Getting settled in Japan!

Alright so Katie and I are still alive for those of you that may have wondered.  The country and people of Japan have been taking very good care of us since the day we arrived.  It has taken some getting used to living in smaller quarters, eating plenty of raw fish and mostly not being able to communicate with 99% of the people that make up our wonderful city.  Everything from going to the grocery store, eating out at restaurants and even taking public transportation is for the most part entirely in Japanese so we find ourselves sticking to the basics at the grocery store, pointing at menus and writing down our destinations for the bus driver to tell us when to get off. You would think they might not take to kindly to us living amongst them but we haven’t once felt unwelcome here.  Everyone goes out of their way to cater to your every need and says thank you very much at least two or three times with most interactions.  Even when we broke down and needed some home cooking at McDonalds the second or third day here the attendent bowed 4 times and apologized that her English wasn’t very good.  “Seriously”, we’re living in your country!  Needless to say we’ve learned enough Japanese now to order at McDonalds…thank goodness.

The apartment hunt was quite daunting and took us about 2 weeks before we finally were able to move in.  We slept on an air mattress for over a week with nothing else in our apartment.  We were also still struggling with the food since we couldn’t get a refrigerator until about week after we moved in.  We couldn’t eat any more noodles or unspecified types of fish.  Since the arrival of the fridge we have been making plenty of Mexican food and different types of stir fry.  Chicken is super cheap here.  Overall, we love our apartment and have really started to make it a home.  

I am super lucky this month to have my Colorado company fly me to Australia for about a weeks worth of work.  I wasn’t too excited at first when I saw the flight itinerary going from Fukuoka to Taiwan, Hong Kong to Adelaide, Australia and then finally arriving in Melbourne some 30 hours later.  Fortunately I have a long layover in Hong Kong going both ways so I was able to break through immigration for a 7 hour tour of that amazing city.  I can’t wait to see more on my way home.  Unfortunately Katie was not able to join me on this trip down under but we already are making plans to come back and stay with some good friends of mine in Melbourne this spring or next winter.