Easy walk

We walked around a lot today. It was a beautful day...we've had a few of those recently. Today, though, Chrys was home, Owl was itching to go to the park and I had no intention of staying inside any longer.

We started at the big park across the street. Owl and I had walked there with a friend the other day so we got to show Chrys around. We looked at the big playscape and the decommissioned train and firetrucks there for kids to play on. We looked at the pools - all 4 of them - that we'll get to play in next summer. We wandered up to the head of the hiking trail that goes over the hill and found it labelled as 900m, which will be a nice starter hike someday soon. Owl is really anxious to go since he was told there is a beautful koi pond on the other side. We'll see how he takes it when we do go and use that as a barometer for how many other hikes we go on.

Later, we went to this shrine looking thing that's in the parking lot next door. It's a beautiful structure and very serene. Rocks piled up 5-6 feet with a tablet on the top that we, of course, can't read. It's surrounded by trees that have been pruned and trained into beautiful shapes. It looks like a wonderful place to sit and collect one's thoughts.

On our way home, we waved at the man harvesting rice next door - yes, it's that close - and walked down the street to the convenience store. There, we found a map of Isahaya - in Japanese - and holiday Pocky that appears to be coated in cocoa powder. I refrained from buying the Pocky just now hoping it can be gotten cheaper elsewhere, but it's high on my list of things to look for.

We also made a run up the street to Mos Burger. That was an interesting experience. I'm growing accustomed to people laughing when we go through our charades trying to order. Luckily, they had a picture menu. Unfortunately, the little sticker over the pork sandwich must have meant they didn't have it anymore. I had a different pork sandwich (fried instead of what looked like a nice saute with onions). Chrys had a burger and Owl had a cheeseburger. Fries apparently come with two onion rings on top - YUM - and fountain Coke is THE way to go. It's going to be VERY tough to go back to corn syrup after a year here.

We even checked out another bookstore. I say 'another', but I think I failed to talk about the first one. The first bookstore was yesterday and it was a used bookstore. They had an aisle of CDs, an aisle of DVDs, an aisle of books, an aisle of stuff I'm certain I'm not old enough to look at, and a FLOOR of manga. This leads me to believe that most reading here is manga. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful stuff, but I'm usually interested in more substance. Maybe I need to translate a few.

Anyway...back to the other bookstore. It had a gift shop, too. Nothing terribly exciting - more manga and a few other things. I had more fun at Sega World next door, even though I didn't play anything. It's like Vegas. They even have games for the kiddies in cases that are about 4 feet tall - pretty cute. Also found yet another grocery store that yielded ham for dinner.

Speaking of grocery stores...I'm really digging this shopping every day. Maybe it's because the store is close or maybe it's because it's new, but it's awesome to know what to cook and have it be super fresh every day. There's no looking at the fridge and seeing a week's worth of stuff you don't want anymore. If you decide at 3pm that something sounds good for dinner, odds are good it will still sound good at 6. We've eaten out much less and we're eating healthier, too. (Though we do need to get a calorie/fat count for white rice.) I don't know if I can keep it up in America where the grocery store is thirty minutes away, but I'll probably try for a while, at least.

Made with real, live grapes

Boy, was that a surprise. We were out walking and happened past a vending machine (surprised...really...). I was a bit thirsty so I decided to buy what looked like grape juice. First off, it was clear. No biggie. It tasted pretty good...much less sweet than I'm used to, but that seems to be a trend here. (For starters, most, if not all, sweet things are made with pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup since they aren't troubled with the high prices of sugar like the US. Second, Chrys tells me that sweet things are considered wussy for men so they try to avoid them and I'm guessing vendors try to cater to that as well - this being a still male dominated society and all.) As I walked along drinking it and realizing that I actually liked it, I ended up with a chunk in my mouth. Panic almost ensued until I spit it back on the top of the can and realized it was a peeled grape. Looking down into the can, there were probably a dozen of them in there. Certaily added something to my drink...not sure what, but I guess I can get used to it.

Your phone is SOOOO ugly

Even Owl doesn't want to be associated with it...and that's saying something.

Chrys and I finally got our cell phones. We ended up going to AU since DoCoMo gave us nothing but trouble. Turns out with a valid credit card, they want the rest of the ID, but don't care that it's temporary. We have what are possibly the ugliest phones I've ever seen...the A5503SA in "Fairy Orange" and "Pixie Green". That's neon orange and green in Disney-ese for the rest of the world.

What amazes me, though, are the features. These things have cameras that will do up to five seconds of video, FM tuners, GPS and English-Japanese/Japanese-English dictionaries. I think they even had barcode readers. We signed up for the EZWeb so we can use the GPS and text message and stuff, too. Oh yeah...and the phones...1800¥ with the service plan. Part of me loves it, but the rest of me hopes we don't get addicted because I'm pretty sure we can't get a deal like that in the states just yet. The only things they lack are bluetooth and an English manual, but I guess you can't get everything.

More on driving

Because that's the kind of girl I am...

Most of the roads are barely big enough for one car, much less two. They are also full of blind curves and tight turns. The nice thing is that there are mirrors on those curves and turns so you can see anyone that might be coming at you. I have become QUITE addicted to the mirrors. It's going to be very hard to not look for those back in the states.

Our car has GPS. We have seen many that do. It's not 100% useful because it's in Japanese...well, not 100% useful for us. One thing it does have is most of the map symbols (like the town hall and post offices) and all of the Toyota dealerships. (It's a Hertz/Toyota rental vehicle.)

We have no cruise control...which kinda sucks, especially since these long, windy roads tend to all have limits of about 40 kmph and just beg for you to not obey that. Most people don't and I haven't, but today one of the most winding of them all was riddled with men on motorcycles labelled "Police" so I figure I need to do better.

The other thing is these CRAZY people on scooters. They drive between the lanes of cars, up the shoulders, EVERYWHERE. I think they all have death wishes and it's SO hard to keep an eye out for them.

Also, we saw a riced out car yesterday at San-Ai (the department store down the street). It was a little boxy thing (like most cars here) and had very low skirts with maybe an inch or two of clearance all the way around. That alone cracked me up because the streets here are HORRIBLE - uneven, bumpy and hard to maneuver in a normal car - and the San-Ai parking lot is worse. This guy must have been barely coasting along trying not to damage his car. Then he had a huge spoiler on the back. As if he could really get that little poor aerodynamic vehicle up to speeds necessary to require a spoiler. I had to laugh...and take a picture. I'll get it posted with some others hopefully in the very near future.

Aliens

It's official - Roo, Chrys and I are aliens. (Owl has to wait until we get his visa approved...hopefully after Christmas.) We managed to find the town hall today. Chrys got directions, but I even managed to find it on the map of Isahaya City (諫早市) we borrowed from a friend. (Which entailed learning how to use a map and realizing that the address for the town center, 東小路町7-1 or East Path Town 7-1, wasn't a street, but more like coordinates in a quadrant labelled 東小路町. With that, I'm starting to understand Japanese addressing and realizing that our address, Kuremo 308-1, tells people almost nothing about where we actually live. Additionally, I need to learn how to write that in Japanese so we can stop confusing the poor people who want our address.) Even better, we found a place to take more passport photos that was just down the street from the town hall. Since alien registration wasn't on our list of "thing you would need a picture for" we had run out after getting our visas. We got a few more and went in. We should be able to pick up the cards sometime in November. For now, we have a sheet of paper declaring that we're in process that should let us get our cell phones. Lots of hoops to jump through.

The neat thing is that the town center was about two blocks from the open air market where I had ordered my mitome inkan so we got to go pick that up. Unfortunately, the bank was closed so we weren't able to use it today. (In googling for a picture of one, I realize that we may have to register it to be able to use it at the bank...plus, there were no good pictures - a very depressing Google.) Chrys told me yesterday that the Tokyo company guys had suggested he use ゴードン (GōDoN) for his business cards so maybe I'll get another inkan made someday. It was simple enough. Plus, the lady recognized me as soon as I walk in the door. I figure she doesn't get many foreigners in her little shop.

Oh...and today's word of the day is pickled plum (umeboshi). That's what Owl and I had for dinner, with a bowl of noodles and soup, at the noodle shop in the park across the street. I liked it, though it was very salty/sour. Owl wouldn't eat his. Chrys had a beef, onion and (what tasted like) Worchestershire sauce omelette on rice. After we ordered, the proprietor of the shop carried one of the plums out to show me and make sure that's what I had ordered. Not having any idea what it was, but feeling adventurous, I told him "hai" and away we went. Only later did I manage to find the symbol in my book and realize that it didn't look at all like the symbol for pork as I had thought - oops!

For once, I'm too tall

I got stuck at average height in the US (5'4"). For most things, this means I'm on the short side. I live with a stepstool easy to get to in my house and all is well.

Well, here...that's all broken. While I don't clock my head on every door like Owl and Chrys (6'4" and 5'11", respectively), I am apparently too tall to run a Japanese house.

I cleaned today...my back hurts for it. The broom is too short. Ditto the vaccuum cleaner. Heck, so are the sink and washing machine if you want to get particular. The good news...it's a small apartment so it only took me about an hour to clean pretty much everything. The bad part is that it felt like an eternity since I was hunched over the whole time.

I, for one, will be very happy to have to stand on my tippy toes to reach stuff in another year. Hopefully I'll remember not to complain when I can't reach something. :)

Parking

Kity pointed out that I didn't talk about the turntables...oops! To be honest, I only saw the mechanism and heard how it worked. I never actually got to see it in action - bad engineer!

Our hotel in Nagasaki had a VERY narrow driveway that led up to it. Chrys pulled in with our Ark and we pondered how on earth he would get out when the time came. We unloaded and Roo and I went upstairs to get ready for bed while Chrys and Owl parked the car. Owl came up regaling me with how the car got out of the driveway.

Apparently, the doorman repositioned it on a giant metal disk on the ground and hit a button. The car turned around and one could safely pull out of the driveway. Unfortunately for me, that was the last time we were to have unobstructed access to the platter and get to play. Thus, I never saw it go. I believe the door man then took the car to the garage for Chrys.

The next morning, Chrys went to get the car out of the parking garage. He handed them a ticket and waited. A few minutes later, the car popped out of a garage door (again, something I know only via second hand information).

Chrys had more time to study when he took the car back and picked it up again. Apparently, they have a similar turntable at the garage. You drive the car in and it ends up on what looks like a giant car ferris wheel. (Today Chrys showed me one of the buildings. It's about 2 car widths wide, maybe 3, and probably 15-20 stories high.) Near as he could tell, upon entering, the car went round and round on a little tray until someone came to pick it up. At that point, one punches in the number of the slot, the tower whirs, the forklift grabs the car, puts it on the platter, it turns around and the door opens with your car headed the right direction and ready to go. Neat stuff!

Beyond that...everyone backs in...everywhere...to not do so labels you as clearly not belonging.

Red means go...

At least if there's a green arrow pointing in the direction you're going underneath it. Usually, I see a red light with an arrow pointing right or something which makes some sense. I just assume it is a protected arrow so that people can safely cross traffic. Today, though, I saw a red light with all possible green arrows lit (left, right, straight). Why bother with the red light? I don't quite get the Japanese traffic signals just yet. I guess I should just be thankful that I know not to stop for the red circle and can keep my fellow drivers at least that happy.

Radio troubles

No...I didn't expect to find a radio station in English. Nevertheless, I did...well, sometimes. Sometimes it's in English; sometimes it's in Japanese. That - I can deal with. My problem is that I only seem to get reception about 25% of the places I go so far. That stinks!

Ryanne likes music in the car. I like music in the car. Static - not so good. I can flip stations and get a different set depending on which light I'm stopped at. I can inch forward at a light and lose a station - never to return again. It's crazy!

The worst part is...the "Fun Cargo" has a CD player. Why is that the worst part? Well, being the technology addicts that we are, we've ripped most of our CDs to iTunes. Consequently, they're still sitting in Texas. Here, I have a large number of digital songs on an hard drive, no CD burner and no tape deck with which to listen to my iPod.

I guess I was destined for a nice, quiet drive.

Not quite right

Driving today went ok...if you don't count the number of times I turned on the windshield wipers looking for the turn signal. Why does it have to be on the other side? At least the pedals are in the right place and it's an automatic or I'd be in REAL trouble. It's a small car so very easy to maneuver. Backing in, which is apparently the way it's done in Japan - pulling in is a sure sign we're not from around here - was easy enough. I'm sure I'll get used to the whole misplaced turn signal and gear lever.

Oh, and I mentioned we had a western toilet. Well, that's mostly accurate. We don't have to squat and that's about where the similarities end. This thing has a seat that plugs in. Apparently it's heated (or our friend's is). It has a bidet attachment that whirs out when you press the button, but it must be misaligned because, even though I heard water, I felt nothing. Sadly, I can't get it to do anything when I'm not sitting there so I have NO clue how I'll puzzle this one out. It has 2 other buttons - one of which I recognize as the Kanji for stop (and seems to do so) - and a knob that I hope to figure out. The other neat thing is that, after you flush, the tank gets refilled from a faucet on the top of the toilet. It's placed such that you can wash your hands with it. Funky stuff...

Words of the day

I've been somewhat jokingly throwing out words of the day in the car while we've driven around from place to place. One of them was car (kuruma) after it took Chrys over an hour to exchange our 3 day rental car (a Toyota Noah that we lovingly called Ark) to a month long rental car (a Toyota Fun Cargo - where do they come up with these things??).

Another day was bank (ginkō) and telephone number (denwa bangō) because I needed those to talk to the lady about my mitome inkan.

Yesterday's was photo (shashin) because we now need more passport photos to get our alien registrations taken care of. We only ended up with one photo each over here so we're kind of hosed for a bit.

Today's words were mayonnaise (マヨネーズ) and soy sauce (shōyu or しようゅ) because I needed those at the store. Today Owl learned that the bottle with the yellow fruit that's on the shelf next to the orange juice isn't lemonade - it's grapefruit juice. I bought some ham and some bread (105¥ for 6 slices) for sandwiches. We even got donuts for breakfast tomorrow.

Anyone that tries to tell you the Japanese subsist on rice and fish is lying. In the past few days, we have had some of the best baked goods ever. They are light, yet filling. They aren't greasy. They have a very interesting flavor. They're SO fresh. I see the women in the shop filling trays with these items. They love to fill breads with meat and potatoes and custards. Lots of interesting varieties and, so far, none of them bad.

Laundry, Pillows and food

This laundry thing will take some getting used to. I woke up today to rainy skies and gasped when I realized I had left our clothes on the line the night before. Alas, they are obviously not dry and I fear they won't dry today, either. Not a good day for laundry, either. Looks like I will learn to appreciate early mornings and sunny days FAR more.

When we got our futon, we also picked up a couple of pillows. A little aside here - when we stayed in the hotel in Nagasaki, we noticed that the pillows appeared to be stuffed with pebbles. At first, we weren't sure this was going to be a good night, but after waking up the next day with nary a crick, we decided we liked this new idea. Thus, when we went to get our pillows, we weren't suprised to see some with pebbles. There were others that were stuffed with little plastic rolls and a couple of foam ones. We went with the pebbles. Surprisingly comfortable!

We've also managed to cook dinner a couple of times in our apartment. The first was some pre-prepared pork chunks from the store, some asparagus and rice. This is only a challenge when you consider that we have only plates, bowls, glasses, chopsticks, a rice cooker and stove in the apartment - no pots, no pans, no silverware, no cooking utensils. The rice, obviously, went in the rice cooker. We used 4c of our 10kg bag (which cost 2600¥, I might add) and that was WAY too much for our little family. I think we'll go with 2c next time. When the rice was done, we put the asparagus on top of it and steamed it a touch - came out beatifully. The pork, Chrys heated on a plate on the stove. Voila! A meal!

The second, we tried dumplings and snow peas. Figuring that I now knew how to steam, I would use the rice cooker and we'd be fine. Well, I failed to really monitor the amount of water that Chrys poured in and we ended up with boiled dumplings and snow peas instead of steamed. Ah well, better luck next time.

We've also discovered that you can eat just about anything with chopsticks. This is the only utensil we've bought so far. (Though I did splurge and get some cute Cinderella kiddie chopsticks - shorter than normal - for Roo.) Some of the more interesting things we've managed were yogurt and cereal. Everything else, was pretty self explanatory and could be torn up and eaten as normal.

As soon as the little one wakes, we'll be off to see what's on the menu for tonight!

Shopping, eating, etc.

Well, this village has found their idiot. I am the person standing in the aisle studying pictures on bottles trying to figure out what they are. I am the one who points at the menu to tell you what I want to eat. I use crude sign language and simple words or butcher the Japanese phrase I find in my book...all in the name of communication. As another American here put it, I know how illiterates function in society.

Nevertheless, I think I found some stain remover (it was the one with the dirty sock that became clean after they rubbed this product on it). I managed to get dumplings that Chrys didn't choke on which meant my analysis of the package did muster pork instead of fish. I have milk and strawberry yogurt and water in the fridge. I also have Pocky, but it's clearly labelled. The bonus is that I have Pocky in all SORTS of flavors that I never even imagined, and it turns out it's crisper and fresher here. I even found Pocky today that's coated in dark chocolate...it's called "Men's Pocky" - hmph!

On top of all of that, I managed to get the right size sheets (after finding a combo pack and using it to decode the other packages, only to go back and get the combo pack since it was the cheapest with 100% cotton). In the future, I know which packages have futon covers and which are duvets. I might even manage a pillow case here and there.

We've stuck to restaurants that have buffets, or allow you to point at the item or a picture of the item to order it. Mister Donut had a very unique donut, both in flavor and texture, called a Pon Du Ring. We must have lost on the game cards they gave us because they all had the same message... Joyfull yielded wonderful beef curry, pizza with corn and pepperoni, and something with pork. Ringer Hut had the same gravy, seafood and vegetable glop served over a variety of noodles and soups so we'll skip them from now on. Someday, we might venture out to a big person restaurant, but that will have to wait.

Beyond the restaurants, we're discovering the joy of vending machines (Owl read that there are 5.2 million of them in Japan). There must be 12 between our apartment and the department store down the street (about a mile according to Chrys). None of the ones around us have Mountain Dew, we didn't find that until we went downtown, but there are cokes, iced coffees, green teas, sports drinks galore. There are some that vend ice cream. I've even read that they will switch to vend hot drinks as the weather gets cooler. Near as I can tell, it's to make sure you don't run out of caffeine or sugar at any time...

I managed to find a stationery store in Central Isahaya. I think I ordered a mitome inkan reading ゴロドン(Go Ro Do N). I even think the lady will call me on Wednesday when it's ready. Not that I'll know what she's saying, but hopefully we can get mitome inkan out there and I can figure it all out. What's that for, you ask? Well, apparently it's the signature used for things like banking so it's pretty necessary.

We even stumbled onto the larger ¥100 store. It's a $1 store, basically, but with many useful things that don't look as cheap as what you buy in the $1 store. They're things I find at the department store for ¥300 - ¥500 and sometimes more. It's a pretty cool store and I will go back on Wednesday, when I go to that area to pick up my mitome inkan.

Who knows, maybe tomorrow I can track down someone who does passport photos so we can get alien registration cards and, eventually, cell phones. Every day, I get more confidence. Tomorrow will be my first day driving on the wrong side of the road, though, so who knows how it will turn out. In the meantime, we're unpacked, things are moderately organized and put away, and my bed is calling.

A new day and a new home

Our next day was, in fact, better. We started with a glorious breakfast in the hotel restaurant. They had all sorts of things there - eggs, sausage, rice, bread (with fresh jams - strawberry - YUM!), did I mention the rice?, honey bread balls, and a variety of things with tags in Japanese that we'll likely never identify. None of it was bad. We experimented with a little of lots of things and I put nothing in my mouth that didn't taste just wonderful. Then, we extended our hotel stay for an extra night and headed out to get our apartment taken care of.

Our apartment is a wonderful blend of Western and Japanese styling. We have a Western toilet (HOORAY!), but two tatami rooms and sliding doors on all rooms but the kitchen and office. The shower has a separate bath for the traditional long, hot soak (which I have yet to enjoy...maybe tonight as a reward for posting these records). We have only one full length closet, but 3 futon closets (divided top/bottom so one can store the futons during the day). We selected the two tatami rooms as the bedrooms, leaving a room in the middle as the living room. The tatami room that Chrys and I use opens to the living room. Both bedrooms and the living room have access to the balcony - where we hang the laundry. The living room and our tatami room have access to the kitchen. The kitchen has a small, two burner, stove with a broiler for fish. We also have a small fridge barely big enough for 2-3 days of groceries. Off of the kitchen is the room we use as an office. Right now, there is one desk, but we hope to rent two more. The kitchen also has a door to the entry hall and, across from that door, is the bathroom. The end of the entry hall has Owl's room and the living room.

When you walk into the bathroom, you see the sink and the washing machine. The washing machine is certainly not what I'm used it. It's largest load is 55L, which I discovered today is barely enough for our sheets and 3 pairs of pants. Between that and having to line dry everything, laundry will not be a fast process and will require at least a load a day if not 2 or 3. Oh well, apparently the Japanese housewife does only that, clean and grocery shop every day so I suppose I can squeeze it in. To the left of the sink is the room with the toilet. To the right is the shower/tub stall.

We found that we get great air flow with the windows on the front and the doors on the back open. It's going to take me a while to adjust to the smell of the tatami mats - right now, they almost stink, but not quite. I'm sure it will all be normal before too long. We have two heat & A/C units and hope to get two more. The previous occupants left us a table and chairs and a small futon (about twin size). We purchased a larger (about full size) futon for Chrys and me in lieu of staying in a hotel until the rental company gets back to us. It's not the most comfortable thing, but it should do for a year. We could have gotten a bed (either on our own or from the rental company), but chose to embrace the Japanese styling. Plus, the tatami rooms are fairly small and with a bed, we would have had some awkward and practically unusable spaces. Lastly, We also have two floor chairs that will suffice until we can get a love seat in the living room.

Getting here

The trip here was quite an adventure. We started on Saturday, October 16, by flying to Phoenix for the weekend. On Monday, it was a short jaunt to San Francisco where we waited in the Japan Airlines lounge for 4 hours or so. Then, the 10 hour trip to Tokyo's Narita airport. We arrived around 4pm local time and went to our hotel.

We settled in, had a quick dinner, and passed out by 7 or 8. Chrys and I awoke the next morning around 2am, along with our daughter. We wandered the hotel, trying to find a pay phone. We had no luck and ended up making an international call from the hotel room - to the tune of about ¥4000 - YIKES! Oh well, it got us a hotel in Nagasaki and a rental car and it was the company's nickel so we tried not to panic about it.

Once the sun started coming up, we saw the area around the hotel and it was just breathtaking. Lush green trees, mountains, rainy sky (that would be our nemesis later)...we just took it all in.

Around 6:30am, we got on the bus to Haneda airport hoping to catch our flight to Nagasaki. Well, upon arriving, we found out our 10:10am flight was cancelled due to the typhoon. At the bequest of the check-in lady, we waited in the lobby for the 12:45 flight...and waited...and that flight was cancelled. *sigh*

At that point, the 2:40 flight showed up on the screen as full. FULL?!?! Did that mean we weren't on it? (Did I mention that they didn't do English announcements at Haneda?) We asked another attendant and she said we had not been rebooked and needed to wait in line to get that done.

The line...that was HUGE...so we found the end and started waiting. At some point, they called for Nagasaki and I explained to the woman that "Nihongo ga wakarimasen." She almost smirked and told me to go up to the desk. At that point, they gave us a stand-by ticket on the 2:40 flight... This wasn't going to work. There were 17 people ahead of us and we needed 4 (honestly 5, since they weren't business class) seats. Chrys started talking and we ended up being booked on 4 flights - the 5:45pm, 7:10pm, and two the next day.

We waited some more. Poor Ryanne wasn't liking this. We were all hungry. We had managed to find some little cookies stuffed with chocolate or orange for breakfast (did I mention they were each packaged with their own dessicant...hmmm), but those had long since worn off. Owl (my younger brother) and I had managed to find some dumplings for lunch...only to be told after paying that they needed to be steamed or microwaved prior to eating. We searched for lunch and it seemed everything we bought was chestnut paste. It was ok the first time, but after a couple of things - blech! Chrys found some grape flavored rice flour candies that were ok, but my stomach wasn't in the mood for sweet stuffs. At that point, it was time to go watch for our flight.

We got down there and waited...at 5:30, they announced something about Nagasaki and the crowd went running. I managed to tag someone and he told us to go to #12 and check in. We did and after hurrying through baggage check in and security, were on the plane. YAY!!! We slept the whole way.

Once in Nagasaki, we found the rental car counter closed. They didn't have our reservation. Luckily, we were able to get a car and, after a few wrong turns and streets FAR too tiny for our minivan we got to the Holiday Inn Nagasaki. We promptly passed out, forgetting our rumbling tummies and horrible day, hoping for a better start to the next one.