I’m a registered card carrying alien! We actually registered our first day here but I had to go to the Funabashi city office yesterday to pick up our alien registration cards which are issued by the Ministry of Justice. We’re required to carry them at all times and they’ll be our primary form of ID while we’re here. They’re the size of a credit card but carry our photos, our signatures, our birthdates and places of birth, our passport information and much more.

I’m delighted to finally have internet at home! I really missed it. What else do I miss? My friends, of course. That goes without saying. I also miss church, especially this week with Easter just a few days away. So far, I’ve been working on Sundays so we haven’t had an opportunity to attend church but we’re both off the Sunday after next so we’re determined to find a church to attend that day even if the service is in Japanese. We have a couple of leads.

I also miss counter space in the kitchen and a bathtub that I can stretch out in but would you believe that I really miss twist ties? Yes, those common little twisty things that we take so for granted at home are few and far between here!

Before we left home, I packed a small plastic container with all sorts of little odds and sods that I thought we might find handy here – elastic bands, paper clips, straight pins, needles and thread which have already come in handy for several minor mending jobs, a miniature flashlight, screwdriver and tape measure, even poster goo for hanging things on the wall but, alas, no twist ties! Amazingly, though, with the modem for the internet came several twist ties wrapped around the various cords! They’ll definitely come in very handy in the kitchen!