I have: been to Yuu beach; gone rock climbing; been to a beer garden; been to the chicken shack; eaten at Phillipino, Korean, Indian, Mexican, and Japanese restaurants; become a regular at said Indian restaurant; sodded our yard; sang Karaoke; started Japanese lessons; read 2.25 books, watched ~10 movies; gotten lost in Iwakuni; been to 3 BBQs; Skyped home 6ish times; played 4 board games; celebrated the 4th of July away from home and with no fireworks; learned to drive on the left side of the road; played some X-box games; cooked a bunch of dinners; only failed at cooking twice; had McDonald's; had HottoMotto (Japanese fast food); been to Nafco (the furniture store) 6 times; only bought stuff at Nafco 3 times; written 6 letters; applied to 2 volunteer positions; started one volunteer position; hunted for a job; walked pretty much the entire base; been to Otake; at least doubled my knowledge of this country; and spent countless hours perusing the internet. It feels like we have hardly even scratched the surface though!
And now to list everything I have learned I must do:
Go to Beppu, Tsuamo (ride the chairlift up to the shrine, eat the local pastry, watch the traditional archery festival), Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Nara, Osaka, and Sapporo; go to Oshima Island beach, a shrine sale, a Carp baseball game; climb Mt. Fuji, and make Japanese friends, to name a few. So much to do! Better get crackin!
Also at this one month mark I want to address the question I get asked all the time from people back home: "How is Japan?!"
I find myself saying "Oh, it's fine" or "It's OK." And then people always get this look like "Ohhhh, she hates it." This isn't true. It's different than I expected for sure but I really don't mean it to sound like I hate it or am totally homesick (although I do miss everyone, as I already mentioned). It's just that this question difficult to answer because well, we live here now, it's just life, ya know? When I ask you "How are you?" that's how you would respond, too, and that's what I feel I am being asked. I also feel that it is a loaded question because I feel people want to hear some exciting adventure story but, again, it's just been boring old life so far. Soon we will feel more settled in this place and then we will start traveling some more and then we will get some better stories but for now it's really just been daily life.
Without a doubt, it's going differently than I imagined but I think that stems from the fact that this is the first time I have moved to a foreign country instead of just traveling to it for a brief time. I am learning that you approach the two quite differently. When you are traveling, it's always: Go! Go! Go! But when you move somewhere, I am realizing, you have to leave time for daily life too or you would just burn out (of energy and $$). My expectation was that we would be more Go! Go! Go! by traveling like every weekend and just constantly being busy with the stuff this area has to offer and we would have lots of adventure stories to report back.
But the reality is that this is reality, not vacation. Nick has to go to work everyday and we have to do laundry and grocery shop, etc. I have to keep reminding myself that we are going to be here for 3 whole years so we have to pace ourselves in terms of time, destinations, money, and energy! So, this blog will be a bit slower paced than I originally thought but I will of course continue to update with random daily occurrences but the most exciting posts to read will be after we have done a bit of traveling. And hopefully that should happen next weekend with our first travels to Kokura for the Taiko drum festival!
In the meantime, here are some pictures from this weekend to keep your appetite satiated and because I said I would post more photos, but be sure to check back next Monday or Tuesday for more!!
Til next time,
Elle
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