Right now Anna’s application for her second passport is in Hong Kong, hopefully being processed and approved.  This is for her British passport, she already has her Japanese one.  Tomorrow we go to Sapporo to get a re-entry permit for me so that I can leave Japan and return again (provided we can return before my current visa expires).  Then February will be spent sorting out and applying for Emily’s visa for the UK so that we can enter the country as a family in May. It’s a fairly arduous affair that needs us to prove our marriage isn’t a sham, that we have somewhere to live in the UK and that we will be able to support ourselves while we are there.

These are all things we tend to take for granted as we (well most of us) grow up in our passport countries. We pay our taxes and get healthcare, the promise of benefits should we need them, the right to live and work in the country we call home. But now as an international family, while we have these rights, we don’t all have them in the same places. For the time being, wherever we go, at least one of us will need special permission to be there, more permission to work there and it won’t be something guaranteed indefinitely.

Recently I have been working on a message from Philippians 3:17-21 and as I work on it, I have never been more thankful that we can claim our citizenship of heaven, somewhere that we can all be openly accepted and leave the paperwork behind.

These past years have been years marked with change for us, 2008 I came to Japan, 2009 Emily moved up to Hokkaido and we got engaged, in 2010 we married and moved to Oasa, then in 2011 we welcomed little Anna into our family. 2012 looks like it will continue the trend as we prepare to head back to the UK in the spring time (with a estimated date of 1st of May).  Our return to the UK has a few purposes, first of all Emily can spend some time learning about and experiencing the culture that has influenced and shaped my development, also she will be able to study English and gain some experience in using it in day to day life! We hope to return to Japan with OMF in the future and English is a requirement as it is OMF’s internal language. We also need time to process Emily’s entry into OMF and hopefully gain a permanent residence visa for her to ease transition back and forth in the future.

But we hope it will also be a time of personal development for us. Emily will experience life and faith in another culture and I learn to be patient with her and help her as she has with me here in Japan! We hope that God will provide a place for me to work that will help me to develop for future ministry in Japan as well as provide for our family while we are in the UK. Whether that is towards the IT skills side, or more focussed on traditional ministry (or both?!) is to be seen. We also will be spending a lot of time sharing about Japan and the work God has for us to do here. We will both need to learn to trust Him to provide anew as we step into the next stage of our journey.

As we move forward into 2012 we are just at the beginning of this, we are beginning to become active in gathering the documents we will need for Emily’s visa application, thinking about timings as some of those may overlap with original documents needed for Anna’s UK passport application, and for my re-entry permit to Japan… We will need to get used to the seemingly endless streamers of red tape if we are to survive the coming years!

Maybe 2013 will be a little more settled…

Anna Kathleen

On Tuesday the 18th of October, at 11:52am (JST) Anna Kathleen Orme entered the world!  Her Japanese name is オルム 杏和（あんな）

If you are interested in our experience of giving birth here in Japan (from my point of view…) read on, if you aren’t bothered, you can skip ahead to the end!)

On Monday we went for a check up, the first beyond Anna’s due date, and after leaving and coming home Emily seemed to be struggling with things a bit more than normal (normal for an over-due pregnant mother that is!) and at around midnight she began to have contractions.  As Emily is a first time mother we understood that it would take time for Anna to appear even once labour had begun.  The hospital we’ve been going to also try to keep things as stress free as possible, and so their advice was to call them up once the contractions were serious enough and see what they think rather than panicking and getting ready to go to early.  So we went to bed. At around 4am they were strong enough to wake Emily and we timed them to around 7 or 8 minute intervals.  By 6am they were stronger still and around 5-6 mins between, so we called the clinic and headed in at 7am.

The hospital we went to uses sophrology to prepare and coach the mother through birthing and the key point is to try and keep everything as relaxing as possible.  Part of this was being given a CD of relaxing music to exercise to (and to fall asleep to) that they then played in the room Emily gave birth in.  I think the general idea is to be as relaxed as possible so that the natural processes involved can take place etc…
This also means that the birthing process that they use is pretty natural, there are no drugs involved (except oxygen and a hydration drip), Emily wasn’t moved from the bed she rested in to a special room or table for the birth, everything was actually a pretty homely experience (except the immense pain, blood and all that jazz!)  I guess it was somewhere between a home-birth and having all the necessary equipment in a controlled environment

So Anna came along at 11:52am and weighed in at 3834g (8lb 7oz-ish), 50cms long and with a full head of hair already!

After the birth Emily and Anna stayed in the hospital for 5 days to keep an eye on them. This is fairly normal here in Japan and a great chance for us to ask all the questions we have and learn from the midwives and nurses there.  Also a good chance for Emily to rest and recuperate after giving birth.  On Saturday afternoon they arrived home safe and sound!

It is one of the few genuinely original shows on TV here that doesn’t involve food (OK, sometimes it involves food, and normally with no real reason to involve food…)
So I thought I would write again about it, so far two of the challenges have really made my Monday evening, one because of the cockiness of the guy that lost, and the one I will share with you because of just how incredible the product that won was!

The first of the two products were anti-theft paint balls that a shop worker can throw at a thief to mark them.  These balls supposedly break on contact first time, every time.  Their competitor was a mat made of “alpha-gel” that claimed to save any delicate falling object from it’s particulate fate.

The mat had it’s prowess shown by dropping various objects on it (usually an egg) and at one point getting a pro handball player (yes really) to throw it as hard as he could at the mat, which duly saved it from it’s messy fate.

The balls were demonstrated by dropping them gently onto various soft materials and showing how they broke at the slightest contact, the most impressive was the big thick pile of hotel standard towels – I am sure the hotel wasn’t happy with the indelible orange paint they found after check out!

You can watch the episode here but it is the whole episode in Japanese without subs…

For those who couldn’t be bothered watching the whole thing, the crucial point is at 20:00 in. Retired Hiroshima Carps pitcher Manabu Kitabeppu was brought in and allowed to place the throwing line at a distance that he thought he couldn’t miss the target, which he did.  Then he missed the target with the first ball, splattering the on lookers with the criminal marking paint! The question I have here is why the makers who were so sure the ball would break were standing within splattering distance.  If I thought the ball was sure to break, I would at least stand far enough away so as not to get indelible paint on me!

The second ball is the one to watch though.  If you haven’t already, click the link above and slide along to 20mins in.  Absolutely incredible!

Looking forward to this show coming back next Sunday afternoon!

Japanese "gold" driving licence (not mine!)

Yesterday I went to renew my Japanese driving licence.  In Japan licences need renewed every 3 years – at least to start with – and expire one month after your birthday rather than when you first get your licence, so for me that was yesterday!  I had put it off a little bit, then duly forgot about it, only to realise on Saturday that the local police station don’t do it on weekends.  So I ended up taking a bit of a trip out to the licence centre on the other side of Sapporo to renew it.  An “advantage” was I could renew it and have the lecture all in one go.

Yes, to renew your licence in Japan, you get to attend a lecture about road safety and any changed laws since the last time you were there. First time renewals (me) get a 2 hour lecture and it reduces each time to 1 hour, then 30 mins, then if you manage not to have any accidents or tickets you get a “gold” licence and are spared the lecture (apparently gold licence holders don’t need to know about changes in the law!)

Overall it was fairly straight forward…  I learned that Hokkaido’s drivers are the worst in Japan, having most accidents and kill most people, but watching people weave up route 12 is enough to convince me of that!  I learned that pedestrians in Japan are liable to wander out into the street.  I learned that last year in Hokkaido more passengers died in accidents wearing seatbelts than not wearing seatbelts, but also that many of those not wearing them wouldn’t have died if they had been…

I also learned that most people renewing their driving licence for the first time are about 20 years old, another reminder that I am a bit different than most people here.

Photos from Zamami Island

On Thursday we went to Zamami Island, a small island in a group lying just west of Okinawa’s main island. The ferry trip across was beautiful, clear blue seas, little sun-kissed islands here and there and even flying fish skimming over the surface to get away from the on coming tourists.

We stayed in a little family run place with our own (air conditioned!) room etc and 15 minutes walk from Furumizami beach, a beautiful coral beach with a small reef no more than a 10 metres offshore.  We spent a few hours there after we arrived just swimming around, and then went back for most of Friday doing some snorkelling around the reef and relaxing in the shade.

When we checked in we were greeted with news that a typhoon was heading for Okinawa and it might miss, but it was due to arrive on Saturday the 16th and should be far enough passed for our ferry to leave on the 20th (so we could catch flights home on the 21st).  But as time passed the strength f the typhoon was rising and its path changing and in the end we opted to leave on Saturday and spend the remainder of our time in Okinawa on the main island.

Photos from Naha etc.

So we are back in Naha and any more pics from here will be added to the Naha album we started the last time we were here!  We will be here until the typhoon passes and expect it could be quite an experience only having experienced them on Honshu, the main Japanese island. Eventually we will head home on Thursday 21st to Hokkaido and normal life will resume!

Okinawa - Naha pictures

Tomorrow we get on a ferry and go to a small island (Zamami Island) for almost a week to relax and enjoy the quiet!Here are some pictures from our trip so far, who knows if there will be any from Zamami, or what the internet situation will be where we are staying!

Okinawa is an interesting place!  It has only been properly part of Japan since 1868, before that it was independent, but with fairly fear-ridden, but relatively peaceful links with China and southern Japan. Since becoming part of Japan it was used by the expansionist government leading up to WWII, then it was used by the US as a base in Asia, being under American control through the majority of the Cold War until 1972.  Each step of the way being used to someone else’s end and to fight someone else’s battles.  Still now 1/5 of the main island is covered with 14 US military bases, although the give and take between Japan and the US is good (trading presence for protection in many ways), having been here and learning a bit more about the island and it’s people I can understand a bit more why Okinawan’s resent the US presence more than the rest of Japan seems to…

Okinawa is also where Mr Miyagi in the Karate-kid was from (and where Karate is from, come to that…)

OMF Kanto/Tohoku Earthquake on Vimeo.

We ourselves are, of course, praying for the people in Tohoku, giving money where we can and helping out others directly involved in helping where we are able. But our church position has meant not being able to go with the team of OMFers who just got back from Iwate prefecture to help clean up and provide food for people in the area. The church pastor of 33 years has just finished and a new pastor is coming today, we are the “link” between the two in terms of filling in and helping the new pastor get up and running.

One affect it did have was on entertainment and media, for about a week after the earthquake, regular TV shows were put on hold and every channel was showing 24 hour news coverage of what was going on.   In itself this was a noble effort in keeping people up to date of the dangers that could be coming their way, of government messages regarding safety and “life-lines” (electricity, water etc).  But after a few days Hokkaido it meant brisk business for local video rental shops.  For some people it has meant feelings of anxiety and concern did not subside and even people relatively unaffected by the earthquake have been considerably disturbed by the continue flow of media.

I hope this post doesn’t seem too flippant, I don’t mean to take anything away from the disaster that has occurred in Tohoku and Kanto, many people are suffering greatly, mourning family members, neighbours, friends who have been swept away. Many people have lost their livelihoods and homes, wondering how to build for the future.

Really the truth is I want to blog about a TV commercial… Since the earthquake, understandably, companies don’t want to be associated with the images of suffering and destruction that have been on TV, and so have pulled their commercials. The result is the Advertising Council of Japan have been given a LOT of airtime for their commercials, including this particularly irritating one about why you should use everyday greetings to make friends (the message isn’t irritating, the constant playing over and over of the same tune grates a bit though).  The ads are beginning to return, but aside from news reports in the regular slots, the ever present AC ads are one of the few every day things that reminds me of the disaster that happened just a few short weeks ago.

But it also means the run of a particular favourite of mine was cut short.  It’s a commercial for a product to keep pollen out of your nose called Ion Block.  Last year it featured a few pollen grains dancing along singing “At last!  We’ve arrived at the Nose!!” only to be taken out by Ion Block at the last minute and told not to come back again.  This year it is back with “This year too, we’ve arrived at the Nose!” and another devastating tackle, and Ion Block is joined by his mentholated “cool” friend.

The show “世界で誰も見たことない対決ショー　ほこxたて” (“The Showdowns that no one in the world has ever seen before Show! Spear x Shield”) is based on a Japanese word 矛盾 which literally means “spear” and “shield”, but together means contradiction.  There is a proverbial example of the law of non-contradiction (see the title) in Japanese about a spear that can penetrate anything meeting a shield that can’t be penetrated.

But this TV show takes things purported to be un-somethingable and sees if they really are.  Last night was an unbreakable chain for securing expensive motor-bikes vs a cut anything industrial set of pneumatic shears (attached to a massive digger).  Of course the unbreakable chain snapped like a twig.  But to it’s credit it was it’s second appearance having survived a pile driver, “cut-anything saw” and even mining explosives in a previous show.

Other competitors have been a man who can move so slowly and un-human-like that a motion sensor system that can detect any human movement can’t detect him.  It did.  His nose twitched, and you can see it at the bottom of this post.  Another was a type of metal so hard no drill can drill a hole in it against a drill that can drill a hole in anything, a second outing for the metal block.  It remained hole-free and the drill company had a bit of a repair bill for a rather expensive, burned out drill.

Last week was an international outing with Blendtec of willitblend.com fame being pitted against an “unblendable” dried fish fillet (鰹節).  The blender had one minute to blend the fish to powder, but didn’t make it, so that is one you won’t see on their website!

As if it couldn’t get any better they have a panel of comedians and entertainers who vote each week on who they think will win, then in true Japanese TV style you can watch their faces for reaction while you watch the rest of the show, just in case you can’t tell which bits are funny or interesting by yourself.  Then there are the pundits, two “experts” who make calls based on their scientific backgrounds.  One of these is a professor who’s scientific understanding has lead him to get every one wrong so far this series (that’s 7 in a row as of yesterday’s show).

The whole thing makes for a great bit of TV and for an interesting cultural experience, which you too can enjoy with this clip!  The slow moving guy is actually pretty incredible!