Hi everyone,

I have been in Nagoya for exactly one week and so far, I love it!
Coming out of the station after taking a train from the airport, we were greeted by a giant mechanical crab, which waved its claws happily in our direction. Briefly imagined a world where crabs were top of the food pile and people were on the menu. Not nice. The weather here is brutally hot, but at least it's not raining. The flat is very spacious and although there isn't a friendly household robot that does all the jobs, Nilesh (my flat-mate) makes a good alternative. Missed church on Sunday due to a fever, so I am looking forward to meeting everyone properly this weekend. After this, I visit my Board of Education and schools on Monday and start work properly on Friday. As for the cake, it was delicious! I hope you are all well.

P.S. I will be online and on Skype on Saturday between 10:30am and midday, UK time. Would love to hear from you if you are not busy. take care.

Piece of cake? I think not...

Today, after a lot of sorting, I eventually folded away my life into two reasonably-sized travel bags. I was surprised at how difficult this was. Turns out I was wrong about being a minimalist.

Started by laying all my stuff in a line, from one end of the room to the other, in order of importance. I wondered for a while whether it was silly to have placed a Lyle's Golden Syrup Cake further ahead in the line than any clothes. Decided it wasn't. Managed to pack both in the end, but the cake is coming with me in hand luggage, which is just fine.

Fly tomorrow. Feeling great!

The blog begins...

Hi everyone. Hope you are well.
I'm moving to Nagoya on August 19 to join up with the lovely folk of GraceCity church. I'm expecting the first few months in particular to be like learning to swim - a lot of effort for not a lot of forward movement. Still, I'm feeling very excited about it all and I'll use this blog to keep you up to date with how I'm doing at splashing about!
Would love to hear from you...