The memory archive has been on pause for five days. As I said in my previous post, I have to stick to my principles and make up for it. For the coming five days, I will therefore pick two items per day.
I’ll start off again with a major object that has been invading our living room.
It’s a pretty big outdoor, plastic play slide that was a generous gift when our son was a baby. It never looked nice in our living room but our kids and anyone visiting us under the age of 7 loved it instantly. We’ve owned it for three years now which definitely feels long enough. To avoid any tears and desperate pleads for keeping it I will get rid of it secretly when the kids are at school.
It is difficult for me to say goodbye to baby items. The precious time when children are so little flies past and I feel the need to cling on to anything that reminds me of that time. For this particular item – besides the memory – I’ve hesitated for so long as I know the process here in Japan for the disposal of ‘sodai-gomi’ or ‘large-sized waste’. It is painful as this is not just about finding out the monthly collection date and placing the item in front of your house. No, the process includes several steps and you might not want to read on unless you are interested in this, quite specific, topic.
Firstly, you have to apply for a collection date and a corresponding collection number. You also need confirmation of the correct fee for the specific item (in case of the play slide, I assume the fee would be around 1,500 – 2,000 Yen; about 10 – 15 Euros). After you’ve done your application via phone (two phone calls in my case as I don’t speak Japanese well enough to talk about large waste specifics and require an English speaker to call me back) or online (IF you own a Japanese keyboard to type your name in Japanese characters in the correct width), so after this, you have to go to a convenience store to purchase ‘sodai-gomi’ stickers for the correct amount. Finally you write your collection reference number and date on the sticker, put it on the item and place it in front of the house at 8am on the correct date. Finished!
I can’t tell you how happy I am that in the case of this particular item I got the local kindergarten on our street to accept the slide as a donation. No need to call the large-sized waste centre for this one!
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katazukete 
Die Rutsche werde ich sehr vermissen,ideal zum Verstecken spielen und Kinder jagen.Aber jetzt ist genug Platz,um viele Puzzles auf dem Fußboden auszulegen!
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