A Week in Japan

Here we are on Sunday, April 3rd, after a long week.

There is a good reason though I haven’t put much information up - that being we don't yet have our own internet. We've had to mooch off of the company office as far as internet is concerned. As foreigners in Japan, we must have an alien registration card to apply for internet or cell phones, which has been an unforeseen inconvenience (not to mention a huge pain in the butt). We should get our cards between April 20th and 26th.

Another issue we've met with is this: exchange rate from dollar to yen is bad right now and we've not had as much money as we anticipated. I will make a good amount of money while I'm here, but the first paycheck doesn't come until May 20th. Aaaah! Wish us luck!

Heh, I'll add another thing that has been a problem, though I don't mind it: futons. That is what we are sleeping on right now, futons in the apartment room with the tatami mats (for those who care to know, our apartment is 2LDK, and the tatami room is 6 tatamis). Anyway, I find that I like futons, but the hubby doesn't. Oh, and while Japanese apartments are known for their tininess, this is more room than we've ever had all to ourselves! No worries there, we're enjoying this. Drew has to duck a little through doorways (hehehe) but it's still good.

Now to go back to our arrival - which was rather hectic. Most know about our flight being delayed about 2 1/2 hours Sunday, which was inconvenient. The flight was very long, of course. I watched 'Scott Pilgrim versus the World' (very strange), 'Tangled' in Japanese, and 'Inception'. We arrived, found a baggage delivery service, and bought a train ticket. There was a bit of confusion as far as trains went, especially in one particular station, but we eventually got to Oyama-shi . . . at something like 1:30am Tuesday morning. Needless to say, I was afraid whoever was to pick us up would no longer be there (and we had no way to contact them). The train station was empty and security guards were everywhere. I showed them the apartment address the company gave us, and they pointed to which exit we should take.

Much to our relief, our ride was still there -- she was extremely relieved to see us as well, I might add. "Yokatta! Yokatta! Yokatta!" she said. Araki-san is her name, and she is a very sweet old lady who speaks pretty much no English. Once we got to the apartment, we met Iona-san, who gave us our keys and informed us that we'd arrived on the last train to Oyama that night. o.O (Which probably explains why it was so crowded.)

We spent much of the next few days wandering around the area, which is awesome! Oyama-shi is considered a country area, but it has enough big city type stuff so you don't feel cut off. Japanese is even harder in Japan! Luckily everyone here is so nice and forgiving of us fumbling foreigners. Already I'm understanding better though, I noticed yesterday. I just have to keep reminding myself that I've only been here, what ... 5 days? And this is after not studying any for nearly a year.

Two days ago (April 1st) was my first day of work. I met 4 other ALTs on Wednesday, but then we met the other ALTs finally, and everyone has been very friendly, helpful, and encouraging! They even brought Drew to the office to use the internet there since they know that's something he needs - AND they took him out to lunch with us! These teachers all love what they do, and have done everything possible to make the 4 of us who are new to feel welcome and relaxed.

We’ve had several small earthquakes this week, most aftershocks to that one 3 weeks ago. Yesterday evening there was a particularly scary one, but it didn’t last long, and all it did was knock down some things on our bathroom shelf. All our neighbors checked up on each other, and reiterate that the buildings are all built for earthquakes. Apparently that was the biggest aftershock Oyama has had since the March 11^th. So many people were out checking their cars (people here are obsessed with their cars, by the way; kind of intersting).

It's hard to sum-up everything that's happened after the matter. In finish, I'll say that I'm loving it here! Thanks again to everyone who helped to get us here. We miss you all, and it feels like we've been away from you for longer than a week.

Have a fantastic weekend!