on my phone as well as my Kindle, I don't have to carry a heavy book or extra device around with me. Basically, I read when I have spare time, but also mental capacity—I do play (logic, word, and puzzle) games on my phone too.
I've been thinking about time. That it takes more time and chronological distance to process things than we often allow. We live in the era of fast and instant: fast food, fast fixes, time-is-money, instant success etc. That subconsciously flows through to how we think and live. I see it in myself: I know the value of margin and not living life at full tilt 100% of the time, but I still struggle at times with thoughts about "wasting time."
Image from Pixabay
Making every moment count is a concept that is so unhelpful in so many instances. For example, rest, personal growth, trauma recovery, mental illness, grief, even building friendships, dating, child raising, building a good marriage. None of these are things that can easily happen well in a short space of time. As I write about it, it even feels a little bit ridiculous that I even struggle with this concept at times, because I know this.
For example, about five or six years ago when one of our sons was having a horrid time during his last years of high school, we decided the best thing we could do for him was "give him time". He was too anxious to talk about the next week and conversations about post-high school just weren't happening. It was enough for him to just make it through each day sometimes. So we were stuck. We decided to let him stay with us for a couple of years until we could go with him back to Australia and walk alongside him as he made that huge transition to young adult years. He needed that time and we have never regretted it (though it was a bit wobbly at times when people asked about him and what he was "actually doing"). This week it's two years since he moved out of home. He's in a much better "place"—mentally and physically—and we're so glad that God gave us the wisdom of how to be the best parents we could be in a situation where we were pretty much at sea, and to be truthful, quite anxious ourselves.
Some time back a friend shared an article with me titled "Intentionally wasting time". It's written by someone from Sydney Missionary and Bible College about how we should live in relationship with others: by building in non-programmed, informal time with people. It's worth the seven minutes or so it takes to read it. Here's a quote:
Sometimes the most profound ministry moments happen during informal, unplanned spaces.
God works in quiet conversations. He turns up in fun, social times. He’s present in the impromptu prayers, in the ER waiting rooms, over meals and everywhere life happens.
While we’re waiting for the ‘main event’ to begin, or after the programmed teaching time ends, God brings us to another part of his work: to love, to be encouraged by the faith of others, and to help others love Jesus no matter what life throws at us.
One of the most enjoyable thing for me at the moment is something I realise that I've been missing for a long time: deeply satisfying relationships within a church family. And it's mostly happening because of frequent, intentional times of unstructured fellowship: staying a couple of hours after church to share lunch with others, joining an online prayer meeting mid-week (and trying not to be frustrated that it is not efficient, but rather another place where we're walking alongside others), dinners in people's homes, and even a time during the service where people share prayer and praise points.
We also really enjoy "wasting time" with our kids every Sunday afternoon: just hanging out on a video call for two or three hours. But calling it "wasting time" is to badly label it. This is totally worthwhile time.
Sometimes ministry can seem like a waste of time (and money). No one has ever said that to me about us following God's calling to Japan, but I wonder if they think that. I do know that people got impatient with how long it took us to get to Japan in the first place...and it's often hard not to get impatient with God's timing.
But I think we need to go back to trusting God on this. I often pray at the start of the day that God would help us to do the things that he's prepared in advance for us to do (it's from Ephesians 2:10) and that what he leads me to will be pleasing to him. I need to trust that he's at work, that his timing is perfect, and seek his leading every day.
It's time for my camping blog post for all youvicarious campers out there. This time we were on our own: no kids, no camping buddies. Last Tuesday we drove nearly six hours west to a campsite in Gifu Prefecture, north-west of Nagoya (check a map further down in this post).
Many vehicles in this michi-no-eki carpark.
Our lunch spot. The sky looks less hazy here than it appeared to the naked eye, but it still wasn't so beautiful. This is Lake Suwa, known for fishing and fireworks. But it also has a hot spring/geyser!
We're often asked how we find campsites (because we rarely visit the same place twice). It's a simple Google Maps search for "campsites near here" in an area we've decided we want to visit. Then trawling through those that have websites listed, checking if they have toilet and bathing facilities and the costs (some are very expensive). And also, at this time of year, if they are even open. We found very few open as early as March in Gifu.
This time we ventured further afield and drove over five hours (the total trip was close to six and a half hours with three comfort/lunch stops). Much of the driving was along the Chuo Expressway (literally "central" expressway), a major route between Tokyo and Kansai region. The journey was a bit disappointing because the air quality was pretty bad. The cause was yellow sand from China's Gobi Desert! Yes, this happens every spring (see a video from last week here). This meant it was hard to see much of the gorgeous mountains that we were driving between. The Chuo Expressway takes you between some large mountain ranges and also provides multiple views of Mt Fuji on a good day, but we could see little of this last Tuesday.
You can see how the expressway takes a big northerly detour around the southern Japanese alps. The above lake was just before the big turn south.
This information board was at the entrance to the ladies toilets. Each of the stalls has a diagram and you can see it's quite a large facility. These michi-no-eki (roadside stops) cater for multiple large buses! This handy sign shows you information like child seats, change tables, wheelchair accessible loos, and pedestal/Japanese style. And of course, which ones are occupied vs vacant.
We got to the campground around 3.45 and were fully set up and cooking dinner over a fire before the sun went down around 6. We had no trouble setting up, but we did notice the difference in only having two sets of hands to set up the "annex" as we call it. It's a tarp roof next to our tent that provides shelter for our kitchen, table, and chairs.
Sunset in a valley isn't always so pretty.
It was very quiet. We were the only overnight campers the whole three nights. A smattering of others came and stayed one night in the various tiny cabins dotted around the campsite. And when I say tiny cabin, I mean: just a solid four walls, a roof, and a light, with only enough room for two to four people to sleep on the floor. Most of the cabins didn't have running water and to cook you still had to go outside. We enjoyed our space, it's something we don't have a lot of in Tokyo.
Cooking by fire is one of my big joys when camping. We do take a single gas burner that helps with making hot water and also a backup if the fire is struggling for some reason. Our first night we had yakisoba (stir-fried noodles and pork) a classic Japanese camping dish. We followed this with our usual banana-chocolate-marshamallow combo in foil cooked on the fire. Yum!
After dinner we headed off to the showers. I often don't have one on our first night, but these were so clean and beautiful that I did! And I made a video too!
Our teeny-tiny Japanese BBQ. If we were better at an Asian squat it would be easier to use! But it's big enough to cook for the two of us. It's slightly longer than a big frypan.
Next day, Wednesday, the air was a little cleaner. After a good camping breakfast of bacon and eggs, we did some roaming around the local area, but we really didn't feel super energetic. It was fun walking up and back along a different river, though. This really was a small settlement along a narrow valley that is mostly taken up by a wide, shallow river and a road that connects them to the outside world! At the widest point, we walked along a parallel road and most dwellings had their front door practically on the road.
Though there were few other campers, it was quite a noisy day. It seems that the campsite has a little artificial stream where they (perhaps) pump water from the main river. I can see why: the main river is fast and potentially dangerous. The little stream bed ran near our tent. However, when we put our tent up there was no water in it.
On Wednesday morning we were startled, first, by a 7 a.m. song on the (very) loud nearby speaker. We discovered this happens every morning there. It's part of Japan's national network of speakers that they use to alert people, such as flood or earthquake or tsunami warnings. They used these a lot during Covid. But to ensure that all the speakers are working, each one plays a "go home" song at the end of every day. Some rural places also have a midday song (this place did), but I'm not sure I've ever heard a "get up" one too!
The next startling thing was just after 8 a.m. I was still in bed and not completely awake and was shocked to hear a large caterpillar-tracked vehicle rumble right past the tent! Turns out it was a digger that spent the next seven hours shifting large rocks around in the stream bed. Also turns out that this is a pretty loud thing to do. Later someone came and apologised! Anyway, by bedtime, the stream was flowing quite nicely, so it seems that some adjustment was needed before they turned a tap on? It would be a fun place to take kids in the warmer weather. As per most campsites in Japan, they encourage "day camping" too (and charge 1,000 yen or around $10 per day). I can see how this would be a very popular place to get away to, it's only 1 ½ hrs from downtown Nagoya.
Dinner was totally fire-focused again. We cooked potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin in foil along with small chicken legs. Dessert was damper (like American scones or UK soda bread), cooked in foil and spread with butter and syrup to eat.
This is the Shirakawa River (I really should write "Shira River" because "kawa" = river) You can see here that the air was still not super on Wednesday. But we did see a bit of blue sky later in the day.
This is a much more traditional look than you often see in the big cities. And this pine looks almost like a large bonsai.
I think this is a plum tree. There were lots of sakura trees along the river, but none of them were blooming yet.
The reception/shop area of the campsite. I love the slogan.
Disappointing waterfall
On Thursday we drove up a nearby road that promised a lookout...but it was shut! We did a little bit of exploring, but there wasn't much to see. Possibly a local project that ran out of money? Also, this time of year isn't very pretty because the trees are still largely bare. After that we ran out of inspiration and enthusiasm for exploration, so we filled up the petrol tank and went "home" to our tent. We spent the rest of the day reading, playing games, and generally doing not much. Very restful.
Dinner that night was Japanese kebabs with rice and more vegetables cooked in foil. Dessert was a Japanese version of s'mores (you can't buy Graham crackers, the traditional s'more ingredient). After dinner was cooked we piled lots of little sticks on our little fire and made it quite large. It was entertaining and also warming!
By the time the sun went down the rain had started and that continued all night, only clearing up as we started packing up our campsite the next morning.
Large fire on Thursday night.
Driving home on Friday we could see more of the surrounding mountains, including Mt Fuji.
It was a great trip, very refreshing, even if it was a little further away than we would have liked. We were both tired and it was great to take time out from our daily work concerns and instead focus on different, simpler things like getting a fire started!
Next camping trip: October...but we're not sure where or if we'll be alone or with friends. Stay tuned!
I've made this large so you can see the "184.5" sign on the right. These are distance markers and, these Aussies find it hard to believe that someone thought it was a good idea to put these every 100m for over 350 km! We come from a land where distance markers are not even every 5 km.
Mt Fuji...it looked better in person, believe me!
My first sakura bloom photo of the season, at one of our stops closer to Tokyo.
And the reality of a wet tent pack-up when you live in an apartment (and it's still raining outside). We've spent the last four days drying stuff out, mostly inside.
I've been away from my desk for much of the last 2 ½ weeks and have been playing catch-up this week, but I am determined to do a little bit of my own writing today. Last week we went camping for three nights in Fukushima Prefecture, about 250 km north of Tokyo. It was our first time to spend any time at all in this prefecture, aside from driving through on the expressway.
It's the first time we've been camping in 19 months...we were looking forward to this trip so much! It's been really hard to accept the reality this week that our trip is over. It was a much needed break. We've been going pretty constantly since we got back to Brisbane in early May from our long motorhome sojourn.
We had a spectacular time. The first time to go camping with none of the participants under 20 (in fact all four of us are a long way past 20)! It was very quiet. We were literally the only people there in this large campground. After 4pm there wasn't even a caretaker around.
But back to the start of the trip: getting there involved over four hours of driving, first on Tokyo's congested ordinary roads, then an expressway, and finally over an hour through the Japanese countryside—over mountains and valleys and through tunnels. It was our first time to drive at 120 km/hr in Japan. I took a photo of this dual-speed sign to give us time to read it...and yes, we were allowed to drive this fast in our little car.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside "service area", one of the joys of travelling long distance in a car in Japan. There is usually many food options, as well as lots of clean toilets. We were already enjoying being away and hanging out that we took quite a long break at this point! Eventually someone pointed out that we still had more driving and a campsite to set up, so we got going again.
The countryside we drove through was, as usual, gorgeous, especially to eyes that have been in Tokyo for months. The layers upon layers of mountains still amaze us Aussies from a wide-flat land!
When we considered what car we would buy, a key requirement was the capacity to carry all our camping gear. This little car did a magnificent job. And we discovered that with no extra passengers it was really easy to pack the back of this, which is basically a box when you lower the back seats. Of course we had less gear, but still, we could see out the back of the car when fully packed and that has not always been a given!
It was wonderful having three nights away: it meant two full days without travelling. We had a very relaxed time. We played games, read, napped, strolled, and the one who brought his bike went for several long rides. Our friends introduced us to a beanbag game called Cornholes (US game) and we introduced them to a card game called Take7.
And of course fire featured a lot. This campsite sported a big flat place where people had previously had fires, so, with no rule saying we couldn't, we gathered up wood lying around and had two big fires on the last two nights. Not just entertainment, but we cooked our evening meals there too. Cooking for four wasn't hard, but the biggest difference was how little washing up there was for just the four of us: we were almost finished before we started. A big difference to when we've camped with 10 or more people.
This simple meal was so delicious. Thin-sliced pork and baked veggies in foil.
There was plenty of nature to enjoy. I didn't take photos of the bees, mozzies, or bees, or the vast numbers of "stink" bugs but I did capture the more photogenic dragonflies who loved to land on our ropes and car antenna.
It was a pretty cheap place to stay. Just $AU42 for three nights for each couple. For that we had water, as much space as we wanted, flushable toilets, and a place where we could wash dishes. Ironically the toilet seats were heated. The toilet pedestals were pretty much the cleanest thing in the whole place—the hut they were in was full of bugs and spiderwebs, though nothing too big (I've seen much worse in this land). The showers were also very clean and open 24 hrs a day. They cost $AU1 for five minutes, which is plenty of time. Alas there were no hooks or benches in the showers, but thankfully there was an actual door between the shower room and changing area, so our stuff didn't get wet.
You might wonder how we find these places. It's a pretty simple Google Maps search. We only stay at places that have sufficient information online for us to judge if we're happy about trying them (usually a simple webpage). The translations on Google reviews on these campsites are sometimes illuminating and often entertaining. This one had a lot of chatter about "Kevins" and I briefly wondered...until David clarified that "cabin" in Japanese is sometimes spelled ケビン or literally "kebin"! There were indeed a lot of unoccupied "Kevins", that looked great on the outside, but I don't think there was kitchens or showers in the Kevins. We knew that we were getting a better deal in our tents. Yes: much cheaper, potentially cleaner (according to the reviews), and more fun. I mean you don't get to play with fire in a Kevin!
Gotta love a good fern!
Beautiful squishy moss.
One area we drove through was obvious a dairy farming area, which is quite unusual in Japan. They had a farm that was set up for tourists and we stopped there for a yummy lunch and ice cream on the way home.
Yep, a dairy farming themed area! This is a post box at the local convenience store
Ice cream with our long-time camping friends.
The farm shop...speaks for itself.
And a random bus! We could see the road that went past the campsite and these between-village buses went by a few times each day. And it's a sign that you're relaxing when you have time to notice the occasional bus driving past (it wasn't a busy road).
One more dragonfly because they are so beautiful!
This was the view up a nearby hill. It's a valley that contains both a village and yellow rice fields.
We think this pond is where most of the mozzies were coming from. Because it's well into autumn I definitely underestimated the mosquitoes.
I write on this blog about my fairly ordinary life doing a not-so-ordinary job. It’s good to remind myself about that goal every now and then. Right now I’m feeling rather unfocused, partly because, as opposed to most of my adult life, overall I’ve actually got more time than responsibilities. I’m really struggling with what to do with that and finding it odd. After all, isn’t this what one longs for amidst a too busy life? Not being so busy is harder than I imagined.
It’s also hard to think about making commitments to longer term things because we need to keep our schedule flexible to visit with people and groups. That means committing to something regular isn’t wise, and committing to something that requires a lot of time is also not a great idea.
So, what to do? We’ve got some ideas, but we’re also aware that we’re tireder than we realise. The clue to that is how much recovery time has been needed after events and interacting intensely with people.
I’m also aware of still feeling so unsettled. Knowing that we’re probably not going to be here for long is unsettling and doesn’t encourage commitment (even to pot plants). I still feel like a bit of an alien in Australia. Not so much in one-on-one conversations, but just in general, when I’m out and about in public. I suspect that that might take longer than 12 months to settle down.
Layered on top of the temporary nature of this assignment is the transitory nature of this stage of life: we’re actively working on helping our two youngest sons to find somewhere to move out to (a complicated process that we are making progress on, pray for favour from a certain landlord, and one more housemate). Them moving out is a big life change for us all. One that’s been looming for a while, so it’s no surprise. It’s the right time for them to be moving on, but still has an emotional impact when lots of other things in our lives are also very unsettled.
Getting any traction in the midst of all this is difficult. It’s even been hard to stay on top of the many plates we still have twirling, because we’re less focused. For example, I’m usually great at promptly answering email, because I’ve usually been on my computer most days in recently years, but my email volume has dwindled down to a trickle, so I’m not on my computer every (work) day now and I fear that some things might be falling through the cracks.
What have I been doing with my time? On days that we’ve not been speaking, travelling, or preparing for either of these, I’ve had a lot more spare time. I’ve been reading more and continuing with my Japanese language review. We’ve been getting more sleep. I’ve pulled out my cross-stitch, something that I’ve not done for years outside of holiday times. We’re watching cricket, playing more Scrabble (and other games), and spending time with people we love. It’s a completely different pace to what we’ve lived at for years, and probably good, even if it feels like an ill-fitting coat.
After several quieter days (we even had a weekend at home last week), tomorrow we’re travelling again. David and our youngest son are driving eight hours north to see David’s mum. I’m travelling an hour away with a friend to a women’s convention for the weekend (and doing a little bit of up-front speaking). Much like I wrote about last week: the pace here keeps changing, and somehow we need to keep adjusting to it. I guess that’s making us more flexible?
It's been 12 months since we last got to go camping. I was highly anticipating this week's camping trip and I wasn't disappointed. It's still early spring here and so the weather isn't easy to anticipate. Because it still has the potential to be pretty cold we looked for a campsite that was a little sheltered, and not too high up into the mountains. And we found it, but we were also blessed with gorgeous weather.
We drove from the top left-hand corner of this map, in a relatively straight line.
It's been 10 years this week since we last camped in Chiba. Last time it took us 5 ½ hrs to get there, it's no wonder we've been reluctant to go back! The problem with Chiba is that there're a lot of people between us and it, so going there means crossing to the other side of Tokyo. But we took expressways and a 10 km tunnel under the bay and it only took a bit over 2 ½ hrs this time.
The last time we camped in this prefecture, we were much closer to the Pacific. This time we didn't go as far east as that, instead, we were situated close to a lot of inland water: winding rivers and dams.
Last time we were a family of five, this time it was just the two of us with our friends and their two teenagers. It was a really good, relaxing time away. Typically, the three days and two nights seemed much longer than they should have, and that's good. It's a great way to quickly relax. It was a much-needed break after some busy months. And with only nine weeks left of the school year and 3 ½ months until we move to Australia, we really did need to take some time out!
We had a relaxing walk, read books, played games, chatted, enjoyed the view, and enjoyed playing with fire and cooking our meals. Our friend loves to ride bikes. He brought his bike and his son's, and he did several rides around the area.
This was an unusually flat and grassy campsite—the usual Japanese campsite is rocky and covered in fine gravel, so this was a really pleasant change.
The time we had available to go synched perfectly with the end of the sakura season and our campsite had plenty in full bloom. It was a delight to the eyes. I had fun snapping a few photos because you can't have too many sakura photos!
A broken bridge which we didn't attempt to cross. This is a popular fishing area.
Early spring flowers.
We taught our friend Triominos and played a couple of rounds of Nimuto (6 Nimmt! in German/English).
Getting the fires ready for roast veggies (in foil) and yakitori (chicken skewers).
A couple of sakura shots while waiting for dinner to cook...
Packing up. The inside of our tent isn't much bigger than our double bed airbed and has lots of screened windows. The rectangle marks the main floor space of how far the fly extends out to create a covered entry: a space large enough for two chairs and a small table if the weather is inclement.
And a tiny waterfall and hole-in-the-mountain that we checked out on our way home. With the right sun angle, you can get a reflection that creates a heart-shape (on the side) here, alas it wasn't at noon yesterday!
Yep, we're still in love with camping. We're downsizing our camping gear because we won't be camping with all our boys in tow in Japan again. But we're looking forward to many more adventures nonetheless.
