Our Haul, Part II

It was a good day for geocaching...


Although this looks like a daikon radish it is actually a cleverly concealed Geocache! And to boot, it is tucked away in a very busy bus stop location! Oh the audacity!!


Who expects to find the front nose of a Japanese WWII submarine bomber just attached to somebody's house in Tokyo?!? We had to come here, learn something and then use what we learned to find the next location of the actual cache. Great find today!


And here is the cache.


This is called a bullet and they can be extremely difficult to find. But Hiroko found this one right away as soon as I told her that the coordinates were accurate. There is actually a log book in that tiny little bullet!


This one I actually found last November while ootnaboot on my own. I wanted to show Hiroko the amazing camouflage. We were trying to find another one from this same guy today but his camo was too good for us. We didn't get it.

Rain is predicted for the rest of the entire week but this long weekend was fantastic. We rode for three days and probably covered 50km back and forth on our folding bikes.

I love you!
Cam

Today's Haul, Part I

We had a good day ootnaboot today. We actually got seven of the 10 or

11 caches we searched for so that was pretty good. The history of the
places we visited was amazing too! It is fascinating how the guys who

hide the geocaches actually look up the history of the location and
share it with us.

Hiroko commuted through this area regularly over the years and there
is a lot of stuff she saw for the very first time today.


I love it so much that my wife enjoys this hobby!

I forget the history here at this park. It had a sea theme. 

This park location was a government coin minting station in the Edo period. That's about 400 years ago...

My partner and our bikes. 

This is a shrine to a poor god. Hiroko came to this shopping complex twice a week for years as it contained her tennis club. She had no idea this shrine was here. 

Our New Old Teak Living

Here are the pieces of furniture we chose to complete our new life together.

I just placed the order, and we should hopefully get them delivered about May 12th.

I am very much looking forward to these because the table is a whopping 77cm high! (compared to the table here being 70cm high). That is a difference of.. yes, you can do the math... 7cm, or 2.7559 inches! And that means the chairs are also higher too. FINALLY! A height that matches my body!!! Very excited also to run my hands over the textured old teak. I can hardly wait.

I hope you guys will come and visit us now! We have space for you. PLEASE!!!!???? 

I love you.

(Going out bike riding and geocaching with Hiroko today AFTER we eat breakfast and clean up and organize the storage room she has outside.)

Cam

P.S. The adventure begins in T-29 days (and my hair should be 1cm longer by that time)

More ootnaboots

See how long the hachimaki are made? About 10m!

Daiunji Temple

A nice day for a stroll in an old cemetery....

Since 1620 it seems.

Four for four

First of all...

Paula, is this better?

Now on to explanations.

The Epic Adventure: Looking in the Mirror of Erised

Things are starting to crystallize out now regarding our Trip.

The Italian has been up in the air, but after talking with Gianpi and Michela we have come down to the following:

Rome (5/28 - night only)

Venice (5/29, 30)

Belluno (5/31- 6/05)

Gianpi says that you can easily spend a week in...

Florence (6/05 - 8)

And if you are visiting for the first time then at least several days will be necessary for...

Rome (6/08 - 11)

Then we hop a flight to ...

London (6/11, 12)

Next it is off by train to stay with a friend in Leichestershire...

Ashby de la Zouche (6/13-17)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashby-de-la-Zouch

Back for a night to... 

London (6/17)

And relax there, just walking around and taking in the Euro air.

Then it is off to our five day bus tour in the early morning. We decided we want to be a..

Welsh Explorer (6/18-22)

http://www.haggisadventures.com/england-wales/welsh-explorer-tour

We have to spend another night in ...

London (6/22)

before catching an afternoon flight to...

Edinburgh (6/23, 24)

After exploring the city, the castle, the Royal Mile we will hop on a tour bus and take five days for a ...

Highland Fling (6/25-29)

http://www.haggisadventures.com/scotland/highland-fling-tour

(Click on "Itinerary" for more details.)

Followed by two more nights back in ...

Edinburgh (6/29, 30)

And we fly to Canada on July 1st (6am from Edinburgh, to Amsterdam, to Toronto, to Winnipeg)

THAT is going to be a LONG day!

Three weeks in...

Winnipeg (7/01 - 20) 

to relax, introduce Hiroko to my family, friends, and my world will be very very nice and relaxing.

After that we are going to head over to visit Lorne, Carol and Conor for a week in...

Calgary (7/21-29)

and then fly back to Tokyo. 

We will be taking care of Rene (Mig Sawamura from YouTube) from Germany when he comes and graces us with his presence for a few weeks.

Actually, we chose to fly to...

Bangkok (8/19-26) 

I wrote to my former business partner who now lives in Bangkok to see if he can help with booking and places to visit while we relax away in Thailand for a week and soak up the sun until we finally come back and start looking for work again.

on the same day that Rene is leaving. We wanted to go to Narita with him. I think he will appreciate that even though he has no idea until he reads this that we decided to do that so we can be with him on his last day in Japan!

Things are getting exciting!!

I love you!

Another awesome experience

This is Hiroko's arm.
That is an IV.

....

Chalk up another awesome experience!

I love life!





Cam

Panda Move!

Just a quick shot of the moving company uniform caps.

They also wear socks with pandas on them. How do I know that? Because
the movers always remove their shoes when they enter a home for
moving.

Pandas with love!

Awesome! The Disney bus!

Well, everything is all done now. All we will need to do is unpack all the boxes over the next few weeks. But we got everything in our new place, and everything in the trunk room storage.

And, I got to see the awesome Disney bus! How cool is that?




Cam

Reduce, Reduce, Reducto!

There are already a LOT of towels and sheets and bedding and pillows at Funabori, (waaay more than we actually need or have space for now that I'm moving in) so I'm throwing away all of mine.

Well almost all of mine. I'm keeping some very good (and long enough for me) blankies for winter.

Three 70L bags. I also threw away another big bag of clothing as well. And I'm throwing away a lot of hangers and other things that we don't need as we already have a ton.

Reduce, reduce, reducto!



Panda Movers are coming in about 45 minutes.

I love you!

Cam

P.S. I wonder what else I can "reduce" while I'm waiting?

Jen - Where are you planning to go once your home is sold? Have you picked an area or narrowed it down further, yet? And how is Greg doing these days? Is he still working over in Baltimore at the University? Did he get tenure? I can't recall... He may have a couple of years ago but it has slipped my mind. best of luck. I hope the current offers are good ones that you two are both happy with.

Out with the old

Space! We neeeeed space! So Hiroko agreed to release some old furniture she has in order to fit in some of my stuff. I have very little furniture actually, however I do have some. And although I threw away a good portion of stuff there are still a few pieces we want to keep. So in order to get them into her place we require a major rearrangement.

Of course we have to pay to discard all this, and Hiroko has already done so. The only thing left, and it is sitting outside our entrance on the 14th floor is the biggest horking TV I have ever seen! I have a stiff back just from moving it out of the tatami room yesterday. It is not digital so it doesn't work for TV. We don't watch TV anyway so it's no big deal. And if we do decide to get something I would really like it to be Internet or iDevice capable so that we can download movies and watch them on the big screen.

I'm heading back to Shinozaki now to await the arrival of the movers.

Moving now will be a cinch. But the adventure begins when we try to make it a live-able home. If we can't do that then when Shiv and Takaaki come they will be curling up among boxes like the homeless about the city.

I love you!




Cam

Send him off packing

I've been packing up stuff and. Leaning and reducing in Hiroko's place
and my place for 12 more hours today. I did a lot of organizing over
there but I still think we will have to do more.

I now have the bare essentials over here in Shinozaki. And you know
what? It feels pretty darn good to have reduced my living space so
dramatically.

Aside from the bed in the other room and a few clothes and a dresser,
this is about all I have here. Of course I do have the trunk room and
I think actually that I am going to throw away all of my MBA books
because they just take up space that cannot be afforded. Even though
the new trunk room is double my current space I actually think that
the amount we boxed up at Hiroko's to put in storage is probably
double what I already have in storage! That or more!!! So it is going
to be a real challenge getting this stuff all settled in.

I love challenges.

State of Mind

No, this is not ManhattanTransfer, but rather Tokyo Transfer.

Currently, this is how far I've gotten my apartment packed up to go
with me to Funabori on April 13. I still have all the big stuff to go,
my bed, my chest of drawers, my IKEA sleeping sofa, my table, my
chairs and more. Then there's all the stuff still stored in trunk room
that also have to be transferred. Even though I don't have very much
in this apartment I think this past weekend we still threw out about
12 large bags of garbage. Most of it of course was stuff that still
can be used like frying pans, pots, bowls and more. But, the problem
is that Hiroko already has two, three or four of the same things so
there's no sense having more.

We are renting a new trunk room near her place. But of course we have
to go through a security check and everything like that so it's going
take some time. In addition to that, since I will be leaving my
company, I will have no employment. That means I am a credit risk and
therefore I cannot rent an apartment, I cannot get a new credit card
(don't need), I cannot rent a trunk room, I cannot do anything other
then maybe live in a cardboard box along the Edo River. Which is why
we are trying to do all of this before Hiroco leaves her job at the
end of May. Once she does that, neither of us will be able to do
anything that requires a security check. So, it is a little bit tricky
trying to do what we really want to do.

Anyways, no time to pack during the week. So it looks like I will have
to get out and do it on the weekend again. However, on Saturday we
will be going to pick up our wedding rings, as they should be done. We
are very excited! And, I promise to show a photo of our awesome
designed rings, designed by us.

I'm looking forward to Shiv coming to visit in May, and I'm looking
forward to us visiting Europe and Canada in June and July, and then
for Rene coming from Germany to visit us in August.

Dear to the way the RWT ticket is booked we may have an extra little
surprise in August. But, I'll tell you about that in the future.

For now, Siri and I will say farewell and get back to riding and
sweating profusely on the bicycle. We do have have to, after all get
rid of this little tire around the waist. Even though Stefnee loves
it, I don't. But, I love her for loving you.

And I love you!

Cam