| SNOW - London-style |
[Feb. 2nd, 2009|09:34 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | London | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
I gather there has been no snow at all in Tokyo this year, but suddenly we've had LOTS of snow in London. So much snow that they decided early on this morning not to run any buses or trains today. So the council hasn't even attempted to clear anything but main roads. Philip's school was shut and they have already announced it will remain shut tomorrow.
We went for a walk in the park at the back of our house where there is an excellent sledge hill and all the kids were out. There aren't all that many people who have sledges in London (since they only get used every 10 years or so), so tea trays were much in evidence, but everyone was having fun anyway.
This is the view out the front of the house (that's our car underneath all that snow somewhere):
And this is the view out the back:
More snow is expected tonight.
The cats are DISGUSTED! |
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| Too much STUFF |
[Jan. 11th, 2009|11:45 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | London | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  worried | ] |
After having lived in a minimalist style without furniture or STUFF for 6 months, we have now got the exact opposite situation. The stuff from storage arrived on Wednesday and the furniture from Japan on Thursday. The house is now so full of STUFF we can't move.
The problem is exarcebated by the Japanese approach to wrapping. Every item has been lovingly wrapped in three layers of paper and then the bundled wrapped again in another three layers of paper. When you've emptied a box and put the paper back in, it's full again.
I had rented a self-storage unit and we started by filling that with stuff that came out of storage plus some of the furniture we had left behind in the house. So that is now full. The pictures below were taken AFTER we'd filled the storage unit, and give some idea of the scale of the problem.
We've also filled one skip and I'll have to phone them on Monday and get them to take that one away and deliver another.
Here are the photos:
Dining room
Kitchen
Living room
Stephen's and my bedroom
Spare room
Study
Philip's room
HELP! |
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| Christmas is coming! |
[Dec. 5th, 2008|02:14 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | London | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
I realise that I have been very remiss in not updating you on how Philip and I are getting on back in London. This is because I've been incredibly busy. Philip seems to have settled in well at school and I am doing a Masters in Japanese Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. I'm doing it part-time over two years, but it is actually taking up all my time, so I don't really know how you would cope doing it full-time. It is very interesting, though. This year I am doing an anthropology/sociology course and a history course. Philip and I are also taking lessons in Japanese on Saturday afternoons with a view to Philip sitting a GCSE in Japanese.
It's been quite hard getting everything sorted out while being so busy. We're back in our house now but it took ages to get the broadband sorted out, for example. In the meanwhile we were using a mobile internet connection which was SO slow. That is another reason I haven't updated the blog. There is so much to sort out when you move into a house - gas, electricity, telephone, council tax, water rates, TV licence - the list goes on and on. We still haven't got any sort of decent TV connection. We just have a desktop aerial and the only channels it seems to be able to pick up are Dave and Sky News. Those of you who are not English won't have heard of Dave - it is described as 'the home of witty banter' but 'bloke TV' would be a more accurate description. It largely shows wall to wall repeats of Top Gear, which just happens to be Philip's favourite program, so he is very happy. I'm less so, but I haven't really got time to watch TV anyway, so that it probably just as well. Now that we have the broadband connection, we can at least watch the last week's BBC and Channel 4 programs via the computer.
The tenants looked after the house pretty well, so it wasn't too much of a problem moving back in. We had some decorators in who gave everything a quick lick of paint while we were in Japan in October and it is all fine now. But the front garden has turned into a bit of a jungle:
Our furniture is still somewhere on the seven seas, so we don't have much in the house. (This makes it much easier to clean!). We had left a sofa, a kitchen table and chairs and a desk for the tenants to use, and I bought a spare bed that comes apart into two beds for me and Philip, but that is it really. The furniture is expected to arrive early January. I'm not sure whether I'm looking forward to it or dreading the disruption, really.
We're missing Stephen very much. He came on a brief visit for Philip's birthday but is now back in Japan. However, he is coming for Christmas so we're all looking forward to that and to seeing my mum.
I will be sending out Christmas cards with our address (same as before we went away) and our new phone number. If anyone wants to contact us in the meanwhile, the Japanese e-mail has stopped working, but the globalnet e-mail address we've had for ages is still working. Alternatively, if you leave a comment on this blog, it will reach me. |
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| Sayonara! |
[Oct. 30th, 2008|08:53 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Tokyo | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
This is my last post from Japan. Tomorrow, Philip and I go back for good and Stephen will go into a serviced apartment for the rest of his time here, so that the furniture can be sent home. The cats left today, which makes the house very empty and also makes it seems for real. Philip and I have spent two weeks saying goodbye to friends, packing and throwing things out.
Well, I say throwing things out, but we have been a bit stymied by the the Japanese rubbish collection system on this one. Up until the summer, the system was that combustible rubbish (paper, food waste etc) was collected twice a week, recyclables (newspapers, glass, cans) once a week and non-combustible rubbish (the rest) once a week. But they have recently reorganised things so that the amount of stuff that can go into combustible rubbish has been greatly increased to include plastic bags and most types of plastic packaging. As a result, the collection of non-combustible rubbish now happens only on the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. Philip and I were here for the 4th and 5th Friday of the month and Stephen moves out on Wednesday. So I quickly discovered on arrival that there was to be no collection of non-combustible rubbish from our getting here until Stephen leaves. So, some things we had intended to throw out will have to come home with us and we'll have to have a skip in London!
Anyway, you'll be pleased to hear that we had a final opportunity to scare the neighbourhood kids rigid at Halloween (we have a bit of a reputation to live up to here!):
(That is Philip under all that).
There was much anticipation ahead of visiting 'the scary house' but this year they all came back to pose for photos with Philip afterwards and only one child cried inconsolably for any length of time. |
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| Greetings from a rain-soaked Tokyo |
[Oct. 24th, 2008|11:44 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Tokyo | ] |
Yes - I'm back in Tokyo briefly. It is Philip's haf-term holiday so we have gone to Japan to say goodbye to lots of friends and to help Stephen pack up the house. I had forgotten just how much it can rain here. It has been like someone pouring a hose pipe for over 24 hours. In the parts of Europe that I am used to, rain on that scale would be accompanied by a storm or something like that, but not here. There is no particular wind, just lots and lots and lots of rain. The cats are not happy! But then they are going to be even less happy next week when they get crated up and sent back to the UK - they hate travelling. At least they'll have our garden and a cat flap to look forward to once they are home. |
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| Oh help! |
[Oct. 1st, 2008|08:30 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Tokyo | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | worried | ] |
I've had my first week of lectures at SOAS. (All my lectures and classes are on a Tuesday). Now I've been to three libraries and I'm sitting here with a pile of books several feet high and half a file of articles that I need to read before next week. I think I'd forgotten what studying was like. At least I'll learn a lot! |
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| A student again! |
[Sep. 7th, 2008|06:42 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | London | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
I've just found out that I have been accepted for a Masters in Japanese Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) (part of the University of London). I'm doing it part-time over 2 years starting in 2 weeks' time! I'm really excited. This will enable me to continue my interest in Japan and hopefully find a job related to this at the end of the course.
I applied really late (weeks after the application deadline had expired) so I didn't know whether I had a chance of getting on the course this year, but I think it is going to be really good for me to start doing something constructive. I'm not quite sure what I would be doing here in London otherwise (find a job, I suppose - notice the amazing enthusiasm!) |
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| Winds of change |
[Sep. 2nd, 2008|04:40 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | London | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
True to my word, I'm going to tell you about a difference between England and Japan (and Sweden for that matter). The English are paranoid about the weather. The slightest hint of rain and we now get 'adverse weather warnings'. We had one the other day because it was expected that 'as much as an inch of rain' might fall in a day. Compare this with the first day we were in Sweden in July when we had 4 inches of rain in a day. And on that same day, Stephen had 3 inches of rain in AN HOUR in Tokyo.
While I'm on a roll, I think I'll start an 'Only in England ...' series to go with my 'Only in Japan ...' series. So here is a short article from today's Guardian:
"Angler has surgery after north Devon shark attack
An angler underwent emergency surgery on his arm after he was bitten by a blue shark off north Devon. Stephen Perkins, 52, from south Wales, was rescued by helicopter after the shark bit his forearm when he was fishing in a boat near Lundy Island on Saturday. He was transferred to Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital where he had surgery to repair crush and rip damage. He said, 'We don't harm the sharks we hook. We just take their picture and put them back. The one I got was pretty lively and, having put its jaw around my wrist, it then let go. The scariest bit was going up in the helicopter." |
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| Oops - I probably ought to have told you all sooner |
[Sep. 1st, 2008|09:09 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | London | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
Well, as many of you already know - here I am back in London!!! For good, I mean. This is all a bit sudden, I know, but these things happen. We had been hoping to stay in Japan for another two years so that Philip could do his GCSEs there. But, as anyone who knows anything about the UK school system knows, it is practically impossible to change schools in the two years leading up to GCSEs. Not only do different schools follow different syllabi, but there is coursework to be done during the two years, so it is not even a case of just reading up a different syllabus for the exam. And it was becoming increasingly unlikely that Stephen's job would keep him for a further two years in Tokyo.
So, when we came to London in July, we went to Philip's old school to talk to them about what would happen if we returned at some point during this period. And basically the answer was that he could come back in September or else repeat a year. We all thought that repeating a year would be a bad idea, so there really wasn't much choice.
On the up side, Philip has been able to slot back into his old class. (It was the first day of term today). He is pretty happy about developments, I think.
Stephen and the cats are still in Japan for now, while I am in London with Philip. This was all so sudden that we hadn't had a chance to give notice to the tenants, so they are still in our house for now. But Philip and I are renting a furnished flat around the corner from the school and that should be OK for now. We'll get our house back in October and then we'll bring te cats back. But there won't be any furniture in the house for some time as that has to come from Japan.
So this blog should really be renamed 'London here I come', but I won't do that since you probably all have bookmarks to it. I'll carry on writing the blog if I have time. I hope I'll have some interesting comments on what it is like to come back from Japan. I've already noticed how much dirtier and noisier London is. But it's not as bad as I thought it would be. And it really is quite nice to be able to talk to shopkeepers and ask for directions etc. In Sweden they have a proverb: 'Away is good but home is best'. It certainly has some truth in it. |
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| Back pain |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|10:51 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Tokyo | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
I see that I haven't updated for AGES, so I'd better say something even if there isn't a lot to say. I've been pretty imobilised this last week with a bad back. It's getting better but very slowly. Philip has been on a school canoeing trip up in the mountains, but is back now. He took no pictures so I can't post anything for you.
We're in the middle of the rainy season, so it buckets down nearly every day. It is not so very hot yet - 25-27C (about 80F), typically. The real heat comes later in July and August, but it is VERY humid, which is very sapping to those of us who are not used to it. The cats don't like the rain, but Max has started catching mice for the first time since we came to Japan. I'm a bit ambivalent about this. Clearly it is nice that he is happy and wants to give me presents, but ...
Anyway, I thought I'd post a picture to cheer you up. If you were going to name a house building company, would you call it Berk House?
Admittedly this is a little bit unfair, because the Japanese learn American English and I suspect berk is a purely British expression. I looked it up to check this and discovered that it has a rather interesting derivation. It is cockney rhyming slang from Berkshire hunt to ... (think 'Atonement'). I'd better stop there before I get censured from this website!
Oh, talking of movies, we went to see 'Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull' on Saturday when it opened here in Japan. Nice to see that Harrison Ford is striking a blow for grey power - you too can be blown up in an atomic explosion in a fridge and live at age 65! |
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