Record Heat

Today is short update for yesterday and today.  Just some random action has happened.  I didn’t take the camera around so if you’re only looking for photos you might want to skip this post.  We’re still biking around in this record heat.  It honestly doesn’t feel like there’s been any change since last Friday with the historic heat.  I’m going to look up the recent weather… I’m back and it actually looks like the heat has fallen by about 3 degrees.  Last Friday was 101, last Saturday was 100, and this past week has been between 98 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit.   The humidity still feels like 110 percent so I can’t say I’m noticing any change.  We’re still red…

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A New School

Today is Monday, August 22 and we have an important appointment at Osaka International School today.  The kids have assessment tests to take to see what level of learning they’re at and also to see if they really speak English.  I hope they can speak in complete sentences!  Summer break has a tendency to make kids forget everything they know.  Pokemon Go has completely replaced my sons’ native language so I’m a little worried.  J/K. We hauled out the bikes for another ride to school.  Today is as hot as can be!  We are going to try a new way to school this time.  We will ride down the “busy highway 171” (not busy at all compared to California) and…

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Exploring Downtown

We landed one week ago today.  It’s Sunday, August 21 and the week flew by.  I asked Avalon how many days it feels like we’ve been here and she said two days.  One thing I didn’t get done before we left is buy Halyard new shoes.  When we were driving around with Art yesterday he was giving us a little tour of our area.  I told him Halyard needs shoes and he said, uh-oh, what size.  So Japanese people generally have smaller feet than Americans and thus don’t carry large shoe sizes.  He thinks mens’ shoes pretty much go up to size 9 or 10 and that’s it. Today John, Halyard and Kaiyo rode their bikes to the Senri Chou…

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Costco in Japan

Costco is in Osaka about a 45 minute drive from our house.  A slice of Little America says our new friend Art.  He is going to pick us all up at 10am on Saturday, August 20 for an exciting excursion to Little America in a Big Box. Art is from Illinois and he has four kids at the international school where our kids will go.  He says his wife knew that she could survive in Japan when she found out there was a Costco nearby.  I actually do not have a Costco membership since I hated to buy things in such big bulk because then I had nowhere to put those huge quantities in my small house.  But I’m willing…

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Biking in Japan

Saturday, August 20 We’re taking the bikes out for a spin.  Andrew, the homeowner, left us 5 bikes to use.  There are 3 “regular” bikes of various sizes, 1 mountain bike, and 1 electric bike.  An electric bike sounds like a luxury, but a lot of people are riding around on electric bikes so it turns out pretty common.  Our next door neighbor at home, Greg, has an electric bike that he gerry-rigged himself that works great.  He uses it to go to Trader Joe’s for groceries and to tool around town.  Val says she’s going to use the electric bike as a quick escape method for any tsunamis at the ocean.  Just throw Gary the cat in the basket…

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8 hours in all?!?!

Friday, August 19: The plan is to finish our phone service connection at DoCoMo.  I wonder how long it’s going to take today? The answer is:  Another 4.5 hours!  It took a total of 8 HOURS to hook up our service at docomo!  Our friend says, “Welcome to Japan!” It was exhausting.  Last night at docomo they weren’t sure whether we’d be able to use our phones that we brought from America.  We sorted that out, and thankfully all the phones we brought – a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, 2 iPhone 6s, and Motorola Droid Razr – will work here.   Today it was all about the paperwork.  Mounds and mounds of paperwork.  Now I have to cancel Verizon.  How…

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Japan Requires Lots of Patience!

It’s already Tuesday, August 16.  I had a hard time getting back to sleep at 4am but I forced myself to lay there.  I think I must have eventually fallen back asleep because I feel pretty rested.  And Avalon’s fever feels like it’s almost gone!  Yay.  I had been thinking about taking her to the doctor today if she was still feeling hot.  My list of things to do today include going to City Hall to register ourselves as residents of Minoh, going to the bank to get an account set up, and going to the phone store to sign up for Japanese service and getting off Verizon.   International rates are knocking us out! $1.79 per minute because we…

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Taking Our Cats With Us

This is a long saga that starts our whole story off in motion.  I’ll be adding to this story over time until the whole thing is complete.  Basically it starts in February 2016 and goes until we step on the airplane with them on August 13, 2016.Here is one part of the story: Yesterday (Tuesday, August 9) I found out, from the USDA, that because I used one form A and one form C for both cats that the forms would be invalid.  It didn’t matter that Animal Quarantine Services (AQS) in Japan said it was okay to use one form for both cats.  The USDA requires 2 forms for 2 cats.  So I had to get up very early…

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Final Bits & Good-Byes

Today is the last day of Junior Guards!  Here’s what we have going on today, Thursday, August 11:  Kaiyo and Avalon are riding bikes to JG from 10-12 and Halyard goes from 1-3.  All 3 are meeting up at the Fun Zone for lunch and arcade fun from 12-1.  Big Al is coming back to install the new strikers on our stove at 9am.  Tony our painter is coming over to look at our painting needs and give us an estimate.  John plans to sell the BMW to a man named Mark today at 3:30!  Then, at 5:30 we’re supposed to be at Balboa Peninsula Park for Junior Lifeguard Graduation.  Phew!  And I won’t be there for any of the…

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The Last Week

Now we are literally down to the last week.  Sunday, August 7 and there’s still a lot to do and a lot of people to see.  I told Sandi that we need to leave for extended periods more often.  Everyone wants to squeeze in time. First off today I’m taking Kaiyo to Side Street Cafe so he can join up with his friend Ethan and the Lovin Family.  My plan was to go to the early service at church but we just didn’t make it there.  But Halyard still wanted to go and say goodbye to his friends so we dropped him off.  I decided it was probably better to continue packing since I was feeling the pressure of the…

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