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Wow, so my questions I thought were lost were picked up for this week's Friday Five.
How many years has it been since I requested these?? Can't even remember. Anyway - here are my answers.
1. When did you recently have the feeling, "Life is good." Not very recently. Unfortunately you have caught me at a bad time. However, those moments usually occur when I see my kids having fun together, or just happy in general. Hopefully I will have some moments like this on our trip tomorrow - but more about that later.
2. Which do you need more, routine or spontaneity? I think routine is really important for me. I don't like it when someone suddenly says I have to do something right away and break my schedule. But if I realize I have to or want to do something, I also do it right away without doubting my decision. Sometimes, I get burned for it, but usually it's the best decision I've made. Like buying this computer. Of course, I was thinking about it for a looooong time, but when I saw the opportunity, I took it right away without second thought. Now, I wish we had the money for expenses on the one hand, but on the other I am glad I did it because sometimes you have to think about the long term happiness instead of the short term needs.
3. Do you have a difficult or annoying neighbor? Well, there is one child in the apartment next to our home that cries a lot. Not that it annoys me - it really just worries me. I wish I knew the situation so I knew it wasn't abuse or something. But there is no way to know exactly which room the child lives in from where we are. I just have to hope that the direct neighbors can act if anything is seriously wrong.
4. What do you want to change about yourself? I have a hard time with talking on the phone and with sales/business. I have the ideas but not very good at realizing them. I can make a ton of creative posters or whatever, but it's hard to go and ask for them to be put up. Ahhhhh I wish I could be more proactive in that sense. I have to do that today. I put it off yesterday but today.... I've got to go.
5. What do you like best about where you live? I love the parks. We have three big parks with lots of big old trees - cherry blossoms, plum and others. I would hate to live in a place without a nice park.
Other News
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Despite our money problems, we have decided that we need to go on vacation this year. First, we really wanted to go to Shin's friend's house in Yamagata. It would have costed a bit to get there but we could have saved on staying overnight and we could have stayed for at least 2 days. Unfortunately, that fell through because Shin did not contact his friend fast enough with our plans - to be fair, he didn't know if we could afford to go. But both the boys are adults now - the second looking for his permanent job from next April - and it might be our last chance to go anywhere together. Plus, we really really need a break from this place, our situation, etc. Hubby looked for a place for us to stay that we could stay with our dog and found a relatively cheap place that used to be a public facility or something. The building is old and the food (which is included! for breakfast a dinner!) may not be great but I won't have to cook and there is a pool on the grounds, a lake where we can play with Hana and even the beach nearby. Audrey has never been to the ocean (with us anyway, maybe she went on her school trip in elementary school) so we wanted to give her that experience as well. Hubby was bitching about the fact we had to pay cash for this place, and I was getting all worried, when he suddenly got out of bed and told me he remembered he got some extra pension money - he doesn't know what it's about, but maybe we can view that as a gift from God to have a good time. (He's not a Christian, but I have been talking about God helping us a lot recently.)
Hubby and I have been getting along better recently. We obviously talk more because of the money issues. I am trying to understand the situation and help with the ideas - he was always in charge of the money and now we can work together. It is nice. People say that money troubles is hard on a relationship, but so far it has been better for us in this weird way. I also talked with my mom about my problems.
It was actually after she told me she was in an accident recently - the conversation about that I am attaching from FB when I asked her how things were going:
We talked about me reading Christy (Catherine Marshall) again recently too, and how that had a big impact on me. I read it in my teens - it was one of my first love story novels! And I suddenly felt the urge to read it again. It is a cute love story, but it is also based on a accound of a young girl (the author's mother) who went into the Appalachians as a teacher/missionary in the early 1900s I think... and is also a testimony of sorts.
My mom, if you do not know already, was a Christian missionary here in Japan with my dad, which is why I was born and raised here. I am pretty much sick of church - except the music. I have had enough of sermons because I feel like I know it all already (and are they loooong) and unburdening on other people because I always tend to feel awful afterwards.
But my mom's strong and honest faith in God's plan gives hope and it is good to know that she will for sure pray for us and ask others too without oversharing. If God was looking out for my mom, He wanted to look out for us too - he has been for so long. Anyway, I just feel that God can lead us in the right direction if we just have faith and hope.
Oh, I didn't mention in the last post, but I took one of my clarinets (A clarinet for orchestra) to see if I could sell it and get some money. If that works out, I am going to keep that money for something special or to pay for this trip or something. That's about it I guess. I'm finished with all the workshops and classes for a while. There is a makeup I have to do on Thursday but other than that, I'm free until the 14th when I start teaching again.
Aug 8
I didn't get to post this first part earlier so I am going to add a bit about our trip. We are back from the one night stay in Izu. We were all soooooo tired yesterday from all the driving/car rides and sleeping in an unknown place. Some interesting things happened — first of all, there was a typhoon going through the area so our first day was rainy and we were not able to go on the travel plan that Alex lovingly created for us. He works at a travel agency if you remember, and creates tour/travel plans for people from abroad. His first training trip was to Hakone, which was on the way to where we were going to stay and he had some ideas about our activities there.
We were planning to go to a pet friendly cafe with a view of Mt. Fuji, and also go on a cable car to the top of a mountain for another Fuji view. Hana could have also gone up in a cage provided. Hakone is up in the mountains and the road is a bit trecherous in the rain so all of that was cancelled. We went the "scenic" route around the coast.
The cloud cover opened up once in a while and once we got to Atami (a famous hotspring/ocean side resort area), we saw quite a number of people playing on the beach. We walked around with Hana for a while and she was able to do her business, and we ate our lunches in the car there before going on.
We stopped at a little lake created with a dam and a stream near there which was a beautiful spot that would have been fun to play in if it wasn't raining off and on. There was a family there playing in the water and catching fish and little crabs. There were crabs everywhere!
Hana had a crack at one on a road there as we took a walk. It was quite hilarious. The greenery around there was quite different from our area, and there were a lot of ferns, which made me feel like there were dinosaurs lurking around!
We got to the place we were going to stay shortly after sign-in time (15:00), and checked out our rooms. The place was pretty old but with the black lacquor style which made it look nicer than it could have. Each room was a separate cabin and hubby had gotten us two cabins: one for the guys, one for the girls.
Between each of the cabins ran small man-made streams. The boys' cabin had a view of the tennis courts while we had a view of rice fields. A very nice view if the weather had been better. We had futons to sleep on and it was real traditional Japanese style. Audrey had an incident where she turned on the water faucet and a cricket or some such bug came out of the drain or tap or something and she refused to take a bath after that saying she didn't trust the facilities not to surprise her again. It took her a while to go to the bathroom as well.
We rested for a bit then decided to go find a hotspring nearby, leaving Hana in the room. Alex drove. He had been taking turns with hubby for this trip, to get some practice on the highway and winding roads. Unfortunately, we could not find the hotspring the inn caretaker had recommended as Alex had made a mistake in giving his google directions. We had gone in the opposite direction.
I urged that we should find a bath near there at first so we didn't waste the trip, but when we got to the place closest to us, we found that it was closed. We ended up figuring that there wasn't enough time and had to turn back so we could be in time for dinner at six. Hubby suggested we get some snacks to eat with wine etc. later in our cabin in case the dinner was subpar. We also talked about going out to find the onsen again after dinner.
The rain was pouring as we went to the dining building. Having to walk to the building in the rain was uncomfortable. We had a few umbrellas but Audrey and I had to share and I exclaimed to pretty much everyone in the room (LOL) that my back was soaked when we got there.
There was only one other family eating in quite a spacious and lacquored, beautifully traditional room. The chairs and tables were all lacquored; even the highchair in the corner of the room. Dinner was also in the traditional style and better than we had expected. There was sashimi, crab gratin, potato crockets, whole boiled shrimp, chicken roll, rice, miso soup and tea.
There was enough there for hubby to have some alcohol with the meal and he suggested we not go out to find the onsen but have some alcohol now with the meal and enjoy it. We all agreed, if reluctantly. I was trying to maintain my diet as much as possible, but knew I had to eat some rice if I was going to get enough calorie intake. I did have some sake and that was nice.
We went back to our rooms and everyone was tired so we were unsure if we'd have the "drinking party" as planned, but Alex and Julian were playing boardgames on Julian's Switch in their room and I thought it would be nice to have everyone in the same room. I also felt like I could eat a bit more too, so I called the boys over and we had a nice time together. Audrey, Julian and Alex played games together and we talked about various stuff.
I took a turn at checkers with Alex and although I won the first time, the two times after that he beat me, I will say it was probably because of the wine :D
We went to bed early. Audrey was watching her Youtube while I practiced some Japanese hiragana sign language that I started learning the day before and I was lulled to sleep. I was woken up by a weird sound in the middle of the night, followed by a dripping sound. I thought I had knocked over something and went crawling in the dark to investigate.
I found that the dripping was from the roof! I quickly took the cigarette bowl (for putting cigarette butts in — it was a smoking room although we do not smoke) from the lounge table and put it under the drip so that the tatami wouldn't get wet. The drip was right on the border of the wood flooring lounge area and the tatami room. Sleeping after that was difficult. I could hear the ping, ping, ping of the drip as the rain continued outdoors. I checked my phone and it was around three. I practiced the signing as I tried to get back to sleep. Then, I was woken up again. This time, Hana was feeling threatened by something. It could have been a bug churping outside, like Audrey thought. She'd make a soft deep woof and then a soft growl with an occaisional loud bark thrown in as Audrey and I took turns telling her everything was OK.
With that eventful night, we were not very rested the next morning. We slept until around 7:40 when Audrey heard a sound at the door. She went to investigate thinking it was one of our boys and found two umbrellas at our door. I suspect it was because of my loud exclamations at dinner but not just me, I hope.
After around 5 minutes Alex came to tell us that breakfast was ready. The weather was again rainy as we went to the dining room and breakfast was again a very traditional Japanese breakfast filled with protein and rice and no vegetables whatsoever(but a bunch of seaweed... so that makes up for it a bit I suppose). Dried fish, pheasant ham, stewed hijiki(seaweed) with beans, stewed okara(leftover bits from making tofu — very healthy), miso soup with wakame seaweed, raw egg and nori (again seaweed) with rice. I had to eat a bit more rice than the night before to be able to eat the raw egg. It was all good but very salty and we went back to our rooms wanting to drink water.
Our trip back to our cabins, as with the night before, we were able to lower our umbrellas and there was a bit of sun. We decided to take the chance and go see a famous mountain called Ohmuroyama. It's a round mountain, just a large hill in shape from the side. By the time we got there it was sunny and super hot. Hubby had not looked up whether Hana could go up on the lift with us (Alex had looked everything up for the day before but this was hubby's activity) and the lift was just a bigger version of a skii lift so we were not sure but there was a tourism office on the second floor of the building so I went and asked about activities to do with dogs and the lady informed me that small to medium dogs were allowed on the owners lap up the lift.
Alex was quite sure he could handle it so I gave Hana to him (he has a hard time picking her up LOL) . Hana was very brave. We saw owners covering their dog's eyes, one dog was yapping with fear, one was quite restless (but small, so handle-able). We could tell Hana was nervous, but she sat still and didn't make a sound up or down.
Almost at the top of the lift, there was a camera where someone (a recording we thought) on the microphone was telling people to smile for a photo. Audrey and Alex had gone up first with Hana, hubby and I were second, and Julian had a lift to himself. When we got up, two or three staff members already with our pictures in hand greeted us and showed us our smiling faces. Even Hana was looking at the camera! We found out that the staff had actually been talking into a mike for each of our pictures and that they had included the sound of a dog toy for Hana so she would look at the camera. We bought one, even though of course it was rather expensive (approx. 10 dollars/1000 yen) of Alex, Audrey and Hana.
There were of course souvenirs and softcreams and dangos(rice cake snacks) at the top but we were all very conscious of hubby being unable to dole out money so we didn't buy anything. Audrey did wish outloud to me about a softcream.
The top of the mountain was much more interesting than the side view. There was a big crator where there used to be a volcano. It was obviously not active. The whole mountain was covered with tall grass. A few volcanic rocks were sticking out here and there at the top with a couple of trees — like a huge meadow. It was quite scenic. There was also a trail around the crator of around 1km which we could walk in about 20 minutes. We decided to walk around and the view was really nice. We saw the ocean and islands around the penninsula and the cities below quite nicely. I regretted not bringing my hat or sun umbrella because it was super sunny still and I knew I was going to get burned. We also found out that the crator, a grass field, was used for an archery school, although we didn't see anyone doing any.
After our walk around, we went back down. Hana was just as calm as her trip up. We felt quite sorry for her having to go through so many stressful endeavors — especially the trip to and back in the car. She sat in the middle of Audrey and I and tried to get comfortable, but it was hard for her to sleep being jostled and pressured by the twisting and turning through the coastal and mountain roads. We thought about finding a place that could watch Hana for a while while we went to a hot spring but it was too difficult to do on the spot and we ended up going to a promontorium/Cape that we went to when the kids were little. There was a short suspension bridge there. The wind and waves were strong, crashing against the jutting rocks where the color of the ocean water was a beautiful milky blue.
While we were standing by the lookout, a caretaker suddenly came out and started exclaiming that if we looked out to the horizon we could see a big wall of dark clouds and rain coming our way. "It will be here in a jiffy!" He warned us loudly as if to make us all hurry back to our cars, and although I did go back a bit, thinking it might become dangerous by the cliffs, he didn't go on to say we should go back right away or tell us to evacuate so we ended up staying a bit longer until we felt a few drops of rain. Then hubby bought the kids some softcreams and shaved ice. We shared a macha and milk mix softcream, Audrey finally got her wish and she chose a macha softcream. The boys chose shaved ice which were a bit less expensive. I felt like Alex was trying his best not to be a burden on our finances and it was heartwarming but sad. I think Julian chose the shaved ice because he just likes that better. Alex did say that he didn't like how thirsty he could become from eating softcream but he had bought his own drink and bought me a water with his own money at the convenience store we stopped at earlier, saying something about not being a burden. It reminded me of me at that age. First-borns tend to be like that. The rain drops started to get more numerous and we quickly went back to the car to finish the last of our snacks — and just in time as it started to pour once we were inside.
We then went on our way, back the way we had come, first to Atami at around lunch time. Alex had found a cafe that was pet-friendly so we went in search of it, but when we got there, it was closed. The owner was there but she told us she had personal business and had to close early. This was the second time we found something on the net and the store had been closed! So what now? I had seen that many shops around there had take-out: one of the pluses of the COVID panic (the other being more online meetings/lessons and work-from-home opportunities). There was one store with a long line of customers waiting outside selling donburi (bowl meals), especially of sushi. The line was for people wanting to eat-in, but there was also a sign for take-out so we decided to get some and eat at the pier park with Hana (it was probably not pet-friendly — not many are yet). Alex again chose a cheaper donburi with hubby. Hubby seemed to want us to keep it at 1000 yen per person and I didn't want to eat much rice, so I suggested to Audrey that we share a gigantic mountain of sashimi atop a rice bowl costing around 2000 yen. She agreed readily.
Where we had parked the car, there was a dock for many yahts and a walk/park around it with lots of benches. We had eaten lunch there with MIL and her sister when we took them on a trip long ago. So we sat there again. The donburi were very tasty. Unfortunately, the cheaper bowls that hubby and Alex bought didn't have much fish on top and they felt a bit cheated. I also felt bad for Alex. I wish we had been sitting together, so I could have seen the situation and shared some of ours. I think we made the best choice out of the lot.
After lunch, we headed back home. Hubby took over with the driving and gave Alex a well-needed rest. We came back to near our home and hubby suggested we could go to a nearby hotspring, leaving Hana in the car, but it didn't feel right, having put Hana through such a tiring trip. We just needed to get home. Maybe we can go before my classes start next week though.
So, that's it. It was a memorable trip and worth it if it ends up being the last one we take together. I have some more news on the school and our living situation. Since writing about our troubles, there have been some developments. (1) we asked for reduced rent and were refused (naturally). The owner is very friendly though and gave us some ideas. If we gave him a plan for giving it back, he could delay the payment of however much we wanted reduced. In otherwords, he could give us an interest free loan. We thought that was out of the question. No more loans. The second idea was to buy the place from him for 90 Mil Yen. We could get a loan from the bank under my and Alex's name. The payments would be half of the rent we are paying now with a thirty year loan. This idea was tempting. It would be nice to have some land to our name. However, our accountant and real estate agent told us it would be difficult to get the loan because we still had a house loan on our condo and because Alex had only just begun working and didn't have the credit yet. Plus our income was set really low due to our situation.
We thought about it for a very long time and finally wrote the owner a mail asking that we be allowed to give back two rooms we added to our contract and pay for just the original three rooms since we weren't using the place to full capacity. We sent this mail on the day we went on our trip. The day we got back, we got the happy news that he accepted the deal — except, we didn't have to give the two rooms back. He would reduce the rent as if we had. Because basically, it would cost money to put the rooms back the way they had been and was not realistic at this time. He asked us to give him a share of any profit we got from these extra rooms instead and be agreeable to him taking the rooms back at a time he needed them. So, we have got a little more leeway with our finances. We will not have to move so Alex will not have to move out — and he would have if we moved in with MIL. We have to try really hard to gain some more income because this is not going to be enough but still. One step forward and a big thank you to God for the guidance.
Here are some pictures of the trip.
How many years has it been since I requested these?? Can't even remember. Anyway - here are my answers.
1. When did you recently have the feeling, "Life is good." Not very recently. Unfortunately you have caught me at a bad time. However, those moments usually occur when I see my kids having fun together, or just happy in general. Hopefully I will have some moments like this on our trip tomorrow - but more about that later.
2. Which do you need more, routine or spontaneity? I think routine is really important for me. I don't like it when someone suddenly says I have to do something right away and break my schedule. But if I realize I have to or want to do something, I also do it right away without doubting my decision. Sometimes, I get burned for it, but usually it's the best decision I've made. Like buying this computer. Of course, I was thinking about it for a looooong time, but when I saw the opportunity, I took it right away without second thought. Now, I wish we had the money for expenses on the one hand, but on the other I am glad I did it because sometimes you have to think about the long term happiness instead of the short term needs.
3. Do you have a difficult or annoying neighbor? Well, there is one child in the apartment next to our home that cries a lot. Not that it annoys me - it really just worries me. I wish I knew the situation so I knew it wasn't abuse or something. But there is no way to know exactly which room the child lives in from where we are. I just have to hope that the direct neighbors can act if anything is seriously wrong.
4. What do you want to change about yourself? I have a hard time with talking on the phone and with sales/business. I have the ideas but not very good at realizing them. I can make a ton of creative posters or whatever, but it's hard to go and ask for them to be put up. Ahhhhh I wish I could be more proactive in that sense. I have to do that today. I put it off yesterday but today.... I've got to go.
5. What do you like best about where you live? I love the parks. We have three big parks with lots of big old trees - cherry blossoms, plum and others. I would hate to live in a place without a nice park.
Other News
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Despite our money problems, we have decided that we need to go on vacation this year. First, we really wanted to go to Shin's friend's house in Yamagata. It would have costed a bit to get there but we could have saved on staying overnight and we could have stayed for at least 2 days. Unfortunately, that fell through because Shin did not contact his friend fast enough with our plans - to be fair, he didn't know if we could afford to go. But both the boys are adults now - the second looking for his permanent job from next April - and it might be our last chance to go anywhere together. Plus, we really really need a break from this place, our situation, etc. Hubby looked for a place for us to stay that we could stay with our dog and found a relatively cheap place that used to be a public facility or something. The building is old and the food (which is included! for breakfast a dinner!) may not be great but I won't have to cook and there is a pool on the grounds, a lake where we can play with Hana and even the beach nearby. Audrey has never been to the ocean (with us anyway, maybe she went on her school trip in elementary school) so we wanted to give her that experience as well. Hubby was bitching about the fact we had to pay cash for this place, and I was getting all worried, when he suddenly got out of bed and told me he remembered he got some extra pension money - he doesn't know what it's about, but maybe we can view that as a gift from God to have a good time. (He's not a Christian, but I have been talking about God helping us a lot recently.)
Hubby and I have been getting along better recently. We obviously talk more because of the money issues. I am trying to understand the situation and help with the ideas - he was always in charge of the money and now we can work together. It is nice. People say that money troubles is hard on a relationship, but so far it has been better for us in this weird way. I also talked with my mom about my problems.
It was actually after she told me she was in an accident recently - the conversation about that I am attaching from FB when I asked her how things were going:
Well, let me see what should I tell you and what should I keep secret.
WHAT?! What do you need to keep secret from ME?! (But of course, mom is always keeping secrets that she thinks might worry me - like when my dog died while I was at Uni and they didn't tell me until I got back.)
What happened?!
First of all, I'm fine, Dawn. I'm fine. But I was in an accident last Thursday (7/27/23).
What?
A car went through on a red light and bumped into me as I was going through an intersection.
Again? (What is it with people and intersections in Vancouver? As far as I know, this is the second accident she has been in, the first time with casualties.)
It was ok, I wasn't hurt but my car wasn't running very smoothly - like I had a flat or something, you know? So I pulled over and called BCAA. OK... And while I was waiting, well, it was really beautiful, Dawn.
What happened?
Well, this man came up with his daughter, I think, and told me that he had seen the accident and that I had been going on a green light and the other car was running a red light and that he could be a witness if I liked. Wow, that's really kind! Right? That's the first time I have ever had a witness, you know? So I said, Sure! and he said, do you want my phone number? and I said well, sure, thank you! and then he left. So I sat in my car waiting for BCAA and then another man came up to me and told me that HE had seen the accident, and he wanted to help.
So he waited with me, all the time standing there next to my car, it ended up being a total of 4 hours!
WHAT? 4 HOURS?!
Yeah, well, BCAA said they would come within the hour but they didn't and when I called to check they would put me endlessly on hold, and the guy suggested/helped me call ICBC to deal with them directly. They were really helpful and told me I should not keep waiting for BCAA but get Busters to take care of it. And that they would be there in 20. So I called BCAA again to let them know the situation and they put me on hold, again (LOL). But finally I got hold of them and let them know. Busters took my car to save me two trips and the man offered to take me home. He treated me like his own grandmother, you know? So kindly. I asked him if he was a Christian, and he said, No, but my mother is! (LOL) He loaded my walker into his car and everything and took me home. I was just so thankful and I asked if I could shake his hand, because I was afraid he might think a hug was too invasive.
Wow. That was really kind. Did you get his name?
His name was Matthew and the other man who offered to be a witness was Jonathan.
Hearing about her experience gave me hope and made me realize that if God was looking out for my mom, He wanted to look out for us too - I mean he has been for so long - and if I just gave it all to him, he would show us the way to figure this all out. WHAT?! What do you need to keep secret from ME?! (But of course, mom is always keeping secrets that she thinks might worry me - like when my dog died while I was at Uni and they didn't tell me until I got back.)
What happened?!
First of all, I'm fine, Dawn. I'm fine. But I was in an accident last Thursday (7/27/23).
What?
A car went through on a red light and bumped into me as I was going through an intersection.
Again? (What is it with people and intersections in Vancouver? As far as I know, this is the second accident she has been in, the first time with casualties.)
It was ok, I wasn't hurt but my car wasn't running very smoothly - like I had a flat or something, you know? So I pulled over and called BCAA. OK... And while I was waiting, well, it was really beautiful, Dawn.
What happened?
Well, this man came up with his daughter, I think, and told me that he had seen the accident and that I had been going on a green light and the other car was running a red light and that he could be a witness if I liked. Wow, that's really kind! Right? That's the first time I have ever had a witness, you know? So I said, Sure! and he said, do you want my phone number? and I said well, sure, thank you! and then he left. So I sat in my car waiting for BCAA and then another man came up to me and told me that HE had seen the accident, and he wanted to help.
So he waited with me, all the time standing there next to my car, it ended up being a total of 4 hours!
WHAT? 4 HOURS?!
Yeah, well, BCAA said they would come within the hour but they didn't and when I called to check they would put me endlessly on hold, and the guy suggested/helped me call ICBC to deal with them directly. They were really helpful and told me I should not keep waiting for BCAA but get Busters to take care of it. And that they would be there in 20. So I called BCAA again to let them know the situation and they put me on hold, again (LOL). But finally I got hold of them and let them know. Busters took my car to save me two trips and the man offered to take me home. He treated me like his own grandmother, you know? So kindly. I asked him if he was a Christian, and he said, No, but my mother is! (LOL) He loaded my walker into his car and everything and took me home. I was just so thankful and I asked if I could shake his hand, because I was afraid he might think a hug was too invasive.
Wow. That was really kind. Did you get his name?
His name was Matthew and the other man who offered to be a witness was Jonathan.
We talked about me reading Christy (Catherine Marshall) again recently too, and how that had a big impact on me. I read it in my teens - it was one of my first love story novels! And I suddenly felt the urge to read it again. It is a cute love story, but it is also based on a accound of a young girl (the author's mother) who went into the Appalachians as a teacher/missionary in the early 1900s I think... and is also a testimony of sorts.
My mom, if you do not know already, was a Christian missionary here in Japan with my dad, which is why I was born and raised here. I am pretty much sick of church - except the music. I have had enough of sermons because I feel like I know it all already (and are they loooong) and unburdening on other people because I always tend to feel awful afterwards.
But my mom's strong and honest faith in God's plan gives hope and it is good to know that she will for sure pray for us and ask others too without oversharing. If God was looking out for my mom, He wanted to look out for us too - he has been for so long. Anyway, I just feel that God can lead us in the right direction if we just have faith and hope.
Oh, I didn't mention in the last post, but I took one of my clarinets (A clarinet for orchestra) to see if I could sell it and get some money. If that works out, I am going to keep that money for something special or to pay for this trip or something. That's about it I guess. I'm finished with all the workshops and classes for a while. There is a makeup I have to do on Thursday but other than that, I'm free until the 14th when I start teaching again.
Aug 8
I didn't get to post this first part earlier so I am going to add a bit about our trip. We are back from the one night stay in Izu. We were all soooooo tired yesterday from all the driving/car rides and sleeping in an unknown place. Some interesting things happened — first of all, there was a typhoon going through the area so our first day was rainy and we were not able to go on the travel plan that Alex lovingly created for us. He works at a travel agency if you remember, and creates tour/travel plans for people from abroad. His first training trip was to Hakone, which was on the way to where we were going to stay and he had some ideas about our activities there.
We were planning to go to a pet friendly cafe with a view of Mt. Fuji, and also go on a cable car to the top of a mountain for another Fuji view. Hana could have also gone up in a cage provided. Hakone is up in the mountains and the road is a bit trecherous in the rain so all of that was cancelled. We went the "scenic" route around the coast.
The cloud cover opened up once in a while and once we got to Atami (a famous hotspring/ocean side resort area), we saw quite a number of people playing on the beach. We walked around with Hana for a while and she was able to do her business, and we ate our lunches in the car there before going on.
We stopped at a little lake created with a dam and a stream near there which was a beautiful spot that would have been fun to play in if it wasn't raining off and on. There was a family there playing in the water and catching fish and little crabs. There were crabs everywhere!
Hana had a crack at one on a road there as we took a walk. It was quite hilarious. The greenery around there was quite different from our area, and there were a lot of ferns, which made me feel like there were dinosaurs lurking around!
We got to the place we were going to stay shortly after sign-in time (15:00), and checked out our rooms. The place was pretty old but with the black lacquor style which made it look nicer than it could have. Each room was a separate cabin and hubby had gotten us two cabins: one for the guys, one for the girls.
Between each of the cabins ran small man-made streams. The boys' cabin had a view of the tennis courts while we had a view of rice fields. A very nice view if the weather had been better. We had futons to sleep on and it was real traditional Japanese style. Audrey had an incident where she turned on the water faucet and a cricket or some such bug came out of the drain or tap or something and she refused to take a bath after that saying she didn't trust the facilities not to surprise her again. It took her a while to go to the bathroom as well.
We rested for a bit then decided to go find a hotspring nearby, leaving Hana in the room. Alex drove. He had been taking turns with hubby for this trip, to get some practice on the highway and winding roads. Unfortunately, we could not find the hotspring the inn caretaker had recommended as Alex had made a mistake in giving his google directions. We had gone in the opposite direction.
I urged that we should find a bath near there at first so we didn't waste the trip, but when we got to the place closest to us, we found that it was closed. We ended up figuring that there wasn't enough time and had to turn back so we could be in time for dinner at six. Hubby suggested we get some snacks to eat with wine etc. later in our cabin in case the dinner was subpar. We also talked about going out to find the onsen again after dinner.
The rain was pouring as we went to the dining building. Having to walk to the building in the rain was uncomfortable. We had a few umbrellas but Audrey and I had to share and I exclaimed to pretty much everyone in the room (LOL) that my back was soaked when we got there.
There was only one other family eating in quite a spacious and lacquored, beautifully traditional room. The chairs and tables were all lacquored; even the highchair in the corner of the room. Dinner was also in the traditional style and better than we had expected. There was sashimi, crab gratin, potato crockets, whole boiled shrimp, chicken roll, rice, miso soup and tea.
There was enough there for hubby to have some alcohol with the meal and he suggested we not go out to find the onsen but have some alcohol now with the meal and enjoy it. We all agreed, if reluctantly. I was trying to maintain my diet as much as possible, but knew I had to eat some rice if I was going to get enough calorie intake. I did have some sake and that was nice.
We went back to our rooms and everyone was tired so we were unsure if we'd have the "drinking party" as planned, but Alex and Julian were playing boardgames on Julian's Switch in their room and I thought it would be nice to have everyone in the same room. I also felt like I could eat a bit more too, so I called the boys over and we had a nice time together. Audrey, Julian and Alex played games together and we talked about various stuff.
I took a turn at checkers with Alex and although I won the first time, the two times after that he beat me, I will say it was probably because of the wine :D
We went to bed early. Audrey was watching her Youtube while I practiced some Japanese hiragana sign language that I started learning the day before and I was lulled to sleep. I was woken up by a weird sound in the middle of the night, followed by a dripping sound. I thought I had knocked over something and went crawling in the dark to investigate.
I found that the dripping was from the roof! I quickly took the cigarette bowl (for putting cigarette butts in — it was a smoking room although we do not smoke) from the lounge table and put it under the drip so that the tatami wouldn't get wet. The drip was right on the border of the wood flooring lounge area and the tatami room. Sleeping after that was difficult. I could hear the ping, ping, ping of the drip as the rain continued outdoors. I checked my phone and it was around three. I practiced the signing as I tried to get back to sleep. Then, I was woken up again. This time, Hana was feeling threatened by something. It could have been a bug churping outside, like Audrey thought. She'd make a soft deep woof and then a soft growl with an occaisional loud bark thrown in as Audrey and I took turns telling her everything was OK.
With that eventful night, we were not very rested the next morning. We slept until around 7:40 when Audrey heard a sound at the door. She went to investigate thinking it was one of our boys and found two umbrellas at our door. I suspect it was because of my loud exclamations at dinner but not just me, I hope.
After around 5 minutes Alex came to tell us that breakfast was ready. The weather was again rainy as we went to the dining room and breakfast was again a very traditional Japanese breakfast filled with protein and rice and no vegetables whatsoever(but a bunch of seaweed... so that makes up for it a bit I suppose). Dried fish, pheasant ham, stewed hijiki(seaweed) with beans, stewed okara(leftover bits from making tofu — very healthy), miso soup with wakame seaweed, raw egg and nori (again seaweed) with rice. I had to eat a bit more rice than the night before to be able to eat the raw egg. It was all good but very salty and we went back to our rooms wanting to drink water.
Our trip back to our cabins, as with the night before, we were able to lower our umbrellas and there was a bit of sun. We decided to take the chance and go see a famous mountain called Ohmuroyama. It's a round mountain, just a large hill in shape from the side. By the time we got there it was sunny and super hot. Hubby had not looked up whether Hana could go up on the lift with us (Alex had looked everything up for the day before but this was hubby's activity) and the lift was just a bigger version of a skii lift so we were not sure but there was a tourism office on the second floor of the building so I went and asked about activities to do with dogs and the lady informed me that small to medium dogs were allowed on the owners lap up the lift.
Alex was quite sure he could handle it so I gave Hana to him (he has a hard time picking her up LOL) . Hana was very brave. We saw owners covering their dog's eyes, one dog was yapping with fear, one was quite restless (but small, so handle-able). We could tell Hana was nervous, but she sat still and didn't make a sound up or down.
Almost at the top of the lift, there was a camera where someone (a recording we thought) on the microphone was telling people to smile for a photo. Audrey and Alex had gone up first with Hana, hubby and I were second, and Julian had a lift to himself. When we got up, two or three staff members already with our pictures in hand greeted us and showed us our smiling faces. Even Hana was looking at the camera! We found out that the staff had actually been talking into a mike for each of our pictures and that they had included the sound of a dog toy for Hana so she would look at the camera. We bought one, even though of course it was rather expensive (approx. 10 dollars/1000 yen) of Alex, Audrey and Hana.
There were of course souvenirs and softcreams and dangos(rice cake snacks) at the top but we were all very conscious of hubby being unable to dole out money so we didn't buy anything. Audrey did wish outloud to me about a softcream.
The top of the mountain was much more interesting than the side view. There was a big crator where there used to be a volcano. It was obviously not active. The whole mountain was covered with tall grass. A few volcanic rocks were sticking out here and there at the top with a couple of trees — like a huge meadow. It was quite scenic. There was also a trail around the crator of around 1km which we could walk in about 20 minutes. We decided to walk around and the view was really nice. We saw the ocean and islands around the penninsula and the cities below quite nicely. I regretted not bringing my hat or sun umbrella because it was super sunny still and I knew I was going to get burned. We also found out that the crator, a grass field, was used for an archery school, although we didn't see anyone doing any.
After our walk around, we went back down. Hana was just as calm as her trip up. We felt quite sorry for her having to go through so many stressful endeavors — especially the trip to and back in the car. She sat in the middle of Audrey and I and tried to get comfortable, but it was hard for her to sleep being jostled and pressured by the twisting and turning through the coastal and mountain roads. We thought about finding a place that could watch Hana for a while while we went to a hot spring but it was too difficult to do on the spot and we ended up going to a promontorium/Cape that we went to when the kids were little. There was a short suspension bridge there. The wind and waves were strong, crashing against the jutting rocks where the color of the ocean water was a beautiful milky blue.
While we were standing by the lookout, a caretaker suddenly came out and started exclaiming that if we looked out to the horizon we could see a big wall of dark clouds and rain coming our way. "It will be here in a jiffy!" He warned us loudly as if to make us all hurry back to our cars, and although I did go back a bit, thinking it might become dangerous by the cliffs, he didn't go on to say we should go back right away or tell us to evacuate so we ended up staying a bit longer until we felt a few drops of rain. Then hubby bought the kids some softcreams and shaved ice. We shared a macha and milk mix softcream, Audrey finally got her wish and she chose a macha softcream. The boys chose shaved ice which were a bit less expensive. I felt like Alex was trying his best not to be a burden on our finances and it was heartwarming but sad. I think Julian chose the shaved ice because he just likes that better. Alex did say that he didn't like how thirsty he could become from eating softcream but he had bought his own drink and bought me a water with his own money at the convenience store we stopped at earlier, saying something about not being a burden. It reminded me of me at that age. First-borns tend to be like that. The rain drops started to get more numerous and we quickly went back to the car to finish the last of our snacks — and just in time as it started to pour once we were inside.
We then went on our way, back the way we had come, first to Atami at around lunch time. Alex had found a cafe that was pet-friendly so we went in search of it, but when we got there, it was closed. The owner was there but she told us she had personal business and had to close early. This was the second time we found something on the net and the store had been closed! So what now? I had seen that many shops around there had take-out: one of the pluses of the COVID panic (the other being more online meetings/lessons and work-from-home opportunities). There was one store with a long line of customers waiting outside selling donburi (bowl meals), especially of sushi. The line was for people wanting to eat-in, but there was also a sign for take-out so we decided to get some and eat at the pier park with Hana (it was probably not pet-friendly — not many are yet). Alex again chose a cheaper donburi with hubby. Hubby seemed to want us to keep it at 1000 yen per person and I didn't want to eat much rice, so I suggested to Audrey that we share a gigantic mountain of sashimi atop a rice bowl costing around 2000 yen. She agreed readily.
Where we had parked the car, there was a dock for many yahts and a walk/park around it with lots of benches. We had eaten lunch there with MIL and her sister when we took them on a trip long ago. So we sat there again. The donburi were very tasty. Unfortunately, the cheaper bowls that hubby and Alex bought didn't have much fish on top and they felt a bit cheated. I also felt bad for Alex. I wish we had been sitting together, so I could have seen the situation and shared some of ours. I think we made the best choice out of the lot.
After lunch, we headed back home. Hubby took over with the driving and gave Alex a well-needed rest. We came back to near our home and hubby suggested we could go to a nearby hotspring, leaving Hana in the car, but it didn't feel right, having put Hana through such a tiring trip. We just needed to get home. Maybe we can go before my classes start next week though.
So, that's it. It was a memorable trip and worth it if it ends up being the last one we take together. I have some more news on the school and our living situation. Since writing about our troubles, there have been some developments. (1) we asked for reduced rent and were refused (naturally). The owner is very friendly though and gave us some ideas. If we gave him a plan for giving it back, he could delay the payment of however much we wanted reduced. In otherwords, he could give us an interest free loan. We thought that was out of the question. No more loans. The second idea was to buy the place from him for 90 Mil Yen. We could get a loan from the bank under my and Alex's name. The payments would be half of the rent we are paying now with a thirty year loan. This idea was tempting. It would be nice to have some land to our name. However, our accountant and real estate agent told us it would be difficult to get the loan because we still had a house loan on our condo and because Alex had only just begun working and didn't have the credit yet. Plus our income was set really low due to our situation.
We thought about it for a very long time and finally wrote the owner a mail asking that we be allowed to give back two rooms we added to our contract and pay for just the original three rooms since we weren't using the place to full capacity. We sent this mail on the day we went on our trip. The day we got back, we got the happy news that he accepted the deal — except, we didn't have to give the two rooms back. He would reduce the rent as if we had. Because basically, it would cost money to put the rooms back the way they had been and was not realistic at this time. He asked us to give him a share of any profit we got from these extra rooms instead and be agreeable to him taking the rooms back at a time he needed them. So, we have got a little more leeway with our finances. We will not have to move so Alex will not have to move out — and he would have if we moved in with MIL. We have to try really hard to gain some more income because this is not going to be enough but still. One step forward and a big thank you to God for the guidance.
Here are some pictures of the trip.
