Green therapy

One of the things we really love about the place we often holiday in in Japan (a town called Karuizawa) is the beautiful green surroundings. A real balm to the soul after the concrete and asphalt of Tokyo. We took our visitors up there for a week and here is some of the green we saw.

Walking on a volcano

View from the volcano

One of the lanes in Karuizawa.

A local stream

David H. at a local waterfall.

A children's literature museum in the area.

Riding the streets of Karuizawa

Three of the four parents on a local walk.

Evelyn enjoying a local stream.

A local walk with our young female visitor dancing.

Our seven bedroom "mansion". The two families used both the upstairs and downstairs apartments of the OMF holiday house. Wonderful. The children enjoyed playing hide and seek here! We also did a trial set-up of our new tent in the front yard. Some of the children slept overnight in the tent.

On the way back to Tokyo – a view out of the car.

16 Days in Japan

Today, on the day they depart for Australia, we have the special pleasure of a guest post from Evelyn:

Well...16 days in Japan....and now it is starting to feel normal - is that the word?  On Thursday we were standing in the line at Thunder Mountain in Disneyland and I had to kick myself...we could have easily been in Dreamworld in Brisbane..except ...wait...we were surrounded by Japanese and Buzz lightyear speaks Japanese and the Haunted House is not really scary because you can't understand the words.... Oh yes...and then there is the train trip home.

It is the 16th day and today we head home. Wow what an active lifestyle!!  I have eaten all different sorts of food and I have still lost 1kg! Saying that, everything from my waist down aches...my bottom muscles, thighs, calfs, feet...my lower body is exhausted.  I suppose that maybe from the past 5 days..

Shinrin Park (Forest Wood Park)

A massive park that you have to ride around to see things and then when you get there you have to walk another kilometere to the ...."jumping pillow"...to the "water park"...to the "big balls"...to the "massive 24 part obstacle park"...oh and I forgot to say the temperature was 34.5C in the shed where we got the bikes from.

Tokyo City (Metro Building and Imperial Palace)

One of the gates of the Imperial Palace

Ever done a "stairmaster"?...well come to Tokyo subway and experience one of these...does the same job but with more interesting views.  The mass of humanity from the top of the Metropolitan Building was absolutely amazing...a sea of humanity (30 million people - pick up every Australian and put them all in Tokyo city and that's it!!)

Disneyland

Tokyo Disney

Yakiniku - cooking our meat in the middle of the table at a restaurant.

What can I say - take Californias Disneyland...change the language to Japanese...and then just change the people to Japanese that all wear Mickey or Minney ears or wacky hats of Goofy, the Cheshire Cat, Buzz Lightyear or the like....is this where the Japanese come out of themselves??? Oh I forgot to say that we had 5 children with us, 4 of which were boys...and left to run on Tom Sawyers Island ...I definitely did my gym workout as well as my swimfit session about 10 times each.

Department Store Shopping

Hooray!!!...we can drive to the shops and walk lazily through the airconditioned shops. But no...it is quicker and easier to ride. Ouch...ok thighs...we can do it. Having a 6 year old daughter in front of you is enough to give you grey hairs...will she smash into a car, will she hit someone....Ahhhhhh...stay to the left, stay to the left!!! Then the shops...my daughter and I now both have beautiful summer kiminos (Yukata)....as well as many accessories!!!

So can you now see why I ache from the waist down....actually my back now too...oh and my head (it was 30 degrees and 80% humidity when I went to sleep and when I woke up!!). But boy what a fantastic time we have had. God has been soooooo good and we have had sooooo much fun!! If you want to experience Japan, David and Wendy and their boys are the best tour guides...we have done the most fabulous things!

Another time I (or maybe Wendy...I'm running out of time to catch the plane) will tell you about our wonderful trip to Karuizawa. Such an amazing time of both Walks in nature (to active volcanoes and beautiful waterfalls) and shopping Japanese style as well as an outlet malls...if it was winter then there would have been skiing!!! 

Outside the onsen - hot bath.

OH IF ONLY I WAS THERE NOW....the Onsens!!!! Please, Please bring me an onsen ... now, that would take away all the aches and pains...I might even fall asleep in the beautiful baths!!!  Oh, just to think of it!!  There is only one catch for all of you reading this....you have to go in naked!!!

And we cannot forget the time we spent with mutual Japanese friends at a restaurant – in our own private room. So loud – seven lively kids and six adults.

We have had the BEST, BEST, TIME!!! Thank you God and thank you to the Marshalls!!!

The things we will miss...

Evelyn will miss...Onsens of course, Cream french sticks, Chocolates eclairs that melt in your mouth, Shopping along Kyu-Karuizawa Shopping Street and Coffee Milk!

David will miss going to the supermarket to find something that he has no idea of what it is and then eating it...and SQUIRT Time (Seriously Quiet Uninterrupted Individual Reading Time)!

Rebecca will miss Jamie, CC Lemon drinks and the hundred yen shop!

Joshua will miss Thunder Mountain, CC lemon drinks, Salty Bread and the hundred yen shop!

And all of us will miss the Marshalls!!!

Too exhausted to blog

The last two weeks have been huge. Physically we're exhausted, but I think relationally and emotionally too. We've introduced our friends to a lot of Japanese culture and sites, some of which we weren't familiar with ourselves. And just organising nine people, sorting out differences of opinion, making decisions and providing food for that many has been a challenge, a tiring one. An added challenge as been that two of our visitors were Aussie children who didn't view "trying new food and experiences" in quite the same adventurous light as their parents. Plus living in an already not-large house. Squeezing everyone in to our house has worked, but it is challenging most people's need of personal space and that is tiring.

I'm not feeling terribly positive right now, but probably exhaustion is the reason. So it is better that I don't write much just now so that I don't say things I regret later. After a bit more sleep and some space life will look a whole lot more rosy I'm sure.

Too busy to blog

We are having so many adventures with our friends that I simply don't have time to blog. I'm very sad, because we've generated so much blog-able material! 

From last Tuesday we were in Karuizawa and the mission-owned house we stayed in had no internet access. Now we're back in Tokyo and we're racing all over the city on trains. Today we visited a tall building and looked across smoggy Tokyo. Then we proceeded to the public gardens around the Emperor's Palace. Tomorrow we head to a very special treat: Tokyo Disneyland!

My feet are already sore. On Tuesday, on our way back to Tokyo, we stopped at our favourite large park: Shinrin Park and walked and walked. Today involved a lot of walking and tomorrow sounds huge too, not to mention getting home after 9pm on the trains with five children . . . One part of me is looking forward to it and the other part is not. I'm praying that we miraculously find a train carriage on the way home that is not crowded out with salarymen.

Anyway, off to bed now. Our friends leave on Saturday afternoon so you can look forward to some "catch-up" blog posts in the near future, coupled with heaps of photos.

Let's go visit the super missionaries with children

Our Australian visitors have been here a few days now and I've asked them to do a couple of guest posts. To help you understand his "ravings", they have two children a son who is nine and a daughter who is six. Also, the disclaimer is: these are our visitor's opinions, not mine!

Today we have David H.'s perspective:

Visiting super missionaries and experiencing Japanese culture . . . with children.

Travelling to visit super missionaries takes on a whole new meaning with children. It really changes the perceptions that you may have by helping you see the world through different eyes . . . children's eyes.

Firstly, children have no preconceptions about anyone being super, no hang ups of anyone being better just because the are "called" or have any special ability – nope the parents are purely secondary . . . the real question is (in their eyes), do they have children . . . and what age? The whole discussion centres around which children we are going to visit . . . and who are we going to play with?

So in essence, in the children's eyes, we are visiting the Marshall kids . . . who are the parents? . . . "what they do" is not a question that even enters the equation.

Secondly, travelling to other countries takes on new meaning and new perspectives when you travel with children.  

The kids top three experiences in Japan so far could be summarised as . . .

1. Toilets

Within 10 minutes of arriving in a new country with diverse views and outlooks along with a rich and diverse tapestry of culture . . . we discovered the toilets. They have buttons, lots of buttons, the best one is the blue one and the objective is to get your sister to sit on the toilet and get her to push the blue button - the suspense is extended as she doubts your good will,  "what does it do?" . . . "is it safe?"  You convince her to sit on the toilet and then push the button . . . after a delay that surely has made you age, she cannot stop her own curiosity and bashes the button with a mixture of excitement and trepidation and is rewarded with a high pressure water jet going up out of the toilet.  You are rewarded with a high pitched squeal followed by an extended silence . . . then the button is pushed again and again . . .

After that there is the green button . . .

2. Materialism

Materialism rules over everything, especially when it comes so cheaply. Japan has 100 yen shops where everything and I mean everything is 100 Yen (oh yeah plus 5% tax) – which roughly is AUD $1.25 for each item. Before we arrived to the country we thought we were wise parents and decided beforehand to give the kids a generous 2,000 yen spending money for the entire trip. 50% of which was blown away in  20 minutes in a compulsive spending frenzy in one of these super 100 yen shops buying stuff that frankly will not make it home . . .  To add insult to injury all of it was made in China . . . To add salt to the wound almost none of what the kids bought had any relationship to anything Japanese – well if you can draw a  relationship with buying four small plastic water pistols has anything to do with Japanese culture I would be interested to know . . . it does have a lot to do with wanting to blast the other boys away in some park shortly . . . with the usually collateral damage done to a certain father who is currently wondering how he can enjoy some form of Japanese cultural experience . . . did I say that we are wise parents?

3.  Buckets

Fun and adventure is where you find it with children. After the toilet and possibly the 100 Yen shop the third on the list is the bucket in the bathroom. After a hard day running around a park, in "Rascal Mountain" with said water pistols – mixed with dirt resulting in mud caked on so hard you think it was done in a car detailing oven, the kids were summarily ordered to "scrub that stuff off or we will do it for you" . . . the mistake we did was to send them into the bathroom together as we thought it would save time . . .

To place this in context the Marshall's live in an area where the houses are on 120 metre square blocks of land, with a road set back by around 200mm with the neighbours windows so close you can literally reach out of your window and close your neighbours windows if they are open.  Further the walls are made of almost paper (some of them literally are - which is another story on playtime and breaking walls with paper planes). You can also easily hear your neighbours dental hygiene as they gurgle two doors down . . . so we are all pretty close. (Editor's note: the bathroom windows are directly over the street, so any noise made there is heard easily by the pedestrians walking or riding by). What makes it all worse is the Japanese are very quiet even at home . . . maybe because they have learnt that everyone can hear everything that is going on in the house in the next street.

Add to the mix children told not to waste the water . . . so what do they do – they use the buckets to conserve water but . . . . . the buckets are also just big enough that they can squeeze into them bottom first. The fit is so tight with the water that the bucket gets vacuum sucked on so that it sticks and can only be forceably removed resulting in the walls of the bucket vibrating at just the right frequency to send out a very loud (I do not know how else to say it) FART. This is followed by hails of giggles, quiet whisperings and minor gruntings with an eventual repeated loud, low frequency, wall vibrating, noise which could be heard some distance from the house with the consequential large Japanese audience . . . without doubt including many neighbours. The process is repeated for some time with the volume increasing at each attempt with the associated laughter getting louder and louder . . . until . . . silence . . . 

then a cry for help . . .  "Mum I'm stuck . . ."

So much for a Japanese cultural experience with children to encourage super missionaries . . .

One of our favourite park outings

Today we've had a lower maintenance day. We took our friends in a van (no public transport) to one of our favourite parks – Koganei Park. 

We were somewhat discouraged when we woke up and discovered a very overcast sky and then it started to sprinkle lightly. Not being able to come up with a good alternative, though, we decided to press ahead with our plans. It actually ended up being a great day in the park. A bit damp and muddy, but we almost had the park to ourselves on a wet Monday.

The kids were quiet on the trip home – proof that we'd given them good opportunities to get rid of some energy. But also a chance to put a little space between one another. It was always going to be a challenge, putting another family in our relatively small house. Not that we cannot fit them, but that it means less privacy for everyone. So today we saw evidence of children overloading with the constant social interaction that they've been involved in over the weekend. The park helped to even that out.

Tomorrow we're putting even more space between us. We're all heading up to our mission's holiday house in the mountains north-west of here. Our family will be driving, but we thought we'd send our friends on a little adventure. They're catching trains and then the ultimate in trains – the Shinkansen/bullet train. We'll meet them up there. Then while we're there we'll be residing in two different apartments in the same house. Sharing meals and all the fun, but just a little more separation between families. It'll help us all stay sane and last the distance (not that we're having any major difficulties!).

The mission house up there has no phone or internet access, so we'll be out of contact for much of the next week. Hopefully we'll have a relaxing time away.

I've asked our friends to write a couple of guest blog posts, so hopefully you'll see them here in the next ten days or so too.

The ordinary isn't really ordinary after all

Well, our visitors are here and there really hasn't been time to sit down and write here. It is truly amazing how much of our "ordinary" life is interesting to them. Things that we just take for granted, take in our stride is of interest to them. 

For example, on the way home from church today we stopped by a Japanese bakery for a snack. For starters, David and I baulked at all nine of us dashing in to the shop at once. We just know how crowded Japanese shops are and nine foreigners (including five kids) dashing into a shop wouldn't be very friendly to those who are already in there. We did all eventually trickle in, but I left as soon as I could and secured a spot to sit. 

Then the produce available is quite different to an Australian bakery. For example: a French stick with a sugar cream in the middle; a slinky potato on a large kebab stick; a croissant with cheese in the middle, doughnuts with sweet bean paste; and pizza. Not only is it different, it is arranged differently. In Japan all the products are out on displays that you walk around and select what you want and put them on trays with tongs.

I've also found out that I walk fast . . . a Tokyo pace?

But I've run out of time to write. This is but a couple of examples of many things that have gone down over the weekend. More to come, but I regret that I cannot record more of what it going. There is just way to much of it and it extends from waking to falling asleep! 

If you're a praying person, we'd love to have your prayers that we'll have enough energy; that we'll all stay well; and that our kids will continue to get along well.