Bending and flexing into our Japanese home

We’ve been watching quite a bit of the Olympics between other things. We watched both the men’s and women’s pole vaulting and they were amazing competitions for different reasons. The flexibility and balance of these athletes as they fly through the air is amazing. I feel like fitting oneself into a new living space in Japan also means a lot of flexibility and balance, though certainly not while flying through the air, although sometimes I have to admit that it does feel a little bit like we’ve lost all contact with solid ground.

There’s something odd about changing houses in Japan, it’s different to moving in Australia. I don’t know if Japanese people find this, or if it’s exclusive to foreigners (I suspect it’s somewhat universal, simply because of the multiple things you can buy to help…keep reading and I’ll show you some). You could say it’s related to small houses, but even places that are larger have their “oddities.” It seems you need creativity to make them into efficient spaces to live. Things that we take for granted in many Australian home aren’t always present, like rails to hold towels.

Last year one of our colleagues wrote a little about this aspect of life in Japan on her blog: https://memoirsofamissionarymom.blogspot.com/2023/08/trash-and-treasures.html?m=1

I love floor plans, it helps me (better than a video tour) to get a vision of how an apartment or house is laid out. Below is my English version of our house plan. I traced it from the Japanese one we have and added how we’re using spaces. So I'll put it here for you to refer to as I talk about various spaces (with photos).

We don’t really have a name for the area to the left of the word "dining". It has bookshelves in it, but no chairs, so not a library. Maybe it’s best called a multifunctional living area, as it could be an extension of the lounge or the dining area when we have guests. It’s the area we have recently stored boxes yet to be emptied, large rubbish (a disassembled desk), wall pictures yet to be hung, and empty boxes waiting to go to new homes or be thrown away. We also assembled our new furniture there yesterday.

For perspective, the lounge room, as depicted here, is 2.5 x 3.5 m. The toilet is cosy. I can touch both walls with my elbows while sitting on the pedestal. I can also easily, with my hands, touch the door and the back wall while standing.

The kitchen is very small, mostly just a sink, a stove top, and a narrow bench between the two that is 64 cm deep and 34 wide, with cupboards under it all and very high small cupboards above the sink. So we’ve had to get creative. This bookshelf has been our temporary pantry and place to hold plates and plastics. Yesterday we had three pieces of new furniture arrive, but the bookshelf is still holding plastics and some food, plus the bread maker.

This is our new plate cupboard (left of it is entrance to bathroom, right is the door out to the entrance and my office, furtherest door to right is our bedroom). We’re very pleased with how the cupboard fits here and what we've been able to put in it. It needed to be narrow to fit into this space. We threw our old one out last year, we’d had it 20 years and it definitely wasn’t new when we got it. It would not have fitted into this space. This piece of furniture came flat-packed (from Nitori, a Japanese furniture store) and took us about 90 minutes to build.

Another piece of new furniture that we built yesterday: a stand to hold the microwave/convection oven. It’s also got our tea/coffee corner, and spices and herbs on top, plus rubbish bins at the bottom. 

I’ve mentioned once or twice that the city expects a fair amount of rubbish sorting required of us, which of course means multiple bins. This is still a temporary area that we’ll need to figure out how to organise better, probably buying at least one more receptacle that will fit better into this space. 

Here is the kitchen sink. It’s typically large, extending almost to the right end of the cabinet. We purchased a small shelf that rests on the end of the sink so we could balance the drying rack on it. There is no plug; we wash up the water-saving Australian way (not continuous running water like Japanese people do), so we use a small washing up bowl. The curtain is a work in progress. I want to cut it down the centre so we can more easily open it to get more light into this area, I'll have to find the sewing machine to do that... We have a curtain because the hot summer sun pours in there in the morning (which will be nice in winter, if the angle is right, but isn’t nice in this current heat).

This is the three-burner stove top. What’s notable here is that we’ve added a small plastic-coated wire net in the corner (cost about AU$3) to hang utensils on as well as a more hooks on a rail that’s held up by suction caps. These save space on the bench and in drawers and make frequently used utensils easily accessible.

Here’s the whole kitchen (minus the plate cupboard and bookshelf). It’s a bit narrow, but seems to work. It’s very exciting to have this third piece of new furniture next to the fridge that gives us more bench (counter) and drawer space. It’s too high for me to comfortably use to prepare food, but will be useful for temporarily holding appliances like the bread maker, slow cooker, mixer, etc, as well as for helping keep the bench next to the stove clear so that can be used for preparation space.

The rice cooker can be used insitu here (Japanese furniture bonus!). But the mixer below it and the small food processor squished behind the mixer will need to be lifted out when needed. Two of these drawers are key pantry storage.

There are several areas that are still messy. We have lots of collapsed boxes and other not urgent things that have yet to find a home.

The cupboard in my office is stacked full. Some of this is destined for the school bazaar later in the year, other things need more sorting and potentially tossing. Camping gear is in here too, and probably needs more downsizing. A goal: being able to close these cupboard doors before Christmas.

My office. It’s getting there. I had one Zoom meeting here this week. It still needs more finessing. I have a love-hate relationship with desks and chairs. I find it hard to get comfortable, so I hate getting new combinations and trying to make them work for my body size. A footrest is one thing I need to work on. The chair isn’t quite high enough for the desk, but is as high as it goes…so I’m not sure what to do (I’ve got a couple of thin cushions on the seat at present). Some of the stuff on the desk would be better elsewhere, but it’s there for now.

So yes, a lot of literal and figurative bending and flexing. A lot of problem solving on big and small scale. 

All of this is, of course, tiring. Transition is tiring. So I’m trying to be kind to myself and try to help David to be the same to himself. I’m ever so grateful for so many things, including this beautiful apartment, good sleep enabled by air conditioning, and that we work for an organisation that knows how exhausting international transitions are. I'm still feeling a bit shaky and temporary, though anticipate that that will dissipate as time goes on as it has in the past. 

I'm sure I would not enjoy pole vaulting, as fun as it is to watch. I'm not particularly fond of the bending and flexing needed for moving either, but it doesn't go on forever! We'll solve these small inconveniences one by one or we'll get accustomed to them and get on with living! Life here will soon seem more routine and stable again.

I'm also grateful for this verse that reminds me that no matter how messy and unstable my life seems, I have a solid foundation given to me by God:

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand (Psalm 40: 2 NIV).

Update as we continue to settle

 Another week has past and what's happened? We're feeling more and more settled. Our apartment is feeling more homey and we really like it. On Saturday we opened up most of the boxes with books in them and put them on shelves. That's always a turning point for me in a new place. Things were starting to take shape and we were getting a better idea of what we still needed to find to make this place work smoothly.

The sunny side of the apartment (south side). This side faces the river/stream/waterway that
we regularly walk along. It's a block of four apartments and ours is the top right of this photo. If you look carefully you can see our laundry drying on our small balcony.

This is the north side. Our apartment is the top left here. The window on the left is my office.

Bookshelves populated. So fun to see old favourites there.

David leaving the apartment to go for a walk with me one evening.

Reality checks

On Sunday we went back to our old church and found that they had had to scramble to find a place to worship that morning. The electricity was off in the main sanctuary, so they moved to the room where the Sunday School normally meets. A Japanese worship service was a good reality check. In Australia we're frequently considered the experts on Japan, and especially people assume we're fluent in the language. Yet I come back here and it doesn't take long to show that, though we get by, my language, in particular, isn't superb. I understood very little of the sermon on Sunday (noting that that understanding a long monologue is one of the hardest language skills). Two days earlier, I also understood very little of the official language involved in buying a car or getting us registered at the city office (David managed better than me). But somehow we get by! It's so hard to explain to people who have never lived in a country with a difficult language like Japanese how we can feel at home here, but also not be completely fluent!

Monday

This day we rode again to a nearby shopping hub and went to a homeware store, electronics store, and a 100 yen shop. We bought a number of smaller things to help in the shower and kitchen. Best purchase was a new rice cooker (we threw our 23-year-old 10-cup one out last year). When we rode home at midday, the temperature was well above 35C and we were glad it was just a short ride home and that we could have a quiet afternoon.

Wednesday was a big day

We borrowed a car on Wednesday and did a number of jobs, this took all day and involved several hours of city driving. We drove back to the place that we're buying our new car and finished off some paperwork that we hadn't been able to do last week because we forgot to take our inkan (Japanese seal, which replaces signatures on official documents). We also found out we can't pick up our car until the end of August.

Then we drove another hour to an area we rarely visit in a car: Shinjuku. It's much more inner city than where we live. There we bought a second-hand desk off a guy I think is from Egypt. I found this in the same way I bought a few things in Australia: through Facebook Marketplace. It was a bit dodgy for a little bit, though, because he gave us a location that was over the road from his tiny apartment and said to "ring the bell" when we arrived. Alas the location was another block of apartments, none of which had his name on their mailboxes. Finally he answered my messages (I think he works late hours and was asleep) and came out to meet us.

After that we drove back closer to home to a big second hand store. There we found an IKEA armchair for half the price we would have bought it new, but didn't find the printer we wanted. 

Our second last stop was at Nitori, our favourite Japanese furniture store. It has an open plan, so much better than IKEA. And the furniture is designed for small Japanese homes, so you're much more likely to find stuff that's the right size. There we bought a carpet and curtains for our washitsu (Japanese style room with delicate woven flooring called tatami), this room is our lounge room and it's easier to take care of the flooring if it's covered. We also bought three pieces of furniture for the kitchen. I'm planning to write about that next week after the furniture has been delivered, so I can show you. Japanese kitchens initially appear impossible to Australians, who are used to lots of bench (counter) space, and quite a lot of cupboards, but these problems can often be solved with problem solving and the purchase of a few small and larger items.

Our last stop was to drop the car back to its owners and ride home. It had been a long, hot, exhausting day and my physical condition slipped back a little, but with rest in the cool and some food, I recovered and slept really well and long that night.

Lounge room is taking shape. TV is out of sight on the right and still needs something solid to sit on.

My new desk. We'll add a small bookshelf where those boxes are next week.

Recovery days

Both Tuesday and Thursday I spent mostly at home. Some of that was just resting in the cool, but also writing a prayer letter and doing more home-set up. Yesterday we also pulled the furniture out of the lounge and put the carpet in (more like a door-to-door rug) as well as David's new chair. We also rearranged the office and installed my new desk (which I really like). I keep reminding myself that we've had a big month and that slow days and recovery time is important, especially with the energy sapping heat and humidity this time of the year in Tokyo. Although, having good air conditioning at home has meant that we've been able to achieve more in a shorter space of time than we otherwise would have. 

Snickerdoodles and my microwave-
convection oven (on a temporary table)

Early in the week I also had a go at using the oven part of my microwave convection oven. I've rarely used that because in our previous house I had a really top notch oven. I made a fairly good batch of Snickerdoodles and was satisfied that I could live with this new method of baking. Though it looks a lot smaller, actually I could still bake 24 biscuits at one time (previous oven I could do 30), so it isn't too big a change, although it does take a lot longer to get up to the set temperature. Being able to bake is another of my turning points in adjusting to a new place, so being able to achieve this goal so soon after we arrived felt great.

Complexity

Settling after a big move like this takes time, even though we've moved back to our old neighbourhood. We're thankful that we've had time to make the adjustment. Jumping between countries is weird. It's like jumping between two different parts of our lives. 

Here we have a lot of history, a lot more of our lives have been lived here as adults than in Australia. This morning we rode to the police station to change the address on our drivers licences (wish it was like Australia where you do it online!). The station is across the road from where our youngest son was treated for concussion a couple of years ago. Part of the route we rode is a route I've often ridden on my way to and from my big park adventures. Our visit to Nitori brought up memories of the first time we visited this store when we were in our first month in the country in 2000/1. Our apartment has many more bits and pieces of our last 23 years than our lives in Australia do. 

But it's okay. I'm reading a biography of Naomi Osaka at present. I'm surprised by how parts of her story resonate with me. She's grown up and lives "between" cultures, as do many high level athletes. She's black, and Haitian, and Japanese, and American. I'm clearly a white Australian, but I'm also someone who's lived a long time in Japan and had a lot of interaction with the expat community here, and have been changed forever by these things. I'm gradually learning to embrace all of this complexity. 

We run our monthly news/prayer letter past our adult sons before we send it out, because it includes news about their lives. This week one of them called me out on some of what I'd written. Apparently "home" was a notion that was confusing things. It's a concept that is more complex for some people than others and certainly even more so in the midst of transition.

But to conclude this blog post, I want to reassure you that we are feeling quite at home here: in Japan and in our new abode. Each day is feeling more normal as micro and macro routines weave their way into our days. Work will add another layer to that in this coming week, but we're looking forward to being settled enough at home that we can turn our focus more outward.

Little exchanges add up to a lot

Have you ever thought about the little exchanges that make up the bulk of connection with others? Our lives aren’t generally full of D&Ms (deep and meaningful conversations). Though often I long for that deep connection with people, there is, actually, a limit on how much of that I can handle in any one day.

On Friday the school held the biggest school-community event it’s had in three years. It’s a descendent of the ginormous garage sale known as Thrift Shop. I’ve blogged about that event many times over the last 12 years (see some of those posts here). Now it is called the Fall Festival and Bazaar. The “bazaar” side of things is a scaled-down version of Thrift Shop, designed to cost less in terms of time-commitment for staff and volunteers. It also includes something new: a place where individuals or groups can rent a table to peddle their own wares. Because, of the last three years, we've been saving up stuff we want to get rid of (that isn't rubbish), we decided to rent a table.

Our table as it looked at the start of the day.

There were a few great things about having our own table: 

• I had a place to "be" all day. I didn't feel like I was loitering or wasting time. It was also a starting place for conversations that weren't uncomfortable, a here-and-present kind of thing that helped me stay away from topics that aren't so easy to talk about in a light way.
• We had a bucket of "free stuff" that the younger kids loved. It's such fun giving things away.
• I got to make and sell fudge (but I was disappointed with the packaging we managed, which made the fudge look decidedly dodgy).
• We did actually get rid of a fair bit of stuff to places that it will be used (rather than just sent to the rubbish). We were able to give two boxes of stuff to the Salvation Army who came at the end for stuff that hadn't been sold.

I went into Friday expecting lots of more conversations, and came away feeling a little dissatisfied with how insubstantial most of the exchanges were. But, as I've seen as I reflected over the weekend is that on Thursday and Friday I was part of the gentle web of connection that has begun forming again in the community that centres around the school. Looking back, I had short conversations about all the following things:

A future camping trip

Why I had a nearly 100-year-old hymn book for sale (yes, I sold it)

A recent 500 pound, 8-foot bear attack in the US (yes, there was)

How much my youngest son has grown and changed

How to say “poached egg” in Japanese (no, I can't remember now)

How to use a baccarat espresso maker

What Thrift Shop used to look like (for someone new in the community)

Where Kuranda is (inland from Cairns)

How much CAJ pays substitute teachers

The difference between chocolate and fudge (yes, we were confused by the question)

What it was like growing up a few blocks from the US on the Canadian side of the border and how I’ve never lived in a country that has international land borders (only sea borders, hence “going overseas” is synonymous with going to another country). 

Shopping habits: I prefer to be left alone to consider the option and very much dislike shopkeepers in my face.

How exhausting parenting is emotionally, and how ready I am to be moving on out of being the parent of a school-aged child (7 ½ months…but I’m not counting :D).

Fudge and how we’ve given this to our boys’ teachers for years. This is the last year that will happen.

How I got rejected by the blood bank on Friday at the school because my haemoglobin was a little bit low.

Plans for the next couple of years (moving out, home assignment from July 2023, moving back to Japan).

The big gaps that the pandemic has left us with in community: those whose kids started at the school during the pandemic don’t know the parents of their kids’ friends. I don’t know the faces of a bunch of new teachers (and their kids). That's something that rarely happened before the pandemic, due to staff-family gatherings that have usually been held through the year.

I met a lady who works for the same organisation that publishes the magazine. I’ve only really interacted with her over email, though perhaps we’ve met once, I can’t remember.

I got some hugs and got to see some people I haven’t seen in months or years.

And a thank you for my recent blog posts from someone who says she reads everything I write!

I'll stop there. When you add all that up, that's a lot of networking. And the sorts of stuff that doesn’t happen when you aren’t face-to-face with people. I was exhausted on Friday night (and Saturday). But also thankful. 

Looking like an idiot

I've been doing some heavy editing recently and my head is a bit heavy. I think writing a little today might be something of an antidote. Besides, I've got a good story to tell you...

I saw an article today called "Four rarely mentioned (but essential) missionary qualities". These were the qualities:

1. A sense of adventure
2. A sense of humour
3. A willingness to look like an idiot
4. A high tolerance for ambiguity

Generic photo, not from Japan...those number plates are wrong.

I'm not sure if I have all of these, but having stuck around for nearly 20 years, perhaps I do?

Let's see if I can dig out some examples, but I'm going to change the order:

A high tolerance for ambiguity
This is huge in Japan. Not just that we're in a culture where we don't understand many things, but the language and culture itself is full of ambiguity. In Japan people often learn by observation, rather than being explicitly told what to do. Living as a foreigner in this land that is multiplied many times. My observational skills are far better than they used to be, simply because that's often all I've got to make it through a situation. 

When we have visitors, they often ask many questions and we often don't have good-enough answers for them. We can't seek answers to all the questions that arise from what we don't know: we simply don't have the energy or time to do that. So instead we learn what we need to do our business and live our lives, and most of the rest has to just be left to one side.

Sense of adventure
I wouldn't characterise myself as someone particularly adventurous in the traditional sense of the work. I'm am not a big risk-taker. But from where you stand, what I do might look like an adventure, though it doesn't feel like it. However, I think probably our camping reveals our sense of adventure. Wading into the world of wrestling as we have is probably an adventure that many wouldn't care for. Travelling Tokyo trains can be an adventure...that's true!

A sense of humour
Missionary life (and life with teens) can get quite serious. But the willingness to laugh at oneself and at the odd things going on around you is pretty important. I guess one example of that is seeing interesting English or a funny meme or video. I do love to laugh and am happy to do so at myself. Most of the time I'm happy to tell the stories of when I've messed up, and have a laugh.

A willingness to look like an idiot
This is connected to the one above. I guess I often look like an idiot here, whether willingly, I'm not sure! It's common to not know what the protocol is for this or that. Or to get into trouble because you can't read something fast enough. 

This happened to me just last Friday. I drove with a friend to our "local" Costco, about an hour away. It's usually a stressful trip because it involves negotiating around a crowded shop with a large trolley, spending lots of money, and takes a good part of a day. But last Friday another layer of difficulty was added. In fact, it felt like I was in an international airport—there were so many things I needed to keep track of. 
A. My membership card: which was needed to get in, as well as to buy my groceries. 
B. My receipt for groceries: as they check this at the exit.
C. My receipt for the whole pizzas I bought at the restaurant: so I could collect them once they were made.
The above is usual, it was the fourth and fifth that threw me over the edge:
D. Car park ticket: the car park is usually free, but this time they had the gates activated and we had to take a ticket to get in. I presented it at the cashier when I bought my groceries where I got E.
E. Another car park ticket: I had no idea what this was for, but it seemed important and had an all-important stamp on it, so I put it in my purse.

After lugging the full over-sized trolley back to the van and loading everything into it, we joined the line to get out of the car park. There isn't usually a line, so it was strange and frustrating.

When we got to the boom gate there were three buttons on the machine, two yellow and one red. Plus two slots: one for the ticket, and one for money. We'd been waiting about ten minutes to get here and knew that the people behind us were also probably frustrated. So there was time pressure. 

I couldn't quickly read anything on the ticket machine. So I thrust one of the two car park tickets into the slot. It told me I owed them ¥1,000 (about AU$13.60). I wasn't about to pay that! I'd just spent hundreds of dollars buying groceries and the sign at the entry said that entitled me to three hours free parking . . . so I pushed another button and the ticket came out and I tried the other ticket. Then the display told me I owed them ¥6,000. I then pushed another button, in fact I probably pushed all of them one after the other, over and over . . . I can't remember now.

There was no obvious call button, and no staff member lurking nearby. The car behind me started to beep his horn, but didn't back up to let me unblock the single exit lane.

I am so glad my friend was there. Her presence helped calm me, but my cool was pretty much gone. Finally, two men approached our van, one on either side. They told us you had to put both tickets into the machine. Bingo: the boom gate rose and there was great relief all round. Belted into my car, I couldn't bow deeply in apology to those stuck behind us, but I wanted to.

I can't say that I was willing to look like an idiot. In fact I hate looking like one. But I find it easier to cope with that in Japan than in Australia. My white skin betrays me time and time again. But it does give me an excuse to mess up on occasion. I'm not sure the men who helped us would have been so patient with a woman who looked Japanese. 

Our foreignness got us off the hook, but in Australia it doesn't. Every time we go back we get odd looks at one time or another when we reveal our "foreignness" with a "stupid" question or lack of understanding of a situation. Our white skins don't save us there, nor do our Australian accents!

But back to those four characteristics. I don't know that I'd be known by any of them, except perhaps the humour. However, we have had to grow in each of the others. An ongoing sense of call, a strong desire to make an eternal difference, meaningful work we're gifted in doing, and a dogged stubborn streak has meant that we've stuck around.

Happy to help

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the level of customer service in Japan. I want to add another example. 

Last week I went to get more asthma medication for myself. Doctors don't issue repeat prescriptions here, but my doctor will prescribe several months' worth of inhalers for me that I can buy all at once. However, the pharmacy didn't have the four inhalers that were on my script. They apologised more than once and asked if it was okay if they mailed them to me later.  This package arrived a couple of days later, hand delivered by a private vendor. Wow!

The next day I was on the search for an ingredient to make an icecream cake for our son's birthday over the weekend. The cashiers had these vests on! It embodies the attitude of people in the service industry here. They usually bend over backwards (often running at the same time) to help you, to the point that if they can't help you it's embarrassing.

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.

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!

Thrift Shop finds

I'm already in Sapporo, but before I left I took photos of some of our Thrift Shop finds, because I know that there are a few people who really like it when I post them. So, without further ado:

This was found in free-shopping time. It's a really soft, stuffed "toy" that can be draped around the neck. I knew our youngest was looking for something really soft like the Minion he gave me for my birthday and so when I found this, I knew I was onto something. He loves it.

 More books. All these were free! And a beautiful furoshiki, a Japanese wrapping cloth (traditionally used instead of a bag), also free.

A portable art easel, for use during deputation presentations. You'll probably hear more about this later in the year.

Ice pack holder with a velcro strap for wrapping around limbs. For a sporting family, this will come in handy.

Free CDs.

This one I bought. I traditionally buy one puzzle for holidays, usually the Christmas holidays, but this year we won't be here for Christmas, so it will have to be for some other time, maybe summer next year.

Two friends who couldn't make it to Thrift Shop asked me for favours and I was able to deliver. No idea what Candy Land is, though...

My backpack has packed it in. I found a "new" one for 200 yen (AU$2.40). I used it to get to Sapporo today and it's passed the test.

I eyed off this necklace/earring set all week and when it hadn't been sold by the end, I was able to pick it up free. The other earrings were in a packet of earrings that cost me 150 yen. I pulled these out and re-sold the packet. I wore the earings today all day and they also pass the test.

I believe this was part of our youngest son's youth group costume. Following Thrift Shop they have a light competition as to who can come up with the wackiest costume sourced at Thrift Shop.

Two more parts of the costume.

And a couple of other shirts he found.

And finally, some beautiful notecards. I've got a specific use in mind for some of these in the next couple of months.

We definitely took more than we bought this year, which is a good thing (and some of the things like the above backpack and also a kitchen rug actually are just replacements for things that will be thrown out). It's so easy to accumulate too many things. Now that we're not moving out in June and potentially not even have anyone to sublet our place, the challenge to keep a lid on our junk goes up a notch. Moving is such an helpful thing for helping you figure out what you really do want and what really is not necessary.