Cold, cold, cold…It feels like winter is here, early, with the daytime temperatures now in the mid to low teens and the overnight temperatures under 10C. It is certainly colder now than it was when I arrived last year and when we were here the year before at this time. I am now wearing my puffy vest more often than not during the day, and my big puffy jacket if we go out after dark – which, by the way, is from about 5:30.

Luckily, we are getting the odd sunny days, which are much more pleasant and make for better photographs to highlight the colours. I am certainly looking forward to moving into our new house with the under floor heating in our living area! At least I have my room shoes here, which are warm and comfortable 😊.

Talking about The Very Nearly House, the outside cladding has now had the coating applied and so is looking even more like a home. When we went to look at it, it was just finished, with the tradie cleaning his tools and equipment. There were also some men there painting the barge-boards. Inside it seems the focus is mainly upladder, with some of the wooden flooring having been laid in the entrances to each of the rooms, and the door frames now in place. Door frames have also been installed on the bottom floor.

This week, in our pursuit of autumnal colour, we visited Tofukuji. Unfortunately the gorgeous rock garden that I had enjoyed so much last time I visited was closed, however, this time with Craig here, we visited the other gardens in the complex that I didn’t go into previously, many of which were rock gardens.

The main area was absolutely spectacular, despite it being partly overcast. As suspected, there were many people there, but it was still lovely and nowhere near as crowded as the other ‘main’ attractions around Kyoto. For my money (and it did cost to enter each of the three garden areas so was a bit pricey, but I imagine the upkeep there must be significant) Tofukuji is a better place to visit than some of the other, more popular sites.

The other two garden areas in Tofukuji included both rock gardens and ‘green’ gardens, a few of which had the checkerboard theme that was in the rock garden in the first main area. A feast for the eyes, on top of which the added colours of autumn was the proverbial icing on the cake. Definitely worth the money and a place I would visit any time of the year.

The other ‘big’ outing we had this week was to the Toyota dealer that we had been to a couple of months ago. They had told us it would take at least a month to deliver a car, once it was ordered, and we thought it would probably take a couple of weeks before a decision was made about us getting a loan, so if we wanted a car in early January we had to carpe diem and give it a go.

We were concerned that we wouldn’t get a loan for the company, given we haven’t started trading and, as of now, have no assets in the company name. As a result, and given how bureaucratic transactions of this nature can be here, we took everything we could think of they might want for both the company and ourselves, as individuals, so that if the loan was denied for the company, as a fall-back position, we could apply in our own names. We figured we could complete applications for both, with our preference being the company first.

Our appointment was at 3:00pm on Sunday and we spent the first part looking through another Sienta and getting a feel for it, sitting in it, etc. They seemed to be very concerned that we really did want to have the Sienta and wouldn’t regret the purchase. Then we went inside and went through all the options and costs, etc again, to make sure we were happy with that too – we did change the colour we had chosen, having looked at numerous Sientas during the interim and deciding we preferred the silver. Important decisions!

(A model version – ours has black trim, not blue)

After that I then had to fill out many, many forms, in Japanese. By the end my hand was nearly cramping – I’m not very good at writing at the best of times but the added complication of writing kanji and making it legible is very hard for me. After numerous applications of our company hanko (stamp), they went off to talk to the finance company to make sure they had everything they needed. It turns out the finance company is a Toyota subsidiary, so around 40 minutes later, they came back and said it had been approved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just like that! All that worry…

This, of course, then meant I had to fill out even more forms to officially order our new car. None-the-less, I survived the whole form ordeal and in the first week of January we will pick up our new car. It certainly has been a period of firsts for us, this last nearly twelve months. First time to live overseas, first time to sell a house (not without issues, of course), first time to build a house (well, not ourselves) and now first time buying a brand new car.

One other thing they offered us, while we were there and had been approved for a loan, was a credit card for our company. This, too, we had thought we wouldn’t be able to get. It is very hard to get either a loan or a credit card in Japan, as a foreigner, and we managed it all in one afternoon. So, we walked out of the Toyota dealer at 7:30pm having bought a car and been approved for a credit card. Along with that, as we were leaving, the salesman asked us to wait while he went to get us a souvenir. After a while, he came back with two 12-packs of toilet paper and two 5-packs of tissues!!!! Apparently they had run out of the usual souvenirs they give customers. Eminently practical, as far as gift giving goes!

So, more milestones ticked off, with more to go – next on the list are Japanese driver’s licences and finding someone to employ as our Food Hygiene Sanitation Manager, because the person in charge of our area in the relevant department said she would only deal with a person fluent in Japanese…

On a final note, we had a lovely dinner out last night with a daughter of a friend and her partner. Always nice to catch up with people we know.

Cheers for now