I miss...

...tuck-you-bin (takyubin - for those Japan-philes). Now before you wonder if my boys are having trouble tucking their shirts in, let me tell you about this wonderful Japanese service. Takyubin is like the postal service, except you can get them to send just about anything anywhere inside Japan. Such as luggage to your destination. It is incredibly convenient and the prices are reasonable. Just about any little corner store can organise takyubin for you. It is particularly useful for young families with not enough hands to manage the luggage and the kids. A medium sized suitcase under 25kg from Tokyo to Hokkaido (and equivalent to Brisbane to Sydney) would cost around 2200 yen ($AU 27). Not bad. We could really use it on Friday here in Australia. We're travelling to Sydney for our mission's national conference and are arriving early to take in a little bit of the harbour and other sight seeing opportunities down there. Unfortunately, we'll be hauling luggage for the whole family for the five days we're away. We've found a place to store it, but it is not exactly convenient and will take away from the time we can spend seeing the sights while we dispose of it and later, collect it. Aussies, imagine if I turned up at Australia Post with my suitcase and asked them to send it to an address in Sydney. They'd first have a fit and then charge me a massive amount and then I'd need medical treatment! Actually hold that thought, I just checked it on Australia Post's website. It would cost me $AU 37 to post a 20 kg suitcase 80cm x 40cm x 30cm. But they only guarantee two business days. To match takyubin's next day (not just business day) delivery, I'd be paying in excess of $125 and even then it has to be posted on a business day! Oh, I wish we could import takyubin to Australia.

Encouraging encounters

I've had several encouraging encounters over the last couple of days. Home Assignment can be a time of giving and giving. Telling people about your country of service, correcting misconceptions, answering the same questions and repeating the same stories again and again. This can be draining rather than uplifting. The sort of thing which reinforces our feeling that we don't quite belong in Australia any more. The last couple of days have been different. On Friday I went to a Bible study with a small group of ladies I hardly know. Instead of dispassionately discussing theological truths, they revealed some scary truths about themselves with breathtaking honesty. A morning of soul refreshment! Friday night we had our homeside ministry team here for dinner. (The folk who organised our house, contents etc.) We shared a crazy meal (with lots of little kids) and then shared and prayed together. It is a weird thing to attend a prayer meeting that you are the focus of. However, if you can relax with that, it is an incredibly encouraging event. Saturday afternoon I met the lady I'm travelling to Manila with (and rooming with her too). This was our first face-to-face encounter. The context I where met her was unusual. She is the editor of Footprints Australia magazine, a locally produced magazine for Christian women. It is her 'baby'. Yesterday the team of women who help her put the magazine together, met to talk about various things. So I didn't only get to meet my future travel companion, I met her in the context of more than a dozen others passionate about this magazine. I met an Australian Christian book publisher who has just started her own company marketing family friendly Australian Christian products including books. That was exciting to see; her passion and dreams for Australian Christian publishing and writing. The other exciting factor was that all these women come from different Christian traditions. All with the same goal, of glorifying God and encouraging other Christian women in their walk with God. I left the meeting early because a friend I hadn't seen for 15 years was due for dinner at our house. He got to our house before me and introduced himself to my husband and children. A lower primary teacher, he got along with our boys really well. It was a delight to see a single, young man (got to be careful, he is only seven years younger than me) who is living his life for others and God, and is not sold out on his own pleasure. I've had to be careful writing this. Many of the people mentioned, actually read this blog! I don't want to put off people from talking to me for the fear of being mentioned here. But I did also feel that I needed to express my thankfulness for these people in my life over the last few days. People who've made me feel welcome, valued and loved. People who haven't treated me like an alien from outer space.

Outrageous intrusion?

GOVERNMENT TRIMMING THE WAISTS OF MILLIONS Recently summoned by officials of the city of Amagasaki, Japan, Mr. Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight. Because of the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. "I'm on the border," he moaned. Japan, a country not traditionally known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizens. Under a national law that came into effect April 2008, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74. That represents more than 56 million waistlines! Those exceeding government limits - 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women - will be given dieting guidance. If after three months they do not lose weight, they will be steered toward further re-education and special checkups. The government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. Officials have moved aggressively into measuring waistlines, stressing that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check and help curb the waistlines of an aging society. When the turn came for the flower shop owner, Mr. Nogiri of Amagasaki city, he entered a booth where he had to bare his midriff, exposing a flat stomach with barely discernible love handles. A nurse wrapped a tape measure around his waist across his navel: 33.6 inches, or 0.1 inch over the limit. That's a stunning blow! he cried out, defeat spreading across his face. Matsushita, one of the big companies in Japan, must measure the waistlines of at least 80 percent of its employees. They must get 10 percent of those deemed overweight to lose weight by 2012, and 25 percent of them to lose weight by 2015. As part of its intensifying efforts, the company has distributed to its employees towels that double also as tape measures. NEC, Japan's largest maker of personal computers, said that if it failed to meet its targets, it could incur as much as $19 million in penalties. Kenzo Nagata, 73, a toy store owner, said he had ignored a letter summoning him to a so-called special check-up. His waistline was no one's business but his own, he said. He planned to disregard the second notice that the city was scheduled to mail to those that refuse to comply. Source: NY Times, by Mr. N. Onishi, 2008-06-13

The joy of hospitality and pondering parking habits

Today we have some friends coming over for dinner - actually it is 'bring and share', but this morning when I dropped into the grocery store, to buy a couple of extra things to help us through the weekend, I realised that I had guests coming (amazing, what you figure out!). That meant that I needed to cook something for them. Now this sounds like an imposition, but actually it has been ages since we've been settled enough to have visitors. The last visitors we had for a meal brought their own food! So, as I happen to love cooking (especially desserts), it was an exciting thought. So, I've made mini Pavlovas (like meringue for those non-Aussies who frequently this blog). And we're anticipating their arrival with joy. The other thing I've been meaning to write about is wide Australian roads and the habit we Aussies have of parking along the side of them. We just take it for granted. I remember my grandfather, who lived his whole working life on the farm, commenting about how inconvenient the town's new shopping centre was - that you couldn't get a park directly outside the exact shop you were patronising!

In Japan you definitely do not take it for granted. Putting your car some place when you go somewhere is something you often have to plan for before hand. One of the questions we answered for people who were coming over for a meal when we lived in Tokyo was, "Where shall we put our car?" (Or "How do we get there on foot from the railway station?") The majority of roads do not have room for a car to be parked as well as for cars to drive. This used to make me feel quite claustrophobic. When I went out driving, I couldn't just put my car wherever, I had to plan. For example, CAJ had a carpark, but occasionally there would be no park available (it is pretty small). What to do then? Park illegally on the side of a nearby road (where there was a little room) or use expensive paid-car park (20 minutes for $1.50)? Below you can see one particular road close to our house in Tokyo. The photo was taken from the passenger seat of our car. It is a two-way road and the car on the other side is as far over as it could be. Somehow we made it through this tight squeeze and many others! Thankfully the speed limits are low. There is no way to drive at more than 10 or 20 km/hr on these skinny roads. Buildings butt straight onto the road and there is no visibility at intersections until you are basically into the intersection unless the council put a useful traffic mirror up (and there are many of these - see the photo below). There are many more things I could write about Japanese roads. Like the lack of roundabouts and therefore many traffic lights. Like having to problem solve your way through situations when several cars meet in a place where only one car can pass at a time. But this post has gone on long enough. I'll save it for anther day.

Marshall Musings

Spent some time recently putting our monthly news/prayer letter together (portion appears below). Let me know if you'd like a copy.

Finding a doctor

I went back to my search for a doctor today. Actually I went back to the doctor we saw last time we lived in Brisbane. She is a 20 min drive away on the Ipswich Motorway and costs $15 more, but it was definitely worth it. A doctor who is willing to sit down and sort through the immunisation of kids who've lived in two different countries and whose immunisation records are in both Japanese and English. Who then sits back and says, "So how are you all?" and "How's the boys Japanese?" and is happy to be interrupted by a chatterbox 4 y.o. who is constantly talking about the toys in her special box and asking questions about strange shelves which pop out of examination beds. This is someone worth driving to see! My search is over...now I just have to get my nearly 7 y.o. to have his 4 y.o. injections! We might need to get the heavies in.

Brisbane weather Part two

I raved about Brisbane winter the other day. Now I tell you the problem with Brisbane winters - they are too short! This week we've had a heat wave that belongs in summer, not the end of winter. Monday and Tuesday were in the mid 30s (Celsius). Today was nicer, 28, I think. It pretty much spells the end of winter, though. If you can call what they have here as winter. Many people in the world would call it spring. In Japan we found that spring involved a very slow crawl up the scale of temperature. Not here, BANG and you're into summer...for the next five months!