As I sit here, rubbing my hands together to warm them up so I can start typing, I am reflecting on what I have to cover in this post. We haven’t been doing overly much recently, in terms of touristy things, because it has been very cold and money is pretty tight at the moment. On that point, if anyone has some influence somewhere in relation to the exchange rate of the $AUD vs ¥JPY, then please activate it now!!!! We don’t have much to bring over but we need as much of it as possible…ok, I know, I know the likelihood of being able to change the minds of hardened gamblers is minimal!

It really has been very cold, so much so that there has been a lot of snow falling over the last week or so, and not just in Hokkaido. All along the coast of the Japan Sea there have been quite heavy falls and they even had some in Fukuoka!!! We have only had one fall of snow-rain, and it was more rain than snow. The TV stations have been talking about why it has been so cold so early in the season, too. Even with my gloves on outside, there have been a few days when my fingers were still cold while walking.

There were two queries following my last post which I thought I would talk about this time; what are crow-nets and do we celebrate xmas here? To the first query, you may or may not have seen my response, so I thought it might make it clearer if I added some photos. In terms of crow vital statistics, I found the following: Total length: 540-600mm Wing length: 316-400mm Tail length: 205-255mm. So, yes, they area big but, as I indicated in my reply to the query, they aren’t overly aggressive (luckily!). The first crow-net photo shows the rubbish outside our building, with net appropriately tucked in. The second shows what can happen if you don’t tuck the net under the rubbish properly. You can imagine what would happen without any net at all…

In terms of xmas, I should point out that I have never been an overly keen xmas celebrator – Craig and I don’t exchange gifts and we rarely have sent out cards, in the past. We have always made a point of catching up with family on, or around xmas day, and I do like tinsel, so I take the opportunity to decorate with lights and tinsel. We also have a black xmas tree, which is currently on it’s way to Japan (black looks good with purple, green and silver tinsel…). I’m not sure what we’ll do this year, we haven’t really made any specific plans, except to order a matcha cake which we will pick up on the 24^th. It looked really nice in the brochure, and I thought that a green cake seemed somehow suitable for xmas. I will, however, be celebrating Winter Solstice and New Year.

Last week we met up with Takako again, to help her complete the application form for her to attend the food sanitation course and we then took her to see The House. I thought it would be a good thing to show her how far along we are with preparations, so she would feel reassured that we are getting close to realisation of the minshuku. We also assumed she’d be interested to see where she would be working in the future. The staircase was fully completed, so we were able to take her upstairs to see all the rooms, which was nice.

  upstairs hallway

Other progress at The House includes the building of the front and side porches and the ramp to the front porch – not quite complete yet but it is now easier to get into the house, and our area is being lined. Out the back there was a bit of a drainage problem – we’re not sure if the water coming from the base of the stone wall is from a spring or a leak from somewhere – so they are putting a drain around the edge of the yard to re-route the water.

We also had a visit from the Toyota car salesman to get some more information from us and copies of some documents for an application to be submitted to the Kyoto Police to prove we have a carparking space for our car when we collect it. You are not allowed to buy a car in Japan unless you have a permanent parking space within 2kms of your residence. Luckily The House is 1.7kms from our flat, and the plans include a carport, so the salesman didn’t think we would have any problems. He had actually been to the site and taken some photos to attach to the application, along with a copy of the drawing of our house showing the carport which we gave him. Apparently the police will actually go to the site and check for themselves, anyway!!

We also tried to get our Japanese licences last week – I say tried, because we went all the way to the licence centre, which took around 1 ¼ hours by train and on foot, the latter being a ½ hour walk from the station. When we got there, we found out that we would have to ring to make an appointment, but you can only ring between 4 – 5pm. So, we had to turn around and retrace our steps back home.

It also turned out that no-one spoke English and the person on the phone wouldn’t just make an appointment for us, she insisted on going through the whole process and all the things we would have to bring with us. As you may be able to imagine this was a long call, with me trying to understand what she was saying and me trying to say we already had all the things prepared. In the end, she said we could have an appointment at 10am on 16 January!!! I have no idea why we have to wait so long, but it means that it is a good thing Craig got an international licence before he left Adelaide…

On a bright note, it was our wedding anniversary on the 15^th – 26 years since we exchanged vows and this year Craig was here with me, unlike last year on our 25^th anniversary. We are now very happy that in Australia, all people of legal age have finally been given the opportunity to do the same; the right to marry in Australia is no longer determined by sex or gender.

Hallelujah

Some very interesting gates we saw out walking

A tree with a long nose?

The colour lingers…

 “You know I’m gorgeous”