I left off the last blog with us on our way to Fukuoka. We had a four hour layover there from our flight landing to the time our bus left for Hitoyoshi, so we decided to seize the opportunity and do a little sight-seeing. Neither Ian nor I have spent much time in Fukuoka. The most I’ve seen of that city is when I made Camp America outside the bus station before I left. Not exactly a tourist destination……..
Before we even got started, we bought one day passes for the subway, stuffed our luggage into lockers, stopped at McDonald’s for some breakfast, and found an ATM for Mommy to withdraw money. I got to show her the bench where I made Camp America that night, and she even wanted to take a picture of me in the same spot. 
Our first stop on the Fukuoka grand tour was Tocho-ji (a Japanese temple) right off the subway stop. I thought it would be a very Japanese thing for Mommy to see and experience. 
Bless her heart, though. She was dog tired, but she kept on keeping on! I was actually very surprised at how much she was willing to do on the tiny bit of sleep she had. After the temple, we went to a shopping complex to show her Japanese trinkets, ways of shopping, styles, and Engrish shirts. It was weird to see her experiencing culture shock because everything that she did/said was something that I did/said when I first got here, but now those things are just second nature. I noticed her standing on the right side of the escalator instead of the left, saying “sorry” instead of “sumimasen” when she bumped into someone, and complaining about how HUMID it was here…..all of that in addition to statements like:
“They sure do dress differently here, don’t they?”
“Why are we on the wrong side of the road?”
“How do those women wear high heels all day long?”
“Look at all of these cute little cars!!”
(and once we got home) “Your house is sooooooooooo small!!!”
In addition, as we were sitting on the bus, she looked to the front left side of the bus and asked where the driver’s seat was. We pointed to the front right side of the bus. 
It’s so weird to see her go through culture shock because these were the same things that we were doing/saying at this time last year, but now it’s second nature to us. We think nothing about driving on the left side of the road and have stopped questioning Japanese fashion.
When we got back to Hitoyoshi, Melissa picked us up at the bus station. I honestly didn’t think that we could get all of our luggage in one car, but by shear will, we crammed three giant suitcases and our carry on stuff into the back of her car and left. I’m not lying….if you all knew the size of the cars over here, you would understand what a feat this was! One guy in the parking lot said something like “that sure is a lot” and laughed at the crazy foreigners.
In Melissa’s village of Yamae, we were exactly forty minutes away from Yunomae. FORTY MINUTES. So close to home, and yet this is where we encountered our FIRST problem. I knew that whenever I left in July something was wrong with the car. At the time I was just praying to God that I could get it to Melissa’s so that she could take me to the train station and I could go home. When Ian tried to start our car, it made a pitter-putter sound and decided not to go. 
He tried again, popped the hood, checked everything possible, and had no idea what it could be.
I had to call my BOE and talk to my supervisor in a VERY broken Japanese-English conversation. The phone got passed around the BOE to better English speakers who STILL didn’t completely grasp what was going on. They thought that I was broke down alongside the road in Yamae. I tried my hardest to explain, and I could tell that everyone at the BOE was also trying to figure out what was happening to the crazy foreigner, but two and two just wasn’t making four. 
Melissa, a MUCH better Japanese speaker, finally got on the phone and tried to explain. She said that even though she was speaking Japanese to my BOE co-workers, they were still a little confused. Grrrrrr……..language barriers!!!!! During all of this mess, poor Mommy passed out on the floor. Melissa put a futon down for her to lay on, and I’m pretty sure that her eyes were closed even before her head was on the mat. Bless her heart, but she was just soooooooooooo tired!!!
Melissa offered to drive us home, so once again we all crowded into her tiny car with all of our luggage in tow…..plus two futons that we were borrowing from Melissa. Most of the luggage was in the back, but we had to stick the futons above our heads in the backseat. I had zero leg room and honestly had to hang my head out the window like a dog for part of the journey. 
Oh, the funny experiences that you have in Japan! Luckily, Melissa drove fast, and we made it home in record time! As we piled out of the car, it seriously was like a clown car…..we kept pulling and pulling and pulling stuff out of it!
My poor flowerbed was overrun by weeds, and the grass that took me three days to whack down was back in full force. I’m telling you….the weeds TAKE OVER here!! I tried to give Mommy the grand tour of the house, but she said that she could pretty much see it all from her spot in our bedroom/office. Ha, ha! So true! I immediately turned the hot water heater back on since I turned it off before I left. However, we soon realized as Mommy went to take a shower that it wasn’t working. Problem #2. Ah…….nothing says welcome home quite like having to deal with problems as soon as you get back! 
I don’t think she cared really. She was just happy to HAVE a shower. (Although as hot as it is here, a cold shower isn’t really too terrible….) She immediately fell asleep after that. Ian made dinner for us while I unpacked. I was happy to have everything put away in its place.
After dinner, Melissa left, and Ian and I got cold showers and tucked ourselves in bed. Even though we had the melatonin and weren’t jet lagged, we were still tired from a full day of travel! Also……Ian figured out what was wrong with the hot water tank. There was a button on the bottom that I didn’t push before restarting it, so at least one of our problems was solved!
Anyway….it’s a little weird to be back in Japan because now this feels more like home than home did. When I was in Paducah, I was staying at my brother’s house and living out of a suitcase. Now that I’m back in my house in Japan, I have a closet to hang clothes in, and everything has its own spot. I suppose home is wherever you hang your hat, but this does make me wonder what home will feel like when we move back to Paducah….. 
No comments:
Post a Comment