On Friday, I took the bus up to Kamiyama to do some work at the Kaizen Centre, and Keiko took me to see Yamani House, where I will be staying for the Golden Week holiday with my family. This is going to be a sort of dress rehearsal before a real guest comes and stays in the house.

I was surprised to find out that the house doesn't have anywhere to bathe, and there is no washing machine for laundry or hot water heater for the kitchen. Mr. Ominami's sister, whose store is nearby and who takes care of the Yamani House keys says, "You can come and use our bath!" but I think we will probably make nightly visits to Kamiyama Onsen instead. I'm thinking it would be useful to keep a Yamani House Diary in the building as a sort of logbook for guests to write tips, ideas, things they've noticed, and stuff like that. Also maybe we could get a big airtight box to hold things like salt and pepper, coffee filters, things that don't generally go bad that everyone can pass on for the next guest to use. I'm a little scared that Sofie will poke holes in the paper shoji sliding doors on the second floor… as long as she doesn't notice that it's possible to poke holes in them, I think we'll be safe. This is going to be a little like camping, I think, except with four walls around us instead of a tent.