ah, tradition

The star and the rest of the decorations came down yesterday, along with the Christmas tree, and up went the kadomatsu pine decorations for the new year. When M asked the women at the flower shop where we bought them what they could be attached with, one of the women went completely blank, and the other suggested gamu tepu, or packing tape. We were laughing at how much people have forgotten about traditions, and looked on the internet for possible suggestions. Then our friend Ben dropped by the other day with some hemp rope that he suggested would be perfect, and it was.

The odd thing was that the next day I was walking from the station to my office, and passed three kadomatsu displays. Of course, I had to stop and check, and found that--sure enough--they were each attached with gamu tepu. I don't know, maybe it's a traditional thing after all.

digging out

Between the move and the holidays and various commitments, it's been tough digging out of the mountain of boxes (the empties now occupy an entire room--M's salon). But we have the dining and living rooms as well as the kitchen pretty much sorted out and we're finding it pretty livable. This is the first time I've lived in a house in Japan that was well insulated (I did live in a condo in Ebisu that was surrounded by other condos, but that doesn't count since it's not a real house). I'm used to waking up in the winter in the Hiroo house with the temperature around 10 degrees C (50F), but this one has so far always been above 15 (60F) even with the stove off overnight. What a huge difference that 5 degrees makes. I hope it stays like this through the nastier days of February.

The floors, both the tatami and the cryptomeria wood, stay very warm as well, and are soft under the feet. We've already tested out the softness of the wood in many places, dropping things, spilling things, making the house ours, I guess.

u-eee

I guess it wasn't enough that I have to leave the morning sunlight on Mt. Fuji and Standing Rock to begin my commute to Tokyo every morning. On my second day, just as I was putting on all my bike wear to fend off the cold, a huge flock of u, or cormorants, and shirasagi, white egrets  (about a third of them are in the above photo) came swooping in and descended on what must have been a school of fish just outside the window. They'd dive and then take off and make these huge sweeping circles before settling again in the water. I've seen three of four of the egrets before, standing in the shallow river water hunting for fish, but these were dozens of them.

all lit up

It turned cold yesterday along with very strong winds, so it was a perfect time to get the wood stove up and running. We did three break-in burns, which give off a pretty strong smell from the oils, I guess, in the iron, but the heat was appreciated--until the afternoon sun started warming the place up. I got up this morning at 6:30 to practice for Monday, when I'll have to start my commute to Tokyo, and while lighting the stove, was met with the glowing tip of Mt. Fuji, as the sun started to light the horizon.

Still tripping over boxes. I made it to the DIY center yesterday to get a long hose. I've got to constantly spray the car, bike, windows, etc., to remove the salt, especially with the high winds like we had through last night. Also picked up stuff like a wheelbarrow, legs to make M's desk from a former table, and a five-meter ladder, which I'll need to do windows, hopefully not when the winds are howling.

one again

In the midst of unpacking what seems like thousands of boxes of things we've never seen before and have no idea where we're going to put them, we took little gifts around to the neighbors to pay our respects. And before she could finish saying thank you, the wife of the old man who used to be a barber was loading us down with vegetables that she'd just been given by a farmer friend. Daikon. Mizuna. Cauliflower. Kabu turnips, and yuzu citrus. We had to go back home to offload before we could make the rest of the rounds.

The stove guys from Nagano showed up around noon to start installing the Intrepid II. They finished the chimney by the end of the day, and will be back tomorrow to set up the stove itself. It was a pretty calm day most of the time, but in the late afternoon the wind really picked up and was threatening to toss them off the roof.

m and I also found the time to set up the Christmas tree, and we got the lights going just as the sun was setting in bright orange brilliance. M and I got the wreath up at the entrance. This wreath was given to us by the mother of one of m's classmates--a hilarious down-to-earth woman who runs a flower shop in the very trendy Hiro Garden Place.

zero

One of the last things the site foreman did on the day they handed the house over to us was to cut the top off the plastic pipe that was jutting out of the earth just by the side of the house, leaving about ten centimeters protruding from the earth. It's the pipe coming out of the old well, which was found in excavating for the foundation. On the day of the jichinsai (above), when the Shinto priest made his blessings and asking the gods for their cooperation, he made a special effort at the well, which is where gods are believed to have their residences. (We've got two other old wells that have been filled in long ago, but this one still had well water in it.) So we had it filled in, but left the pipe for the god to have access, and the foreman didn't want to be the one to cut it off completely or fill it in. I'm not going to either.

This is the last post from the Tokyo house. The trucks are due in sixty minutes, and the next time I'll turn on the computer will be 61.3 kilometers from here. Bye.

one

Fourteen hours until the moving trucks arrive. Surrounded by boxes and stunned by the complexities of this move (what a difference a family--and moving 70 kilometers away--makes), it seems like a good time to procrastinate and pay homage to the old house again, in this, one of my favorite shots by Ben. (Click on it to see the whole picture.) If this new house can give us any fraction of the enjoyment I got out of the old one, we're going to have a great life.

Speaking of 70 kilometers, I had to turn in my resident registration to the company admin to get them to pay for my rail pass for commuting. I didn't know this, but the company regulations allow payment only up to 70 kilometers. I had to juggle the lines I'll use to commute since several ways put me over the limit. I finally found a way that puts me at 69.3 kilometers, so I won't have to pay out of my own pocket. I will, however, pay plenty with my ass sitting on a train seat for 3 hours a day, so I guess we're even.