This morning was Sunday and we slept in as usual. Flow was up and about with headphones on as I awoke to a knocking at the door. After yelling come in and not hearing the door open I started to get curious in my dazed state. After Flow asked what was up I told him that someone was at the door. Upon opening it he told me FedEx was here with my package. I abruptly awoke and ran to the door in my PJ pants. I signed the paper excitedly. Today was the day my International Drivers License came in the mail. A real God send after a week and a half of struggling to figure out if it was even possible to get one without being in Canada. Needless to say it cost me quite a bit extra but it made it here safely and quickly. We then got up and after I made some breaky for the two of us we walked up to the laundry shack and got our clothes we forgot in the dryer from last night. We then decided it would be a great idea to play some tennis in the miday warmth about 5C in our PJ pants of course. After sorting through a few rackets and a couple dozen dead tennis balls we had a fun little match. A quick shower and off to church we went in the new shirts we picked up yesterday at this neat store called Octopus Army. Good deals and severly vibrant colours! Yesterday(Saturday) we worked a half day and then took a gander down the touristy street only five minutes down the road from us. This is the first time since we've been here that we have actually made it down there to look at some of the stores. Anyway after another fun church service in broken English we brought our German friend Jonathan Mueller over to spend the afternoon. He is working with a different mission organization working at a Christian camp across town from us, doing alot of cleaning in the off-season right now. He is here for a year from last sept untill this Aug. He is about our age and a fun time. So after Cliff and Marg got up here from Tokyo bringing back Sue and Phil who spent the weekend up there we had a great supper that Marg prepared for us. Following this we attempted our first outting on the wrong side of the road............In the dark. With my fresh new IDD in pocket we set out on some back roads to bring Jon home; which was fine considering we had him to give directions. On the way back however. Actually we did fine haha not even one wrong turn, missed stop sign(They are red Triangles), or terribly missed gear in the right hand drive (Left hand column shift) truck the mission has. Over all a fun time upon this new feeling of freedom. Upon returning we thought we would (quickly) tell Cliff of our safe arrival when we ended up going in and visiting with him and Marg for a few hours, lots of fun and laughter pretty awesome connection for 40 or so year difference! Now time for bed considering I have work tommorrow. Thank you all for following our stories feel free to comment if you would like or have any questions. Thank you all for your prayers, we are doing great and loving Life!
God Bless
Josh
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Things are well. We have been busy at work lately on the cabin making alot of decisions as to how to restore t
he frame that is holding up the roof. Some to rebuild, some to rethink, and restructure in North American ways rather than Japanese. Things are going quite well at this point. We have sucessfully replaced all of the exterior walls, house wrapped and now have started installing some new Hardy Board-facia, and soffit. Today we tore out the pre-existing floor and raked up the decaying leaves of the past 50 years. It is looking like the new floor will be much easier to replace than I had once expected. We will be putting in a new 2x6 floor frame with 1" plywood. It is quite something to get used to, between the mix of North American and Japenese materials we have been supplied with. We are both healthy still minus minor allegies to mildew and the like. It is extremely humid in Japan in the summer leaving anything wood (Houses) musty smelling. It has not been a major deal thus far(Thank's God). We went to the Onsen(public bath/hot spring) again this week and we think that we might have to make it a weekly thing. SOOO RELAXING. Sue and Phillip are in Tokyo with Cliff and Marg for the weeke
nd leaving us to cook for ourselves for the time being. The jumping spider population has been decreasing steadily since Flow and I moved in a few weeks ago. It seems that we average about one aday for the last while. It took us quite a while to figure out how to squashthe jumping critters untill we made a conection between the bug zapper and the ai
rborne creatures. AH HA what a great way, they are fast! The other creature that has caught our attention is the wild boars. They come into the mission at night and tear up the moss in search for a meal. We too have been thinking about a meal! We cornered a small one the other day untill it slipped under the fence. We are thinking that we might play some tennis this weekend there is three courts on the mission, right below our cabin and one court has now melted of enough to play. Tommorrow we plan to continue on fascia and soffit providing it is not raining like today. Tonight we just got back from a Kaiten-zushi. Kait
en-zushi are sushi restaurants, where the sushi dishes are presented to the customers on a conveyor belt. Customers can freely pick the dishes that they like as they pass in front of them or order dishes which are not available on the belt. In the end, the number of plates is counted to determine the cost. There are usually a few kinds of plates (differing in color or pattern), each being associated with a certain price of typically 100 to 500 yen. Kaiten-zushi tends to be less expensive than usual sushi-ya. Lots of raw fish and rice, a little wasabi and tea means a great meal and a fun experience. Flow and I went with Randy our site manager and Jonathan our German freund from church. That was in Saku which is the city close to here where one has to go for most resurants or building supplies. Randy is always running around for supplies, most places here are smaller scale and therfore a person has to know which store to go to for various different types of specific supplies. He has been a real blessing to us becuase he frees us up to just work 
while he does alot of the searching for things for us. Randy has been here about 4 years and he is done at the end of February, heading off to Korea next to work for the next while. He is about 50 with the energy of a mid 30 year old, he is an amazing guy that we love to hang around with.
he frame that is holding up the roof. Some to rebuild, some to rethink, and restructure in North American ways rather than Japanese. Things are going quite well at this point. We have sucessfully replaced all of the exterior walls, house wrapped and now have started installing some new Hardy Board-facia, and soffit. Today we tore out the pre-existing floor and raked up the decaying leaves of the past 50 years. It is looking like the new floor will be much easier to replace than I had once expected. We will be putting in a new 2x6 floor frame with 1" plywood. It is quite something to get used to, between the mix of North American and Japenese materials we have been supplied with. We are both healthy still minus minor allegies to mildew and the like. It is extremely humid in Japan in the summer leaving anything wood (Houses) musty smelling. It has not been a major deal thus far(Thank's God). We went to the Onsen(public bath/hot spring) again this week and we think that we might have to make it a weekly thing. SOOO RELAXING. Sue and Phillip are in Tokyo with Cliff and Marg for the weeke
nd leaving us to cook for ourselves for the time being. The jumping spider population has been decreasing steadily since Flow and I moved in a few weeks ago. It seems that we average about one aday for the last while. It took us quite a while to figure out how to squashthe jumping critters untill we made a conection between the bug zapper and the ai
rborne creatures. AH HA what a great way, they are fast! The other creature that has caught our attention is the wild boars. They come into the mission at night and tear up the moss in search for a meal. We too have been thinking about a meal! We cornered a small one the other day untill it slipped under the fence. We are thinking that we might play some tennis this weekend there is three courts on the mission, right below our cabin and one court has now melted of enough to play. Tommorrow we plan to continue on fascia and soffit providing it is not raining like today. Tonight we just got back from a Kaiten-zushi. Kait
en-zushi are sushi restaurants, where the sushi dishes are presented to the customers on a conveyor belt. Customers can freely pick the dishes that they like as they pass in front of them or order dishes which are not available on the belt. In the end, the number of plates is counted to determine the cost. There are usually a few kinds of plates (differing in color or pattern), each being associated with a certain price of typically 100 to 500 yen. Kaiten-zushi tends to be less expensive than usual sushi-ya. Lots of raw fish and rice, a little wasabi and tea means a great meal and a fun experience. Flow and I went with Randy our site manager and Jonathan our German freund from church. That was in Saku which is the city close to here where one has to go for most resurants or building supplies. Randy is always running around for supplies, most places here are smaller scale and therfore a person has to know which store to go to for various different types of specific supplies. He has been a real blessing to us becuase he frees us up to just work 
while he does alot of the searching for things for us. Randy has been here about 4 years and he is done at the end of February, heading off to Korea next to work for the next while. He is about 50 with the energy of a mid 30 year old, he is an amazing guy that we love to hang around with.Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Hey Everyone! Wow a week has already passed, and it feels like we have been here a lot longer. We are making good progress on the cabin, and we hope to have all the exterior walls framed in by the end of this week. Last sunday we went to the english service at the language school a few blocks from where we are living. It was very cool and very diverse, represented were people from Korea, Japan, Canada, Germany, U.S., and some other places. I immediately made friends with a German guy named Jonathan who is around my age, and we are now planning to do some stuff together, maybe some hiking or snowboarding. Also, on tuesday Cliff took us to the public baths, which was a great experience. Basically you go in naked (guys and girls seperate) and wash yourself, then you just soak in the hot water. When you are done you scrub yourself clean and out you go. Seriously, rarely have I felt so clean and relaxed. Anyway, everything is going really well, Thank you all for upholding Josh and I in prayer, we believe that your prayers are the backbone of our trip, things could really go wrong without it. Until next time.
peace
-Flo
peace
-Flo
Friday, January 15, 2010
Working Hard, or Hardly Working
Good day to you!
http://www.japan-i.jp/explorejapan/chubu/nagano/karuizawa-yatsugatake/d8jk7l00000006g5.html
Flow and I are just sitting he
re in our new place where we will be living untill March. We had originally moved in with Sue and Phillip when we arrived in Karuizawa becuase there was a lady from Tokyo who was still in our cabin untill friday night. Now we have truly discovered why counter space is important. Our kitchen is about 4' by 8' with about 3' of counter space(a microwave has decided to claim that space). I think we can live with this however becuase lucky for us Sue has so graciously offered to do our cooking for both lunch and supper. If you would like to check out a little bit about Karuizawa I found this sit ethat gives a brief overview:
re in our new place where we will be living untill March. We had originally moved in with Sue and Phillip when we arrived in Karuizawa becuase there was a lady from Tokyo who was still in our cabin untill friday night. Now we have truly discovered why counter space is important. Our kitchen is about 4' by 8' with about 3' of counter space(a microwave has decided to claim that space). I think we can live with this however becuase lucky for us Sue has so graciously offered to do our cooking for both lunch and supper. If you would like to check out a little bit about Karuizawa I found this sit ethat gives a brief overview:http://www.japan-i.jp/explorejapan/chubu/nagano/karuizawa-yatsugatake/d8jk7l00000006g5.html
Right now it is 11:00Pm Sunday and we are on days off for the weekend. It is 7:00Pm Saturday 
night for you guys making us about 16 hours different. Flo and I started working Thursday morning after arriving at the retreat center on Wednesday afternoon. We have now pulled apart the whole interior and the front exterior wall on the cabin that will be our project while we are here. When we got here it still had stuff in it like a sink and furniture. We started by emptying it out and then proceded to rip it down one piece at a time. We now have the whole front of the building ripped out so that we could replace a rotten 4 by 4 beam and rebuild it. We plan to redo all of the flooring, framing and all the way up minus the new roof. The reason we have to 
do it this way is because the mission can rebuild the cabins without a permit providing the whole thing isn't taken down. A little bit of a pain except getting a permit here is more difficult, so thats the way the cookie crumbles. We now have to try and draw up a final plan of what the place is going to look like. We have some drawings from Nate the guy who put the addition and the roof on but we might have to rethink 
some of it now that we have all of the posts and beams exposed. Yesterday (Saturday) we slept in and then in the afternoon Flow and I went for an adventure. We began to walk up the mountain that we are near the base of and after about a Km or so of road we found a pedestrian bridge and we decided we would take a snowy foot trail and see where it would take us. We ended up coming out at the top of the mountain after a short break to climb some trees and take some pictures of Mt. Asama (Volcano). Much to our surprise we found that there was a whole developed lookout point with benches statues and a English speaking Japenese couple. YESSS! As we decided to take the paved path away from the lookout, we wer
e once again surprised as we found a villiage right there! It was mostly shut down as Karuizawa is a primarily summer getaway for many. We found a very interesting looking temple of some sort however the one english sign in the place said NOT TO TAKE PICTURES so we tried to respect them. Some beautifull buildings and carvings. We came back to the Bachelor pad and had some noodles before going to the Prince snowboarding hill for some night snowboarding. It is about a 10 min drive from here and cost us a total of 1,000 Yen apiece. Now before you get carried away thinking that is so much it isn't. 1,000 yen is about $11.33 Can which is amazing and it was a pile of fun. Not a huge hill but there was about four different chair lifts running and for mostly man made snow it was very soft about -5c. The snowboarding scene here is just as much of a fashion statement as in Canada, pants to the knees and jackets about 4 times to big. The English church service is at 2PM today so now I must go for lunch.
night for you guys making us about 16 hours different. Flo and I started working Thursday morning after arriving at the retreat center on Wednesday afternoon. We have now pulled apart the whole interior and the front exterior wall on the cabin that will be our project while we are here. When we got here it still had stuff in it like a sink and furniture. We started by emptying it out and then proceded to rip it down one piece at a time. We now have the whole front of the building ripped out so that we could replace a rotten 4 by 4 beam and rebuild it. We plan to redo all of the flooring, framing and all the way up minus the new roof. The reason we have to 
do it this way is because the mission can rebuild the cabins without a permit providing the whole thing isn't taken down. A little bit of a pain except getting a permit here is more difficult, so thats the way the cookie crumbles. We now have to try and draw up a final plan of what the place is going to look like. We have some drawings from Nate the guy who put the addition and the roof on but we might have to rethink 
some of it now that we have all of the posts and beams exposed. Yesterday (Saturday) we slept in and then in the afternoon Flow and I went for an adventure. We began to walk up the mountain that we are near the base of and after about a Km or so of road we found a pedestrian bridge and we decided we would take a snowy foot trail and see where it would take us. We ended up coming out at the top of the mountain after a short break to climb some trees and take some pictures of Mt. Asama (Volcano). Much to our surprise we found that there was a whole developed lookout point with benches statues and a English speaking Japenese couple. YESSS! As we decided to take the paved path away from the lookout, we wer
e once again surprised as we found a villiage right there! It was mostly shut down as Karuizawa is a primarily summer getaway for many. We found a very interesting looking temple of some sort however the one english sign in the place said NOT TO TAKE PICTURES so we tried to respect them. Some beautifull buildings and carvings. We came back to the Bachelor pad and had some noodles before going to the Prince snowboarding hill for some night snowboarding. It is about a 10 min drive from here and cost us a total of 1,000 Yen apiece. Now before you get carried away thinking that is so much it isn't. 1,000 yen is about $11.33 Can which is amazing and it was a pile of fun. Not a huge hill but there was about four different chair lifts running and for mostly man made snow it was very soft about -5c. The snowboarding scene here is just as much of a fashion statement as in Canada, pants to the knees and jackets about 4 times to big. The English church service is at 2PM today so now I must go for lunch.
Josh
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Right-hand-drive and heated toilet seats
Hey Everybody!
Josh and I arrived safely in Tokyo yesterday and Cliff Scott promptly picked us up at the airport. After another 2 hour drive on the busy roads we got to their house, and Marg had a delicious supper waiting for us. This morning we went shopping for most of the food we need this month, and then drove up to Karuizawa (up in the mountains) where we will be spending most of our 2 months in while we are here in Japan. Josh and My main project will be to entirely strip down and rebiuild one of the old cabins up here. It is a huge project, and there is definately some potential for frustration if we let it. However it also has the potential to be very rewarding, because of the sorry state it is in now. Both of us are super excited to be here, and are excited to see what God will do while we are here.
Thank you for praying and God bless!
-Florian
Josh and I arrived safely in Tokyo yesterday and Cliff Scott promptly picked us up at the airport. After another 2 hour drive on the busy roads we got to their house, and Marg had a delicious supper waiting for us. This morning we went shopping for most of the food we need this month, and then drove up to Karuizawa (up in the mountains) where we will be spending most of our 2 months in while we are here in Japan. Josh and My main project will be to entirely strip down and rebiuild one of the old cabins up here. It is a huge project, and there is definately some potential for frustration if we let it. However it also has the potential to be very rewarding, because of the sorry state it is in now. Both of us are super excited to be here, and are excited to see what God will do while we are here.
Thank you for praying and God bless!
-Florian
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