Flat3D has been retired…

Flat3D has been through a few revisions, from simple self-coded ASP to a up to date WordPress Multisite installation…  It has come with me from engineering at QUB, documented a year in Aomori, 2 years at bible college, move to Japan, struggles of language study, our engagement, marriage and even the birth of our daughter…

But times have changed. It has been a long time since packing up flat number 3D in Stranmillis Court and moving on to new pastures.

So it is time to move on. Orumu.org will be our new home. The Flat3D content has been archived to this wordpress.com site, so it is still available.

But all new things will happen at Orumu.org!

A project… tsugarusoba.com

Yesterday was Emily’s dad’s birthday, and as a present we put together a website for his soba noodle shop – “Soba-dokoro Tsugaru” (そば処津軽) – and are helping to make new menu’s.  Emily’s sister has been photographing the food, we put together the website and Emily will layout the menus…

Here is the almost final result (in Japanese of course!) – www.tsugarusoba.com

 

To the police station… again…

Today we were at the police station again, my third time in around 2 weeks… Emily’s fourth…

But it’s not as incriminating as it sounds! Honest! Recently we moved to Emily’s family home in Ibaraki, to wait out our time until we get her UK visa sorted and can head NI-ward. A painful result of this is that we are here long enough that we need to move all of our registrations.

In Japan everyone is registered.  You can’t work, get insurance, or really do anything without being registered if you are here for any length of time. Emily is registered as a member of a Japanese household, Anna is registered as a member of Emily’s household… and I am registered as an alien, linked in some ID number based way to Emily’s household.

This is all well and good and makes things run smoothly most of the time. Health insurance, tax, licensing and all those kinds of things involve the system in some way, normally using it as a way of proving who you are.

But when it comes to moving it is a pain. In this case we are in Ibaraki just long enough that if we want to continue our health insurance (in case we need a doctor and still want to have some money left over) we need to move our registrations to Ibaraki.

So what is this to do with the police? Well we had to re-register our car as well. It had to get new number plates (seriously) and a new certificate and in order to get all of this we needed a friendly police volunteer to come round and verify that we have a parking space for it. Then after a few days we had to go and pick it up.  So trips 1 and 2 to the police station.

Then we needed to get our driving licences updated to match our new registered address. So yesterday we went again to change our addresses. Trip number 3.

Then today Emily went to renew her driving licence as it is due to expire this summer and we will be in the UK. The downside is that we will have to hand her licence in when we apply for a UK one for her, but to give us a little more time to do that we renewed her Japanese one and also applied for an international driving permit that she can use to drive for a year.

So in another week or so Emily will have to go for a 5th time to the police station to get her international permit.

Someday Japan is going to realise that the world has moved forwards and invest in some sort of electronic system that is country wide, but until then we will continue to run from office to office (and police station as well) to get all of these registrations sorted each time we move to a new place…

Travelling south for the summer… Aomori to Ibaraki

We had hoped to see the cherry blossom in Hirosaki Castle’s grounds in Aomori before we left for Ibaraki. But this year it came late.  We weren’t the only ones, a couple of OMF colleagues who are running the guest home in Sapporo came down to Aomori to see it as well. But, like us, were ahead of the game. But we had a chance to meet with them and took them to hear some tsugaru-jamisen!

Due South (click)

Not only were we too early for the cherry blossom in Aomori, but it had already finished in Ibaraki, and as we planned to drive through the night to avoid “Golden week” traffic we wouldn’t get to see it on the way down either!
In the end we did manage to take a family photo with some “Yaezakura” cherry blossoms, but no real hanami for us this year!

After a gruelling overnight drive, we arrived in Ibaraki safe and sound. We will stay here with Emily’s family until we get her visa sorted and move to the UK in late June.

Travelling south for the summer… Aomori

After spending a night in Hakodate we boarded the ferry and headed for Aomori.

Due South (click)

Aomori was where Emily (student at Hirosaki university) and I (short-term OMFer) first met. When she went to Sapporo to study at Hokkaido Bible Institute her church in Aomori, Tsugaru Church, sent her off and have been praying for her since. So it was great to catch up with friends in the churches there. While in Aomori, we stayed in the ever-changing Itayanagi chapel (stairs in a new place this time!) and got to visit the other chapels of Tsugaru church.  The cafe next door also had a bit of a makeover while we were there!

When I was a short-termer I spent most of my year in Ajigasawa church, and we had an opportunity to visit and although John and Laurie weren’t there, it was good to catch up with Mary, her husband Yoshiya and baby Elisha. I also got to meet Masa, he was the only man in the church while I was a short-termer and so featured in a few blog posts back then! Since those days he has had a rough time, moved to Ichikawa (near Tokyo) to find work and has long since sold his Subaru and home in Aomori. But when we met he was upbeat – God has been faithful in leading him through a dark place and back into the light.

We also went to introduce Anna to her great-grandparents in Aomori. Emily’s paternal grandparents are apple farmers along with her uncle.  We could only spend one night with them on our whirlwind tour, it would have been nice to spend longer with them.

Travelling south for the summer… Sapporo to Hakodate

As the birds are flying north to escape the heat, we met them driving the other direction as we began our journey down to Emily’s hometown in Ibaraki.

Due South (click)

We stayed in the OMF Sapporo guest home while we finished packing up our flat.  It was a long process, and meant a lot of hand-wringing and head-scratching as we decided what to keep, what to throw out, what to try and sell and what to give away…  Most of the furniture etc we had we were given, so we wanted to pass it on to be used by others. Anything we decided to keep we sent to Emily’s parents in Ibaraki in boxes to keep for us.

After packing up the long journey began…  First stop, Hakodate!
We stopped to visit Tim and Miho and their family – a British/Japanese OMF family in Nanae, just beside Hakodate at the very southern tip of Hokkaido. It was a great chance to catch up with them and some other friends. Particularly to hear about the trials and joys of life in the UK as we plan to move at the end of June.

We also made a trip to Lucky Pierrot, a Hakodate-only hamburger restaurant… they made world news a while ago for their whale burger, but there was no sign of it on their current menu!

On the move…

We are just about to leave Aomori on our way down to Ibaraki to stay with Emily’s family there. I just sent out a prayer update and said there would be more here, but there isn’t yet! So this is just to reassure you that there will be, so please check back soon.  Also take a look at the latest few pics on orumu.org too!