Hello all. I'm sorry it's been a week since the last blog. I've had a bit of a computer issue. My computer has decided to just stop charging. As in.....it's completely dead. I had NO idea what was going on, and it's a little scary to be all the way over here, and my source of communication to the outside world is gone. :( That happened on Friday, so I had to live the weekend w/o internet. Lame. I stayed busy by cleaning house, exploring, coloring a "welcome home" banner for Ian, reading the one newspaper I had in English, and figuring out how to use my Japanese TV and DVD player. Not exactly the most entertaining weekend I've had.
Friday I went to "work". And by that I mean I went hiking in the mountains with elementary school kids. It was soooooooooooooooooooo much more fun than sitting at my desk at the BOE. I was assigned to a group of about ten kids with two teachers and myself. I'm pretty sure that I was supposed to be one of the teachers and watch out for the kids, but since I had NO IDEA what was going on, I pretty much became another kid. Blarg. It was weird being with so many kids b/c no one knew any English, and I don't know Japanese, so we couldn't really talk a lot. It was basically a day of smiles and nods, lol. We walked around the park area and after lunch headed to this lake/river area. It's nothing like the river or lake at home. By those standards, it was more of a large pond/creek area, but the water was SOOOOOO clear. I kept thinking of Daddy, who always says, "Look at how clear that water is" whenever there is a crystal clear stream in the wilderness somewhere. lol. I learned how to kayak! One of the activities that day was kayaking on the large pond. Everyone got their own kayak and headed out into the water. It was a ton of fun! How often does one get paid to play w/kids, hike, and kayak, and consider that to be a day at work? :)
On Monday, I had a little adventure. I had to go to Kumamoto City Monday-Wednesday for my prefecture orientation. Kumamoto City is about 3 hours by train, 2.5 hours by car. My supervisor told me last week that I would go by train. Monday morning was very rainy, so I drove to work. She drove me to Hitoyoshi, the nearest large(ish) city, where I got on the train. She bought my ticket for me, showed me my platform, and waited to make sure that I boarded the right train. Have I mentioned how wonderful she is to me? :) It's only about 1.5 hours from Hitoyoshi to Kumamoto City, and we left around 10 AM. I had to be at orientation by 1:30PM. More than enough time, right? Wrong. Everything was good and great until we stopped on the tracks. They made an announcement on the speakers, but I didn't understand it. People got off the train and walked around the tracks, so I knew we weren't going anywhere for a while. We were at that tiny little train station for a total of 2.5 hours. By this time, I'm late for orientation. I don't know what the heck to do. The train started again, but stopped about 10 minutes down the track and sat again. I finally asked the guy across from me if he could speak English. He said a little, so I asked him if there was a problem with the train. He said that due to the weather (very rainy and stormy), we couldn't go, and they didn't know how long it would take. It could be hours. My heart seriously sank. A little while later, my supervisor called me on my American cell phone since I don't have a Japanese one yet. I tried to explain to her that I was still on the train, but she wasn't understanding. I told the guy across from me that my supervisor was on the phone, and would he please explain to her what was going on. He kindly accepted the phone. My supervisor had me get off the train and came to pick me up. The guy was nice enough to walk me off the train, told the conductor what was going on, and the conductor told me that I could have my ticket refunded in Kumamoto. The kindness of strangers! I had to sit at that middle of nowhere station for a hour and a half in the pouring rain, lightning, and thunder before my supervisor and another guy from work could pick me up. My supervisor brought me a sandwich and a bottle of water to eat/drink. :) The ride into Kumamoto was terrifying. We had to take this tiny narrow two lane road with mountain rock on one side and a raging rain swollen river on the other side. In a lot of places, there was water several inches deep on the road. We finally made it to Kumamoto at around 6:30 PM. A trip that should have taken 2.5 hours ended up taking the entire day. Luckily, I arrived just in time for the welcome party, so everyone was like, "Relax! You've had a rough day!"
I met Ian in Kumamoto, which was very exciting!! We originally planned to meet at the train station on Wednesday at 4:30, but he called me on Tuesday night saying that his ATM card wouldn't work, and he only had about 100 yen to his name (about $1.30). Instead, we planned to meet at the bus station before I had to go to my last day of orientation. His bus was a bit late, but luckily we were able to meet, and he stayed in my building in the lobby while I had orientation. We walked to a nearby combini (like a gas station minus the gas part) for lunch, and I wrapped up orientation around 3:30. Poor Ian. I know he was incredibly tired. He had been traveling since 1:30ish Monday morning until 8:30 PM when we finally made it to Yunomae. He was super happy to get a shower, brush his teeth, and go to bed!!! I took off today to be with him and show him around town. He spent the morning unpacking and skyping family members. At 1ish, I took him to the BOE to meet my co-workers. We made peanut butter cookies and brought those to pass out to everyone. I asked my supervisor how to obtain Ian's alien registration card, but she volunteered herself to take us. She is seriously the best! After that, I showed Ian where the bank and post office were, and we grabbed lunch at another combini. We had a cute little picnic lunch in the park and explored the park. It's really fun to see Ian be so excited about everything new and different. I've been here for two weeks, so the size of the dragonflies, amount of spiders, and cuteness of houses are old news, but for him, it's all new and exciting. It's really fun to watch him be so amazed! :)
I think that's long enough, and hopefully you're still reading by this point, lol. I'll post pictures and a few videos soon to facebook, so make sure to check that out!
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