"When Will My Life Begin"

     For the past 8 months or so I've been feeling a little like Rapunzel and wondering when will MY life begin. I've been homeless, jobless, and living out of a suitcase for far too long, but as I sit here writing this blog now I can tell you that my clothes have finally found a home in a closet, and I have also found a home in a closet (I mean apartment) in Tokyo.

I am a little behind on my blogging considering all of the traveling I've been doing. I apologize to everyone who has been desperately waiting for these updates (mainly Whitney Gould. :) )             As a single person, I found that the best place for me to celebrate Valentines Day would be in an airplane, which is why I had to go to on a trip. Whitney just happened to be in Korea and the Olympics seemed like a good time to head on over.  So thank you Valentines Day for giving me a good reason to travel.

     But in all seriousness, the job that I had been waiting MONTHS for was finally about to start so I decided to head on over to Asia. (And by "finally about to start" I mean that I still had about 2 months...) 4 airplanes, 3 layovers, and 36 hours of traveling later, I made it from AR to Korea! And in true Whitney fashion, she was there to capture every moment. This is me finally exiting the gate with an obscene amount of luggage. (But hey, I'm moving to another country so cut me some slack.)                                                                   Luckily my #1 skill in life happens to be adjusting to jet lag quickly, so we got home around 10:30 pm that night and by midnight I was all chatted out and asleep in her room. I woke up around 8 am (maybe 9?) the next morning ready for my FIRST EVER KOREAN ADVENTURE! To prepare for this moment, and solely for that end alone, I had dedicated many hours in college to watching Korean dramas and studying the culture. I now felt adequately prepared to go experience it myself. 

The week was full of cafes (Whitney is the expert cafe goer), Korean foods, walking around Seoul with Whitney and feeling like we were roommates in college again.                           

 

 

Sadly, it didn't take too long before my excellent "luck" kicked in and Whitney and I found ourselves locked out of her bathroom. It locks from the inside only. And when the lock is set it's almost impossible to close the door. Clearly, I had to say almost because, well, it happened. So this was me trying to climb through the tiny window on the side of the bathroom. Not something I'd recommend for fun. Possibly something I'd recommend if you wanted to not have fun. The good news is that we made it back into the bathroom! Let the adventures continue!

 

(My nieces and nephews really enjoyed this smiling hot cocoa that I got at a cafe. It was a big hit with humans ages 2-26.)       Eating the cute little flower pot was also quite fun. Even those tiny little pebbles were edible.                                                                                                         I think we really nailed that last shot of us at the lake in Seoul. 

All too soon though it was time to leave and head to Japan. (Though to be fair it's never really too soon to go to Japan.) I took a bus to the airport the night before my flight and had a sleepover with a few hundred other people who also were in the airport that night. 

Important side note: check what time public transportation starts running in the morning before booking morning flights in places where you have no car.                                                                                                                                                         The first thing I noticed (it was rather hard to miss) was the snow everywhere! I haven't ever been to Sapporo when it wasn't summer, so this was quite a shock for me.                                                                                                                         The second thing I noticed is that my day clothes just happen to look uncannily similar to my host-sister's husbands pajamas. To be fair, he replaced his pajama bottoms with jeans for the picture, but who knew that the first "couple outfit" I'd see in Asia would be my own (and we'd be the opposite of a couple.)

                                                                                                       


Between playing with the kids, hanging out with the girls and Mama, and living under the kotatsu (the electric blanket under the table) the week went by quicker than I thought it would.


This was my third visit to Sapporo to see this family, and I picture many more to come.

From Sapporo I headed down to Shizuoka to visit Natasha (a friend from college.) I had almost 2 full weeks at her place hanging with her. We made sure to fit in all of the important things: like visiting the castle at night or spending 90 minutes walking to the beach and 90 minutes walking back because it was a nice day and we love not spending money on public transportation.

I went back to the castle to explore the area around it while Natasha was working and found some nice little spots. They seemed like ideal places to sit and write in my journal. So I did.

I also just happened to be visiting during Yosakoi, which is like a giant dance festival.
Here's a short clip from one of the dances we saw on the street. Costume changes are becoming more and more popular in the dances, and sometimes they even have up to three different outfits in one performance!

The nights were full of us "studying Japanese", girl talking, watching scary movies and eating dinner together, or making good, old-fashioned cookie dough and watching a Pokemon movie in Japanese.  I had to say goodbye to Natasha as the sakura started to bloom, but now that we're both in Japan I know the next visit won't be as long in coming.


The last leg of my trip was in Tokyo. I spent a few days at Papa's house (my host dad from 4 years ago) as I had orientation for work in that general area. (Granted it was still a 90-minute commute, but that's significantly shorter than what it would have been from Natasha's.)

The first night I arrived, Papa and I went out to dinner, and let's just say it was a lot more fun to talk to him now than it was 4 years ago. (4 years ago my Japanese was TERRIBLE. Just terrible.) I was only here a few days, but everyone still made the effort to celebrate my birthday with me, even though they found out about it the night before.  I also celebrated by going to all you can eat conveyor belt sushi with BK (a friend I had literally just met the day before at work.)  Soon enough I was off to my 6 days of orientation where I met about 30 other ALTs. The first day everyone was somewhat reserved, but as you can tell by the picture it didn't take long for everyone to bond and start nightly card games.

The week went by quickly even though each day from 9-7 felt almost painstakingly slow sometimes (those were the hours we were actually "in training.") With spending 24 hours with these people for 6 days straight, learning where we were all finally living, eating cafeteria food for every meal, and having to share the public bathroom with all the girls (obviously the guys were separate) it would have been extremely difficult to NOT make friends. This was the room I spent my nights in that week. And yes, as always when I travel internationally, I found myself allergic to my room. Awesome.


Kayla and BK (who might not have actually wanted to take that picture with us right then) were the first two friends I made in the company because we had orientation together before the training.
On the final morning, a couple of us got up early to try to see the sunrise by the huge sakura tree outside the training facility. Despite our best efforts, it was cloudy...but still a fun experience! The rest of the day was rather crazy between cleaning checks, breakfast, and saying goodbye to everyone as we prepared to all move to our new houses.







Michelle came with me to my new house to help me settle in. (Sadly, it's a week later when I'm writing this and my room is still about as empty as it was in this photo. Although I do have a bed now, so I'm going places in life.)

Between getting a bicycle to get me around town, trying to enjoy all the sights in Japan, and spending money on furnishing my apartment (money that I probably don't really have) the week flew by. (I can tell this bike and I are going to be best friends. In the 6 days I've owned it we've probably already traveled 60 km (or 38 miles) together. That might sound like a lot or it might not, but now imagine me riding on this sweet bike with my "I'm a foreigner" backpack and having a large shopping bag dangling off each handlebar.

I'm sorry that I'm really not putting as many stories in here as I normally would. Maybe you guys will thank me for the shorter blog post. Who knows? To summarize this week I've done a lot of settling in, like buying big girl pots and pans, ordering a futon to sleep on, and buying the essential things I need to live in an empty apartment. 

Plus there may have been a bit of socializing happening during the week too...                                                                                                                                                                                                     These cherry blossom trees go on for who knows how long (I biked a ways down the road and still couldn't find the end before my time was up) and a river that I can see from my front door. I'm a little out in the country, but I kind of love how isolated my apartment feels. 

     Every night I go to bed a little bit in shock about the fact that I'm actually living in Japan. And while I know that I won't always have cherry blossom pictures to post, I will always have pictures of Japan to share while I'm here and I'm inexcusably excited by that prospect. Sleeping on the floor on top of a bed made of clothes can't dampen the excitement. Being allergic to my empty room and waking myself up with sneezes can't dampen the excitement. Not knowing how to correctly sort my trash or where to throw it out each night can't dampen the excitement. Even finding out that the vending machine outside of my apartment DOESN'T sell hot cocoa can't dampen the excitement. I don't know how often I'll be posting blogs once work starts up, but even if you aren't hearing from me know that every day is amazing here. I miss a lot of things about America (like Walmart and some people and french bread with cheese) but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.