A trip to a Temple

Every year the wives of the Japanese officers invite OSC to do something fun, then we invite them to do something fun later. I've never been able to attend one of these outings, but this year I made it. The Japanese ladies took us to a Buddhist temple in downtown Sasebo. I actually had found this temple by accident on another occasion, but never been inside.

At the temple, we were told that Buddhists practice calligraphy, writing out sutras, as a way of meditating. We were given a sutra to trace out. The monk in charge of the temple suggested wishing blessings on our families as we wrote. It was very peaceful to sit there and hold Ela (who wanted to eat the paper), while everyone quietly concentrated on writing. It reminded me a little of monitoring tests when I was teaching.

Then one of the ladies finished and took Ela so I could write...

Finally, we were given a lesson in making balloon animals. One of the ladies is apparently very good at it and volunteered to teach us to make a Halloween wreath. It was a lot of fun. Ela fell asleep and not even the popping balloons (and believe me we popped a lot of them) could wake her up.

In case you're wondering, "What's with the rush of posts?" Ela is have a nice nap, so I'm trying to catch up on what has been a very busy month. In less than a week, I'll be on a plane back to the US, so I'm trying to get caught up before I go into total travel mode... Stay tuned!

Nakaoyama

A few weeks ago, I took my last OSC trip. The group went to Nakaoyama, a small pottery town near Arita. OSC had gone there before, years ago. It is very pretty, and there are lots of pretty things to buy. So we strolled down the streets a bit and took in some of the pottery that lines them.

Then we got to see an artist at work in his shop...

Here's a view of the whole city. The chimneys mark where kilns are. Some of them are several hundred years old!

For lunch we went to this lovely little pizza place. The owners converted their kiln into a pizza oven. They cook 3-4 pizzas at a time. It's quite fun to watch.

It was a lovely trip. I'm glad I got to go back before we leave.

I don't think she likes it...

..but it was a cute face all the same.

Moving Part I

On Monday, the movers came to gather up part I of our move: the household goods. This was the bulk of the move. It's all the furniture and everything except what we'll take in our suitcases and some basic necessities that will get us through. The weekend before, Zack and I spent a LOT of time sorting out the things that either a) couldn't go or b) we wanted to keep and putting them away in safe areas so they wouldn't accidentally get packed. We set aside clothes and dishes (and the computers) and we pulled food out of shelves and things like that. We were still finishing up our sorting process as the movers pulled in around 8:30 Monday morning.

The movers were three Japanese guys. I walked one of them through the house pointing out the things that should not get packed. He marked each thing or area with a piece of blue tape and then the guys got to work. Our house was filled with packing materials. One of them took the kitchen, and the other two started upstairs. By 10:30 the upstairs was packed and the kitchen was mostly done. They took a quick break and then finished boxing up the downstairs before taking a lunch break. Ela discovered that she HATES the sound of the packing tape coming off the roll, and Zack and I spent our day with her mostly just trying to stay out of the way.

After their lunch break, the movers called in a few more guys to help out with the removal of everything. Rather than hauling all the stuff down two flights of stairs (one in the house, one that leads to the street level), they decided to lower everything off our balconies into the parking garage. It was cool to watch.

Finally, everything was inventoried, out and ready to go. Zack was signing the papers that said they'd done a good job when the people from housing came with our rental furniture.

One of the amenities offered by the housing on base here is rental furniture for when a family's household goods is not here (either because it's on the way to Japan or on the way back to the States). We got a bed, a crib, two dressers, a table, four dining chairs, two arm chairs, a sofa and a coffee table. Once that was in, we got to work pulling all our stuff out of hiding places and reorganizing it in our new space. I miss having more table space, but we're making it work. We'll stay in this situation for two more weeks, then we'll pack out the rest and move to the hotel before heading back to the States. Now that this first step is done, I feel a lot better. It seems like all the rest should go smoothly, too.