奇妙な (Kimyōna)

奇妙な (Kimyōna) is as close as I can come to 'weird' in Japanese.

Here are a few more of the things I have noticed in my first few days here, some weird, some cool, some just 'things':

Both Victoria and my mother in law have a thing about facing the 'wrong way' when travelling. Forwards or nothing for them. Backwards motion leads to nausea! Well, here in Japan they'd be fine on trains. As the first train from the airport towards the Sinkansen connection pulled in I thought "Hello, that's odd; all the seats face the same way. When we pull out, we'll all be facing backwards. Vic would hate that!" I put the thought to one side and watched as a team of cleaners descended and tidied the train. When I looked back up from my kindle, lo and behold, all the seats were the right way round! They all seem to be on little foot-operated turntables, so everyone can face the direction of travel, or if they are so inclined, go backwards and be sociable with the row behind. Neat! One of the first things that made me think we should do likewise in the West!

When this first train appeared I tried to embark but was shooed off by the team of cleaners. When they had finished I was positively welcomed aboard by a lady who seemed to take immense pride in a simple job well done. Nice work, and nice work-ethic, team clean!

The trolley lady passed and I fancied a drink to go with the sandwich my lovely wife had made that I had saved for lunch. I asked what a typical Japanese drink would be and she recommended either hot or cold green tea. Pushing the boat out, I opted for the cold for ¥150, hoping I wasn't being ripped off (Turned out to be CHF2 or about £1.40). Over in Switzerland I've rather taken to the iced-tea and fancied that such a sweet and caffeinated beverage would be just the ticket. How wrong I was; this beverage was nothing like the liptonice I have become partial to, it was just cold green tea. I pushed on, not one to waste a drink, and eventually came to quite enjoy it, but I have decided that I definitely prefer my tea hot, as a rule. I had another cup today, hot, and it was entirely pleasant.

Passed my first Pagoda. Wow! What an elegant and surprisingly earthquake-proof building! 

EVERYONE has been super helpful and seems genuinely delighted with my frequent "'Arigato's (thank you). There is much gracious head bobbing and a real sense of politeness everywhere, something we could perhaps use a little more of. Heather, my hostess, tells me a story of two gaijin chatting in a Japanese bar. One here for 20 months, one for 20 years. The first gets lots of attention and is welcomed everywhere, the second, despite fluent Japanese, feels excluded. I have yet to see the latter position ( suspect a 3 week visit will not be long enough!) but have seen plenty of the former. Everyone was amused and delighted at my first Japanese lesson on Tuesday night at my inability to sit on the floor for long and my not knowing proper toilet-slipper etiquette. It seems they like their foreigners foreign!

Slippers: there are rules people! 

1. NEVER wear outside shoes inside!
2. Shoes off IMMEDIATELY inside door, while on bare floor
3. Socks do not touch floor
4. Step into slippers on inside flooring (wood or carpet)
5. Place shoes on bare floor, next to each other and ready to be stepped into, facing door
6. Failure to follow (4) leads to hostess doing for one
7. Eventuality of (5) leads to shame, dishonour, castigation or ritual suicide depending on, I suspect, value and filthiness of shoes
8. These slippers will be provided by hosts
9. DO NOT WEAR THESE SLIPPERS INTO THE TOILET!!
10. There are extra slippers provided in the toilet, use these for duration of visit
11. Leave your house slippers outside the toilet
12. When finished toileting, leave toilet slippers just inside door facing the right way for next visitor

Some of these rules might be useful, it certainly keeps a house clean! Perhaps Vic and I should invest in a whole box of guest slippers?

Anyway, enough for today, these sermons won't write themselves. 

Sayonara

Rob

Konichiwa

So, here I am on day 2 of my trip to Japan, preaching with the Nelson's at Nirayama, in sight of the beautiful Mt Fuji. I pushed through until 9:00 last night and feel like I am holding the dreaded jet-lag at bay for now. As I made my way here on 2 planes (via Moscow!) and 3 trains I jotted down a selection of random thoughts on my journey so far that I thought I'd take this opportunity to share.

First tho; Mo news...
as you can see, this Movember's effort is coming on strong. Not sure what breed of Mo it looks like yet. Possibly 1950's bin man? I haven't set up a web page for sponsorship, I know too many people already doing it. I thought it made sense to redirect to them. This year I am urging people to give via the page of Steve Besford.  Come on people, dig deep. Some of us look proper silly! I refer you also to the pages of Matthew Arrowsmith and Giles Smith.




So, a beginning to some Japanese cultural differences as noted by a roaming Gai-Jin on day 1. I assume some of these 1st impressions will change as time goes on...

A significant number of people are wearing surgical masks. I first noticed a row of matching young ladies on the plane and some more at the airport. Once I was out in the world, I noticed some men too, but far fewer (would have covered up the magnificent moustaches!). Apparently this is to block in-bound germs (on the plane) or politely restrain out-bound germs when one is afflicted with lurgee.  Some of this makes a good deal of sense; the culture is still very family oriented and many families continue to cohabit. It's not unusual for 4 generations to be in the same home, exposing both elderly and very young to germs. That said, cleanliness seems to be something of a national obsession bordering on the compulsive. I am told that I need to sneeze gently (which will be a MAMMOTH effort) and leave he room to blow my nose. Wonder what else I need to leave the room for...

Anyhow, apparently I'm off to quarter the town to get oriented now (Pun totally intended!). More news and impressions later!

Movember looming

Well it's nearly Movember.

This year it's especially poignant, as just after last Movember drew to a glorious close, my papa was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He's now finished his treatment and we wait to see if it's been successful. It;s been a tough year, filled with not knowing how he was doing, conflicting reports from too many doctors and side effects that I won't go into today. Those of us around him have had to pull together and I think he's doing ok. We'll see.

For now, I know this: if there was the time and money devoted to man-cancer that there is to breast-cancer, this may well have been spotted earlier and treated more swiftly, with fewer side effects and a better prognosis. I don't want to take a single penny away from other any other cancer research; breast-cancer too has claimed friends of mine. I do simply want to raise awareness and cash to help the plight of men everywhere. Too many of us will eventually be glad that we helped.

This is my face on the last day of October. There will be regular updates. Keep the cash coming in by sponsoring any man you know growing a Mo. Why not show support by sporting a stick on one yourself, if you're too young or have the wrong chromosomes to grow one yourself.

Watch this space!!

My head hurts!

Well, eight weeks in and I am developing a new relationship with pain!

It's not because Mrs D is beating me regularly, or at least, no more severely than usual! No, it's the French language. I seem to bee making fairly good progress and have even begun the dreaded subjunctive, and the more I speak and listen the easier it gets. The biggest barrier to progress is a lack of practice; I just need more francophones in my life. What with tutoring happening in English and Victoria and I largely communicating in English, it's hard to get the French in. 

We have joined two churches, on in English in the evening and one in French on Sunday morning. I suspect Victoria, given a choice, would go exclusively francophone at home and church, but I'm just not ready for that. As much as it's satisfying to be making progress, and I can now largely make myself understood and keep up with the rigors of shopping etc, it's too frustrating to operate at a language level where I can't express complex ideas or, for that matter,  simple ones with the option of a more elegant turn of phrase. 

Anyway, my point is this. I find, regularly, that after a while submersed in French, my brain hurts. It's always the same pain, a kind of fizzing across the middle, very much akin the stress buzz I used to get at the thought of Ofsted visiting. The exact same feeling I called 'impending doom' whenever the headmaster called to me to his office, and which never went away however long I taught or high I wandered in the rankings of my profession, surely a sad indictment on my self-confidence.  It is a decidedly odd experience to have come to view this feeling as my friend. Whenever my brain starts ticking like that these days, I ascribe it (with no neurobiology to speak of, you understand) to neurons connecting, to synapses linking, to LEARNING HAPPENING! It's a delight! I seek it out, some of the time, when I am strong enough. At time's when I'm not it's proved a remarkable opportunity to lean on God, remembering that I believe He called us here, that there's something special for us to do here and that learning French is somehow adding to the kingdom. Standing in His grace helps me daily over here. If I get really stuck, I even pray in French! 

I'm off now to read an article on Michael Schumaker's retirement in French! A bientôt!

BTW: should you actually have some neurobiology, don't disabuse me of the notion that I can feel the learning happening. It's too motivational to lose.

An expensive word to learn!

Well, it's been a hell of a week. It's been utterly fab having some folks from home visit, one of whom brought her new beau for us to judge (sorry, meet!). What was truly special was having a part of our much cherished friendship group from Leeds come over; it really helped this feel like home and it's incredibly reassuring and comforting to know that we're still connected. At an hour and a half's flight we're MUCH less cut-off than we were in Rwanda or Calgary.

So, word of the week was " Une Amende," which means "A Fine." 

On Thursday I was coming home from a Sailing lesson I hadn't had as the sailing company had forgotten about me when Victoria called. Normally I wouldn't pick up when driving but I was making poor choices that day. 

The previous evening a colleague of Victoria's (we'll call her Jane) had been robbed at the entrance to her garage in Geneva, her hand-bag lifted off the passenger seat of the car by a ne'er-do-well while his colleague distracted Jane on the other side of the car. Being chivalrous and kind, Victoria lent Jane her husband so she didn't have to suffer through the rest of the evening unprotected and alone. Jane and I waited up for the RIDICULOUSLY expensive late-night emergency locksmith to come and let us in to her flat and replace her locks, and then we took a pleasant stroll through a raging storm to the police station in the middle of the red-light district, where she lives. By the time all this was sorted I got to bed in Geneva at about three O’clock. Now, you may well know that I'm not at my best in the morning, far from my usual cheery self and considerably farther from observant than usual, so when Jane's alarm pulled me from my slumber at 7.30 the following A.M. I was impressed that I managed to quietly leave her flat and get to the station, where I managed to buy the correct ticket and get a coffee. Sadly, having accomplished so much, I must have rested a little on my antemeridian laurels as I managed to get the only train to Lausanne that DOESN'T stop at Nyon. This put me an hour later back home than anticipated, which made me an hour late for my first meeting with a new tutee. At this point I was already quite stressed and bouncing through my morning on caffeine and adrenaline (with a little help from a delectable almond croissant. If one must be stressed in Switzerland, there are at least perks). It didn't help that being late for my first appointment necessitated a call to the parents of my second and third appointments to relate my sorry tale and apologise!

Eventually I got home and crammed in some lunch  before setting off to not have a sailing lesson. This cancellation was almost the last straw and I was going a bit out of my mind when I picked up the phone, which I knew was wrong but thought to be legal here as I had seen so many people on their phones while driving. This was a notion the policeman who pulled me over seemed more than happy to disabuse me of. He was even happy to take time to explain what was happening in broken English and sign language as he told me he was giving me 'an amende' of CHF100. 

Mea culpa, I know, and I make no excuses, but if every word I have to learn comes at such a price Victoria's salary won't go nearly far enough!!

Thankfully, I start regular French lessons on Monday, at a much more reasonable rate.

Bienvenu A Suisse

You'll have to forgive the delay in posting; I know we've been on this new adventure for nearly two weeks now but it's been just too hot to move or think! Still this being the view from the dining area helps; you can almost see the heat, no?

So, here we are in sunny Nyon, temperatures clearing 30 degrees every day so far and not dropping much at night. Alps to the left, Jura to the right and beautiful Lake Geneva (Lac Leman to locals, and who am I to argue) sat right there in the middle.  There have so far been several lessons as a private tutor, one wonderful trip to church where we both felt right at home and were immediately installed as small group leaders (daunting!), one barbecue, four overly hot runs, one guest (my easy going sister) with two more on the way and much French taught. It's been hectic!

Things I have noticed about Switzerland:

When you take over a house you do just that, not a house and its light fittings. Several dark nights followed and some minor electrical jiggery-pokery: now we can see! Hosannas were sung over the brownie-points earned.

Ikea meatballs are equally awesome wherever you go!

The cheese is really that good!

The trains really are that punctual!

Pistachio and chocolate is THE BEST combination of ice cream, flavours, c'est sure!

Electric velo-pass bikes (Swiss 'Boris-bikes') should be available everywhere! All of you who visit MUST try them.


Everything really is shut on a Sunday. Hello Sabbath!

Grass beaches, despite initial weirdness, really do work. No sand in pants = happy Rob.

On a more general note, I've started writing a book. It concerns marriage and fidelity and I have a lot of ideas to work out, so that might be a recurring theme here for a while. I'm just not sure how to treat a necessarily sexual subject in overtly Christian fiction.

So, what next for Rob? That's been a common question for months now and it's no different here, most often from folks at church. Back in the UK I was happy with the position that God had called us both here and there would be a right thing to do once I got here. Now I'm finally here and I'm in that period of reflecting, waiting and praying it all feels a bit odd. Still, it's early days, so we'll see. Maybe it's the writing, only time will tell.

The coolest trees in the world: a picture of faith from creation

These are Redwoods.




Grizzly Giant, Marposa, Yosemite

I love them. This one's called the Grizzly Giant, it's the 25th biggest sequoia in the world. 64m tall and 28m around, it's 3.5 times taller than my school ,which is a substantial 5 storey building. I took this picture in Yosemite National Park, California, which was a real privilege to visit. I you're in the area, you just must go.


Of course, that's a Giant Redwood (Sequioadendron Giganteum) which are the biggest trees in the world in terms of total volume and mass. Sadly, they have rather fragile tops which tend to break off after a thousand years or so. This leaves the mantle of tallest tree to their cousins, the Coast Redwoods (Sequoia Sempervirens). Oddly, despite being called Sempervirens (ever-living) it generally only lives up to 1800 years, whereas the Giant Redwood often gets well over 2700 years old. Some of those trees were already 700 years old at the birth of Christ!




'Giant Tree.' No kidding.

This is Victoria and I at the foot of the unimaginatively titled 'Giant Tree' in Redwood State Park, Northern California, home of hundreds of Coast Redwoods. It was near there that they filmed the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi. You don't need special effects around there, it's an alien environment already.


This tree would tower over the Grizzly Giant; it's 109m  tall! 6 times taller than my school! Wandering around Redwood Park is an awesome and eerie experience; hundreds of these massive trunks shootiog straight up into the air. The dense canopy 300 feet up keeps much of the light from getting through, so while it's quite light enough to see and trek about, there aren't many other trees about, just these humongous long lived statuesque beauties rising straight out of the ground. It's 40 metres or more until you get to the first branches, so the trucks are left to impress.

A Grove of Giant Redwoods in Mariposa, Yosemite

Giant Redwoods grow a little differently. Rather than dominating an area they grow in groves of a few trees clustered together, but like the Coast Redwood, they never grow alone. This is all down to the incredible way they are rooted.


You would expect, perhaps, that such massive trees have very deep roots shooting deep into the earth, possibly tied to the very bedrock itself. Some kind of super-root must be necessary to keep these towering trees up, surely?


Well, you're not wrong, but it's not what you'd expect. The roots of these arboreal legends go down a mere 6 feet.

SIX FEET!!!!!

Surely that's not enough to hold up these forest giants? Well, it certainly wouldn't be, but their roots, while they down go down very far, do go out! Not only that, they grasp hold of one another. Theses magnificent creations could not stand on their own, but weather the storms of this world by holding each other up, leaning on each other for support and stability.

What a picture of fellowship. I was reminded of this recently looking at Mark Chapter 6, when Jesus send out the disciples for the first time. He doesn't let them take much stuff to support themselves with, no food, no spare clothes, just a staff, however he does give them one important thing: each other. He sends them out in pairs. I take this to mean that we are to be there for one another, that God doesn't expect us to perform miracles by ourselves, that we can achieve so much more with each other than alone.
The other cool thing about Redwoods is their response to fire; they need it. They are largely impervious to fire, one of very few non-flammable woods. When the Great Fire of San Francisco caused devastation in 1906 the damage was abruptly halted when the flames reached a district made of Redwood lumber. Forest fires rarely damage Redwoods but do thin-out competing species, leaving space and nutrients for the Redwoods. Beyond this, the seeds are released from the cones by high temperatures, so any forest fire releases thousands of new seeds to help the next generation start their incredible growth.

Cool trees, and beautiful too. Go see 'em.