Kiki IN Nagasaki City...

Literally...

I arrive and find John standing there with a huge smile and something in his hand. Ah, an umbrella. He offers to take one of my three bags (this is after me even sending two big suitcases to be delivered) and I politely oblige. We walk, through rain into what I originally see as: what is this, so many lights, so many people. It turns out that literally three...no four maybe, trolley stops from my house is a HUGE mall. And somewhat behind that is another HUGE mall and then somewhere else in my city is a third HUGE mall. Needless to say...

So, we make it and wait two hours for the gas man to come and install gas. My apartment is small. Imagine a dorm with a kitchen. That, is a Japanese style apartment. However, everything is new. Thankfully I am replacing a girl, Ana, who decided that she wanted to get a new apartment in the downtown area. And she got one. Everything in my apartment is new, pink, and green. It smells like fresh paint, the floors are nicely polished and I have a real bed. AND a real view. I can see gorgeous mountains outside my balcony and a shrine (can't remember the name). It's absolutely wonderful and I've taken to decorating it. I'll post pictures on a later date.

So... The first week began and John and I walked around, in the rain, to get my information. Thankfully, John was here to help me get regisitered. He, however, was not available to help with my getting a bank account and cell phone. But, with a lot of gesturing and saying a million yeses (hmmm?) and drawing pictures, I was successful and now have both a bank account and a lovely (of course) iPhone. No iPhone 4 :( the guy at the softbank place made wide arms to indidcate that it's a looooooong wait. To be honest, I'm content with my black berry and iPhone. And feel slightly spoiled. I guess my mom's, sister's, family, friend's many prayers really paid off.

I am in Japan where down the street is a street market. It's closed off (no cars may enter) and people line the streets to buy produce, fresh meat, fresh fish, clothing, enter the 100yen shop (woo hoo) and I found a pair of cute white and black polka dotted rain boots.

I have also signed up for Japanese lessons with a private tutor and start those today at 7 pm (2 hours from now). I now realize that I am one of those people who jet away to a far off land and fall in love.

On my way to my classroom (I have an office week, which means I don't teach any classes, but I head to my empty classroom and prepare lessons for the rest of the month)... was the best ride ever. The scenery is absolutely breath taking and it literally took my breath away over and over and over again. I seriously wish I could knock on heaven's door and thank God personally for allowing me to be in such a miraculous place.

So... I've met many different people so far, in my training.
They are all deeply missed already and such wonderful, accepting people. We, honestly, were all as different as black and white, but almost identical in a way. I guess, you'd have to be there to understand. I truly miss you guys and wish I could share the excitement that Nagasaki City brings to me...we had some good times exploring Nagoya together. AND I expect visits! Capicc??

So, my life consists of waking up, reading Joyce Meyer, praying for family, friends, myself, this city... and whining about being tired. Then finding strength to do my hair (which is growing out of the cute cut it was in...) and getting dressed and heading outside. I live literally on the outskirts of downtown. It takes about 20 minutes to walk to China town, five more minutes to walk to the big outside mall and add five minutes here or there and I've circled all of downtown. I have learned to get around (yaaay and am learning kanji..slooooowwwwllly, but surely). I also, don't turn my AC on much because the rain has cooled everything down a bit.

I enjoy my apartment (which John says is a steal considering my location) and that my clothes were almost crazy enough to fit-in with Japan style. Granted... I haven't been able to wear any of my heels :( On another note, I bought these beautiful shockingly blue Ns! Yaaay shoes.

Some advice for those reading who are just heading to Japan:
1. Bring cash; but finding a 7-11 is pretty much easy and you can use a debit card to get money out.
2. Have fun!
3. It's not as hard as it seems.

I can't think of anything else lol. I've asked a million questions to the same people over and over and am learning a lot about Japan. I also learned that there is a nice American bar down the street from my house which I will go to tomorrow night for Happy Friday! And there's another bar that frequents the English speakers and some Japanese locals that I will visit on Saturday. Japan has treated me well... even having four (or five) different bags for different types of trash! lol.

Hopefully this weekend, I'll be able to play as I have about 3 days off :)

First two weeks in Japan...

So far, Japan has proven to be nothing but awesome. I mean I miss my family and friends but have absolutely NO regrets about coming.
I am on an hour train bound for teaching! So far, we've been training A LOT but also playing and eating A LOT! The balance has been great.
In Japan, I have found that (besides deodorant and toothpaste and maybe some shoes) everything is readily available and everyone is readily available to help you.
Let's talk about that...
So, I ended up getting lost on my first day of classes (where I taught two different levels of classes back to back; both of which I had never done before in training)... Long story short: I am half hour late and am crying in the rain. Just little tears :( But everyone I asked for directions was nice and felt really bad when they had NO idea where I was going. Lol. It turns out the map was outdated. Tsk tsk... But now I have a sob story to tell...
Everything went well and the kids enjoyed my games and were pretty good kids.

So far, I've seen castles, shrines, raccoon-dogs, been eaten by mosquitoes AND done fireworks in the park. We've eaten everything from ramen to tofu-burgers and laughed until we've cried.

I feel really blessed to be here in Japan and with a set of peeps I can call family already.

And a shout out to C-Dog aka charred leaves aka Mistah Charlie: You betta don't!
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