We absolutely love our little home – all 365 square feet of it! The entire apartment is less than twice the size of our storage room back home in Canada but because of its large windows and the lack of a lot of furniture, it doesn’t feel cramped. The end apartment on the second floor of a two storey walk up, it has 3 rooms – the kitchen, the kotatsu room and the tatami room.

The kitchen has a large sink, a two burner gas stove, a small fridge, a microwave, a toaster oven, a washing machine, a few shelves and cupboards and virtually no counter space. The stove doesn’t have an oven but it has a little grilling drawer that is great for cooking fish or a couple of pork chops.

The kotatsu room is so named because it’s main piece of furniture is the kotatsu, a low heated table that sits on a quilted mat and is surrounded by a cozy futon – a nice place to sit on a chilly morning or evening. This is where we eat our meals. Richard has mastered the art of kneeling at the table but I find it difficult so I’ve acquired a small cushion for sitting on. The computer also lives in the corner of the kotatsu room and our one chair is usually at the computer desk.

Tatami is a floor covering made of tightly woven grass that is every bit as warm and comfortable as carpet. Traditionally, room size is determined by the number of tatami mats. Each mat is approximately 6 feet long and 3 feet wide and ours is a six tatami room. This is our combination livingroom/bedroom. In traditional Japanese style, we sleep on futons on the floor and the bedding is put away during the day. Rather than putting the futon and the foam under-futon away in the big storage cupboard during the day, we fold them up and cover them with a blanket to form a low couch for sitting on. That, along with a small plastic chest of drawers is all the furniture in that room.

The bathroom probably deserves a blog entry all it’s own but for now, it’s actually two separate rooms. One has the toilet with its built in hand washing sink on top of the tank and the other has our mini bathtub with hand held shower and a small sink.

Patio doors open off the end of the kotatsu room onto a tiny balcony designed mainly for hanging laundry. The tatami room also has big sliding windows on the south end as well as a smaller window that juts out on the west wall.

Like most older homes in Japan, ours lacks central heating, isn’t well sealed against the elements and probably doesn’t have much for insulation. It would probably be a bit warmer if it wasn’t an end apartment exposed to the outside world on three sides but I wouldn’t trade it for an inside apartment. I love having the extra window on the end wall. On a very clear morning, we can actually see Mt. Fuji, about 120 km west of here! In addition to a small kerosene heater which we use only when it’s very chilly, we have a built in electic heater/air conditioner in the kotatsu room and a portable electric heater which we keep in the tatami room.

I had hoped to include photos with this blog entry but I’ve forgotten how to do that and it’s been a long day so it will have to wait.

Today was the first day of spring, a national holiday in Japan, but it’s been the most unspringlike day since we arrived!   It’s been raining for over 24 hours and a chilly wind has been blowing all day.  Our first goal for today was to learn how to use our recently received bank cards to access cash at the ATM machines at the bank.  We knew that the instructions would be in Japanese and that we’d probably need assistance, but there’s always a bank employee by the door welcoming and assisting people as they come in so we thought she might be able to help us.  Of course, we hadn’t thought of the fact that, being a national holiday, the bank would be closed!  While the ATM machines were accessible, there was no friendly bank employee to greet and assist us!  Not knowing the language is definitely a handicap at times like this but we’ve found that the people here are extremely helpful so we decided to wait and see if someone would come along who would be willing to help us.  Sure enough, the first person we approached, an older gentleman who spoke not one word of English, was happy to show us what to do and we were soon on our way with cash in hand.

We had hoped to spend the afternoon exploring Narita which is a short train ride east of here and is described in our Lonely Planet guidebook as a pleasant temple town.  For those of you who live in towns like Sedgewick, Narita is a “town” of over 97 000 people!  Anyway, today didn’t seem like the kind of day to spend outdoors wandering and exploring so we spent a few hours in a mall that we often pass on the train.  We were delighted to find a UniQlo store there.  We first encountered UniQlo when we visited Matt and Robin in Osaka three years ago.  It’s the one store we know of in Japan where I can actually find clothes that fit.  Before leaving Canada, I looked everywhere for a pair of navy blue dress pants to add to my school wardrobe but I was unable to find what I was looking for.  Amazingly, I found them today at UniQlo!

Now we’re back home in our snug little apartment with the kerosene heater warming us while the wind howls and the rain lashes the windows.  Perhaps tomorrow I’ll describe the apartment in detail.

Friday was White Day in Japan.  On Valentine’s Day, women buy gifts for men, coworkers as well as husbands, and a month later on March 14th, the men reciprocate.  Cookies and chocolates seem to be popular gifts and the stores definitely gear up with lots of goodies on sale.  I got lucky this year as I spent Valentine’s Day in Canada and White Day here and received gifts from my romantic hubby on both days! 

This coming Thursday, March 20 is a national holiday in Japan – the first day of spring!  Don’t you wish you had a day off work for that?  Actually, our school offers classes that day but it’s a regular day off for Richard and I.  We’ve been celebrating spring ever since we got here though.  We boarded the plane in Edmonton with snow all around and arrived in Japan to find flowers growing and oranges hanging on trees!  Amazing!  Now the plum trees are in bloom and the cherry blossoms will soon follow.  It’s still chilly at night but, with the exception of one very rainy day, we’ve been enjoying lovely daytime weather. 

School is keeping us very busy.  Unlike, Matt & Robin’s Japan experience, ours isn’t exactly teach by number.  There’s quite a lot of lesson planning to do.  It should get much easier after the end of this month.  A new term begins April 1 & we’ll finally have  regular schedules with the same classes every week.  Right now, we’ve only had a bit of that with lots of subbing thrown in.  Unlike at home, when you sub here you have to do the lesson planning & how easy it is or isn’t depends on what the regular teacher’s plans are like.  Some are good but others are definitely not.  Also, at this time of year there are a lot of trial lessons thrown in, short lessons given to prospective students to find out if they’re interested in becoming regular students & if so, what level they’re at. 

In addition to teaching, I’ve also been offered a modeling contract!  Well, a slight exaggeration maybe but I did receive a memo from our teaching coordinator the other day asking me to model for some new advertising flyers that the school is putting together!  Several adults and children have been lined up and and photographer has been hired to come in on March 30 to take some staged shots of us in action.  I’m not sure why I was chosen but the memo says it’s because I’m “cute and photogenic”!  That from the fellow who saw the hideous passport type photos I had to send in in order to get my visa!  No, he’s not trying to hit on me – he just has a crazy sense of humour.

We really hope to have internet at home soon.  We have everything we need including the modem & are just waiting for someone to come and hook it up.  There is so much I want to share!

We’re making progress toward having internet at home and being able to update more regularly. Thursday was a day off for both of us.  We started the day by walking to the nearby recycle store.  Useful items that are no longer wanted are put by the street on a specific day each week so that they can be picked up and resold.  We were able to purchase a very functional but small computer desk for 2000 yen, approximately $20!  Richard carried it home on his shoulders! Next we ventured into Tokyo for the first time to Akihabara, the electric town, an area known for it’s hundreds of electronics shops.  There we found the used monitor we were looking for.  Now the computer is set up and ready to go and we’re waiting for the internet to be connected.  Unfortunately, it will probably take a couple of weeks or perhaps even longer. 

On a completely different note, we woke up just before 2 o’clock this morning because the building was shaking.  Our first earthquake!  Actually, it was just a tremor and didn’t last long.  It wasn’t even slightly scary and we were both asleep again within minutes!

Teaching is going well though the lesson planning still takes awhile.  I’m especially enjoying the adult classes.  I think I’m learning as much from them as they are from me! 

No, we’re not lost!  We arrived in Japan safe and sound and are loving it so far.  We don’t have internet at home yet though so I probably won’t be able to post very often until we do.  I’ve found a good “internet cafe” – 3 computers at the back of a bookstore/electronics shop but it isn’t very close to where we’re living.  It’s near one of the schools we’ll be teaching at though, so whenever I’m in this area I’ll stop in and let you know how we’re doing.  Once we get internet at home, watch out!  I have so much to share.  I wrote 13 pages in my journal yesterday, my first day off!

There are many challenges to learning to live in such a different environment but we’re enjoying the experience immensely.  Of course, there’s the job – learning what’s expected of us.  It isn’t rocket science though and I’m sure we’ll soon be quite comfortable with that part of life.  Learning the train system and getting from place to place can be quite a challenge.  I did manage to get on a train going in the wrong direction the other day but I realized it right away, got off at the next stop and got myself turned around!  MIL has 2 main schools and 8 satellite ones. We’ll be teaching at several of them so we’ll spend lots of time on the trains.  Grocery shopping is another major challenge.  How do you tell if the package contains salt or sugar if you can’t read the label?  So far, we haven’t made any major blunders though and we’ve started to experiment with a few unfamiliar foods.  Figuring out a workable meal schedule is also an interesting aspect of our new life.  We usually work afternoons and evenings so are quickly adjusting to eating supper late in the evening – often about 10:00 p.m.  Settling into the apartment has presented a few interesting challenges as well.  Things like how to use the washing machine when the instructions are in Japanese but I’ll go into that in more detail in a future post.

We’re at the hotel in Leduc, just a few minutes from the airport.  We have a wake up call scheduled for 5:00 o’clock tomorrow morning and catch the airport shuttle at 5:55.  Our plane leaves at 8:15.  We have a 3 hour stopover in Vancouver where oldest son, Matt, and his wife, Robin, who live near the airport will meet us.  Our plane for Japan departs at noon and flies nonstop to Tokyo Narita, a ten and a half hour flight.

Today was a day of good byes.  We woke up in the lap of luxury this morning, having spent the last two nights in a king size bed at a Sedgewick bed and breakfast owned by church friends, Ken and Doris.  We returned to the now almost bare house to pack up the last few items then drove out to the farm of dear friends, Louis and Doris, where our vehicle will be stored for the next year.  After a delicious lunch and a visit there, Louis drove us back to town.  Minutes later, special friends, Deborah and Derek picked us up for the drive to the city.  There we were met by youngest son, Nathan, and the five of us enjoyed dinner together.  Now all the good byes have been said and we’re on our way!  How exciting!  I hope we can sleep tonight as tomorrow will be a very long day! 

We went to Camrose today for our second hepatitis shots and also got our international drivers licenses.  I don’t know if we’ll actually use them as we won’t have a vehicle while we’re in Japan but we thought it would be a good idea to have them in case we ever decide to rent a car.  The transit system in Japan is excellent and the school will reimburse us for the cost of travel to and from work.  School regulations do not actually permit us to use any type of private motorized vehicle for transportation to and from work or any school function.  I’m not sure why that is but I doubt that parking would be available if we did want to drive.

This evening a couple of friends helped Richard move the furniture that we plan to store in the basement while we’re away.  Interestingly, we discovered that a queen size box spring won’t fit down our basement stairs so it will have to spend the year leaning against a wall in the guest room.

Our internet is being cut off tomorrow and I’m not sure how long it will take to get connected once we arrive in Japan.  Fortunately, however, there are internet cafes.  In fact, “internet cafe” is one of the English terms that has been adopted by the Japanese so it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to find one!  I’ll post again as soon as I’m able.

I feel like my wheels are spinning and I have nowhere to go! There’s only so much packing that can be done in advance and I’m fast approaching the point where the rest will have to be left until closer to departure time. Since I’m the kind of person who hates leaving things to the last minute, the next few days could drive me crazy!

This morning was our last church service before heading off to Japan. As the service begins next Sunday morning we’ll be taking off from the Vancouver airport and flying out over the Pacific Ocean.

This is Family Day weekend in Alberta so the focus of this morning’s service was on being part of the family of God and more specifically, on being part of the local church family. For us, this is particularly meaningful. We’ve attended the Sedgewick Church of the Nazarene for approximately 30 years. These people have been there for us through good times and bad; through times of great joy and times of loss. Living some distance from our own families as we always have, the church really has been our family. Even our children live away from home now; one in Vancouver, one in Calgary and one in Edmonton. We’re used to saying good bye to them, though not usually for this long. The church is our everyday family, the people who are involved in our day to day lives. While we’re excited about going, saying good bye to them is not easy!

A couple of women in our church are known for their fabulous cinnamon buns. After Sunday School this morning and before the church service began, the congregation gathered over coffee and cinnamon buns to wish us farewell. The Sunday School superintendent said a few words pointing out that almost everyone there had been taught by one or the other of us. I had never thought of it that way before but I’ve been teaching a young children’s Sunday School class for the past twenty-one and a half years and the adult class has grown and flourished under Richard’s leadership for many of those years. In our church, it’s often jokingly said that when you take on a job you have it for life! We aren’t indispensable, however, and have passed on the torches that we’ve carried over the years to other very capable hands.

We don’t know what God has in mind for us during our year in Japan but we do know that we’ll have a faithful church family back here at home praying for us and awaiting our return. A whole host of them surrounded us during the service as our pastor prayed for us. We also know that finding the opportunity to worship or fellowship with other believers while we’re in Japan may be difficult. It is my understanding that less than 2% of Japan’s population is Christian so the likelihood of finding a church to attend, especially one with services in English, is not very good. We have a very big God, however, and as far as we may stray from home, we’ll never be separated from him or his love.

What are we going to be doing in Japan?  We won’t be teaching in the public school system.  MIL is a private school offering classes in English as a foreign language to students of all ages. The emphasis is on practical application and conversation skills.  MIL has 2 main schools with 4 classrooms each and 8 branch schools with 2 or 3 classrooms each.  These are housed in office buildings and are all located adjacent to train lines.   We will not teach at the same location every day nor will we necessarily both teach at the same location on any particular day.

We’ll be teaching during the afternoons and evenings.  Early afternoon classes will be made up of preschool children, housewives or retired people.  The very youngest children attend class with their mothers.  Later in the afternoon we’ll teach the older children and teens who come to MIL after their regular school day is over.  In the evenings we’ll teach adult classes.  Classes tend to be small and some high school students and business people choose to take private lessons so we will also have some of those.

We’ll be teaching 5 days a week but not necessarily Monday to Friday.  Teachers at MIL generally have Sunday and one other weekday off though we may have to work occasional Sundays.  We’ve been told to expect one common day off but the second one may not be the same for both of us.

Our first few days in Japan will be orientation and will include the opportunity to observe some classes in action.  We’ll begin teaching on approximately March 1  and will be signing a one year contract.  Depending on the school’s needs and the teacher’s performance, there is often opportunity to renew for another year but we’re not looking that far ahead just yet!