…and now we will resume our normal programming…

Oh; hello! Yes, it’s me here, back on the keyboard. I know I have been a little absent recently but I am here to make up for it. I am going to cover the two weeks since my house guest in this post in an effort to catch up to where we are now.

The first week following Steven’s departure was fairly domestic, with the usual cleaning, shopping and cooking, except for one slight blip. A bureaucratic blip.

When I last recounted my encounters with bureaucracy here in the land of bureaucracy (and I don’t say that lightly), I talked about the mandate that we have an official office for our company in our flat, as this was the official registered address for our company. Our lawyer had visited and thought that we could set it up on our table in the dining/kitchen area. Just before Steven arrived he received notification from Immigration that this was not appropriate and that we needed a separate room in which to have our official office. The finger was pointed squarely at our spare room – the one with two beds, a clothes rack and shelving which is used as storage for many things we have nowhere else to put.

We weren’t told exactly why we needed an official, separate office, but apparently they considered it essential. It’s not like we will ever have any visitors for our company here…

Anyway, I pointed out to the lawyer that there was very little room to put the two beds and clothes rack elsewhere within the flat. Also, the beds would likely have to be dismantled to actually remove them from the room. He said it was not up for discussion (well, not quite like that, he was very polite given my obvious frustration). He said he would come here and help me do this, as well as move the dining table into the room for photos. I wondered if the bureaucrats realised that the plan was to move the beds and clothes rack out and the table in just temporarily and that it would be returned to the way it was after the photos. Seemed a little farcical…

I told the lawyer that Steven was going to be here and we really couldn’t do all of this while he was visiting. So, we made a time for him to come over after Steven had left. As I was discussing all of this with Steven an idea was born to pull apart the two beds and create a day bed out of one of them. Steven said he would be happy to help do this, and it would create more space in the spare room. For the most part, we didn’t need two beds there all the time. We went and bought some cheap cushions and material to throw over the mattress and then told Craig about our idea.

In amongst these subsequent discussions, we decided to also buy a desk, since we were going to need one when we actually had a real office in our minshuku. In the end we went to the large Nitori store which is quite some distance from the flat and is like a cross between Target and Ikea. I found a desk that was suitable for the purpose – not the most beautiful piece of furniture you’ve ever seen, but somewhat elegant in design. The very nice ones we saw in an antiques shop, which were original mid-century modern, were just a little too expensive (sigh).

Back home, we pulled apart the beds and re-created them into one day bed. We were able to put the extra mattress behind the slats of the other bed to make a back rest and all the rest of the bits fit under the ‘day bed’, as well as the five dozen Rockford Basket Press and other minor bits and pieces. It looked quite good in the end. The lawyer was somewhat bemused when I told him – he had never heard of a day bed – but he also seemed quite pleased with the end result when he saw it.

The day after Steven left, the desk was delivered…in pieces. My third furniture building project and by far the largest. I spent about half that day putting it together (with a slight hiccup – what are these washers, that are left over, for????). I actually think the Japanese instructions for putting these items together are easier to follow than Ikea instructions. The mistake was purely me not checking detail properly. Et voila, we have an official office!

Obviously the bureaucrats liked it, because we received news shortly after submitting the new photos that our 12 month visas had been approved. Thank goodness, and Steven for his help.

The following week (ie week 25) Craig came over so that he could re-submit his passport and resident card to have our new, 12 month cards created and given to us. This, of course, involved a couple of trips to Osaka, but was worth it. Now we don’t have to worry about getting new visas until next year. The next time Craig returns to Japan it will be a permanent move, once the house is sold and settled.

While he was here we did have some time for a couple of outings. It was quite warm most of the time he was here – low 30s!!! We didn’t do anything too physically strenuous, just walking around. Less than 6kms on any one day (I think). I wanted to return to the Heian Shrine garden to see how it looked once more of the flowers, including the lotus, were open. I wasn’t disappointed – it is such a beautiful garden and there are plenty of shady spots when it’s hot.

The other main outing was to an art exhibition which looked at cats in Japanese art. The exhibition is called, “Yes, We Love Cats Anytime!” and includes many examples of ukiyo-e and maneki neko mostly from the 19th century. It focused on the “cat-mania” that occurred during this period, with over 200 exhibits. Many of the ukiyo-e were painted by very famous artists, including Utagawa Hiroshige  and Utagawa Kuniyoshi . Kuniyoshi, in particular, painted many ukiyo-e with cats as the main character and doing just about anything you can think of – including Kabuki!

  (Hiroshige (L) and Kuniyoshi (R))

I had already visited this exhibition with Steven, however, it was very crowded when we went. Also, I won two tickets in a competition run by the Japan Times (five winners only)! This time it was a lot less crowded and we got to have a good look at all the paintings.

Well that pretty much wraps it up for this post – we also tried to see if we could see the nutria again, but only saw many, many bats, which, of course, I love, so I wasn’t disappointed…

Cheers for now

(two photos just because I like them)

(a sign on a shop in a back street in the Gion area)