Life here is a bit divided up into "Tokyo time": the first four months, when the girls are in school. "Travel time": roughly a month, when Steve is taking leave and we are on the move. This is followed by "Hiroshima time": four-ish weeks when Steve starts working again and I spend the last chunk of time home schooling the girls.
Tokyo time being half over... so surreal! When we chunk up our time like that - no wonder it is flying buy. You might be wondering what I've been doing. Sometimes I wonder too, so here goes!
The first two weeks, we were settling in, doing running around and surviving a cold snap. The girls weren't at school yet, but Steve started working from home by Thursday of the first week, so I was doing a fair bit of engaging them as we started our lives here and figured out how to live in this tiny (by Australian standards) and not at all sound proof house together. Then the girls started school and there were two to three weeks of helping them cope and going through all the paperwork.
Honestly, we think it's bad in Australia, but Japanese school is next level. There were so many paper notes home in the first two weeks it was honestly a full time job just keeping up with them all. On top of that, I was still getting into the groove of shopping small and working out what we could cook in our tiny, tiny kitchen. It was great to have the head space to do all of that stuff without trying to put work in too.
Then the girls had a bunch of days off for Japanese public holidays, so I was doing things with them. Things were starting to settle down though, and the school paperwork began to be less demanding, so I was filling my time with sewing things. Sophie bought a zippered pouch/purse when we were up at Tsukuba to use for her money and train card, but I wanted it to have a strap. A quick trip to the 100Yen store and some easy sewing later, and we were sorted.
Both girls have started Guides (or Girl Scouts, as they are called in Japan), and they needed sitapons before their first event day, so I did another quick bit of sewing with some very Australian fabric that my Godmother had given us before we left.
I try to go for a walk around the neighbourhood every day, and do some stretching/strength building for my (suddenly aging) knees. I've done some day trips out by myself, various kimono shops, fabric town in Nippori, art exhibits and met up with a some friends from Australia who are currently here at the moment. Possibly more on that in another post.
The other thing I was keeping myself busy with was doing some cross stitch. I'm not usually a cross stitch person, but a friend gave me this fancy one after Sophie was born. I had started it but never really got into it. In the lead up to Japan when I was considering what to bring sewing wise to keep me busy, I figured it was now or never. Nothing else I had would give me a greater size-in-the-luggage to hours-sewing ratio.
I've actually only got one more week of this freedom though, because I was lucky enough to be accepted into a Japan Foundation Language Program for Japanese Teachers. The course runs for six weeks on the north side of Tokyo, so I'll be taking the train out on Sunday nights and living away from the family for the week before I get to come home Friday night for the weekend. It's going to be interesting, and I'm sure Steve will set a lot of alarms to remind him and the girls of all the things, but I'm sure it will be fine.
And that's that. Of course, there has been more, but you've already read most of it, right? ;) Only four months to go!
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