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First glimpses of our Japan


 The first pic is of...well...me packing and my little brother watching a movie.

This next one is of Alexander snuggled up on the plane.  We flew with Emirates and it was amazing!  The Dubai airport at 1am is, however, overwhelming.




                                                                             
Our first experience of a Japanese supermarket.                                                                                


 Takashi and Tiffany are a couple from the church.  They picked us up from the airport and then took us to the store.
 The littlies were not playing along at this point, but who could really blame them?
 Our first Starbucks experience (Emiel's first) was in Japan!! And man was it good!!!
 Chiaki (I hope that's right) and Jaqueline.
 Jaqueline is amazing.  She does a bit of everything at the church and has been so helpful in getting us here.  She is Brazilian believe it or not.   She had to learn Japanese when she came to Japan to study and then learnt English!  Bright girl and such a sweet person.

The box I am holding is this incredible thing that some Japanese stores do.  They sell a bunch of items in a box or bag for a few thousand yen.  This box held a jacket, a plaid long sleeve shirt, a t-shirt, a long sleeve and a zip up sweatshirt.  The label is a surf label.  For 5,000yen (not a lot) my husband got some stunning much needed clothing.
 This is our gorgeous new pram with the rain cover in use.  Ikeda is cold, really cold.
 This is a shopping area.  It is so pretty.
 Waiting for our lift to our New Years day lunch with the pastors of the church.  It was such a special time.  We felt welcomed and just so blessed!
 Our block.  We are on the top left corner.
 Laundry and no, Mom we haven't let it pile up.  Travel and vomiting Beatrice resulted in this pile up. And guess what this is a rather typical Japanese approach to hanging laundry out to dry.
 The bubble thing on the shelving unit is a rice cooker.  The rice here is soooo good!  The food here is soooooo good!
 Shoes get left at the door much to Alexander's disgust.  He is attached to his shoes.  My poor little man has battled the most emotionally.  On the first night he cried and fretted and was awake for hours (there is a jet lag element) asking for home, his own bed, family members.  My heart broke.  I told him that this is our home now.  I am really not sure what all God has for us I just know that at this moment this strange, new, exciting place is home.
 The special photos an air hostess took of us on the plane.  It was just supposed to be of the kids, but she took one of us as well.
 More washing and behind it the room we haven't decided what to do with yet.
 Our sleeping system is futons on the floor.  The littlies are with us until they settle.
 The sink and laundry.
 The bath is a rather interesting concept.  The floor beside has a drain so you wash there.  The bath is super deep for soaking.
The cross was a present from my aunt.  It is made of wood so we were so relieved to see it had made the flight.

The toilet is different.  It doesn't have the computerised seat so popular in Japan.  What it has is a wash basin on top, so when you flush, water shoot out of the tap and fills the cistern.  Ingenious!











I hope you enjoyed this peek.  I will shortly post just on the miracle of how we got here.
Much love
Philippa
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Comments

  1. chris3 January 2012 at 12:53

    Hi Special beautiful family, love reading your blog have copied it so that I can show Mom and Zinny and Gran at home. It all sounds so interesting and exciting. Love you guys so much and miss you. Please give Alexander and BeBe a big kiss from us.

    Lots of love

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5 January 2012 at 22:00

    Hi you guys, so great to see you settling in on this adventure. You r going to grow in leaps and bounds and we will see the word sown in faith reap 100 fold. What a priledge it is to be called a son xx We look forward to seeing your story unfold. Love, Kath & Will

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nicci17 January 2012 at 10:18

    missing you guys ! so glad you are still blogging so we can keep up to date!!!

    ReplyDelete

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