Sleeping in the rain

We are slowly approaching warmer weather and more light here in Tokyo and leaving winter behind. It's been a bit tough month and a half, not due to the cold weather which compared to rest of the world is not that bad, but because our house is under reconstruction. With short notice, just after extending the contract, we found out that the house would have a 2 months long reconstruction going on. So starting from end of January we've had all walls covered with building stands and protection net blocking all view so it's felt a bit like a prison. In addition all the noise starting already 8 o'clock in the morning and people walking right outside our window hasn't made it the optimal place for Maki and Kai to spend the days but often have had to leave the apartment and stay out all day.















One of the worst part of the reconstruction is that our bedroom roof suddenly started to leak water. Not very nice in the cold rainy winter season in Tokyo. The big surprise though was that even after telling about this, which we thought was not only a great inconvinience for us but actually very serious for the building itself, the didn't manage to fix it. After a week of not raining it started leaking again last weekend when the rain came back. And of course it was during the weekend so no one was around to fix it.

Now they seem to have fixed the roof on the outside. After some sunny days during last week the rain is back outside but no longer in our bed room. They teared off the paper and paint though in the roof as a memory.



















As a small apology the owner of our apartment brought a box a cookies when coming to see the the leaking roof the other day. To bring something in situation like this is common in Japan and this is very likely the most expensive cookies we have ever had in a beautiful wood box. And they taste very nice as well.















Something good that has happened lately is that Kai has started to read books. It's not one of the famous classic works but it's a start.















And when Kai got a new bath robe with his name on from Maki's friends he was this happy!



Finally a video from when Kai tried out the "walking-bouncer" he got from Niklas and Maritha for the first time. He was quite unsure what to do! Speaking of Niklas and Maritha, they are on the way over to visit for a week and should be approaching Ebisu station as we speak. I will go with Kai and and meet them up now. Maki is at a "marathon" get together with friends south of Yokohama today and will be joining later this afternoon. Some 10 of our friends running half marathon and another 10 coming to meet up for lunch afterwards, guess what group of people Maki is in? The plan was that I would be running today also but a soar throat made me make the choice to stay home and act as welcome committee for Niklas and Maritha instead. So we are looking forward to a nice week with them!