Konichiwa!
Sorry I haven't been so good with staying in touch up until this point - we've been so busy. Where to begin?
After about 19 hours of traveling, we reached the Kansai Airport in Osaka. This airport was built on it's own man-made island about 20min off the mainland. When we got to the airport the shock really set in that we are in a different country on the other side of the plant and no one here speaks English. Somehow we figured out which bus to take to the OCAT station in Osaka that is on the mainland. From there we had to wait 3 hours for the night bus to Yonago (the city we live in).
The OCAT station is small and again no one speaks English. At this point the only word we knew in Japanese was Gomenesai (sorry), which we used a lot! I had my first non-Western toilet experience at the OCAT station. I walk into the stall and to my sheer horror the only thing in there is a hole in the floor with a drain and a roll of toilet paper. I'm like, "What the hell do I do with this?". I guess Japanese women have perfected squatting, but I'll spare you the details. The OCAT station is also where I discovered how much I love vending machines! In Japan you can find vending machines anywhere, even in the country! It's pretty cool.
Anyways, we caught the night bus at the OCAT station to Yonago, which was another 6 hours of travel. The night bus was really cool - no lights inside, the seats recline all the way back, foot rests. We arrived in Yonago at about 4:45am - but Japan is 16 hours ahead of Seattle time, so our schedules were already thoroughly screwed up. Yuu (the school manager) and her husband Sean (another teacher) were waiting for us at the Yonago station. Danny and I had pretty much packed our entire lives into 6 large pieces of luggage and fitting them into 2 tiny Japanese cars (think the size of a Smart Car) was really funny!
Yuu and Sean brought us back to the house where they live (which houses one of the classrooms). It's a 2-story traditional Japanese house with Shoji screens and Tatami mats. The bottom floor houses a part of the school (which is separated off from the house part), a toilet, a washroom, an office and the kitchen. The top floor has 2 bedrooms that each have their own living room. Sean and Yuu are moving back to Canada (where Sean is from) so we will have the entire house to ourselves in the next couple days.
We've been sitting in on classes regularly and last night I taught my first class - a group of 4 boys ages 9 and 10. Today I'm teaching a group of 6 cousins ages 5-12 (the biggest gap in ages of any of our classes I think), and a French class. My lesson plans for the French classes are so extensive and time-consuming because a.) there isn't a textbook and b.) I'm learning the language as I'm going.
We went to City Hall to register as alien residents the other day. We will officially be aliens on 4 July.
Danny gets stares and giggles from school children everywhere he goes - it's really funny! It's been so hot here! It's been about 30 degrees Celsius every day and in August it's about 40 degrees Celsius everyday. For those that only know American methods of measurement (myself included), that's really hot! It is so humid here. You walk outside and can feel moisture, almost like a condensation, on your skin. At least the classrooms are air conditioned.
Last night we had a 2 hour trip to the grocery store because we were stopped by the sweetest little Japanese man who wanted to practice his English. He asked us all kinds of really random questions: "How tall are you?", "How tall do you think I am?", "How old are you?", "How old do you think I am?", "Do you play baseball?" (then he talked about Ichiro), "How long America - Japan?" (we weren't sure if he wanted to know how long the
flight was or how long we'd be here), he told me my face was pretty then asked me how his face looked - I gave him a thumbs up. Each of these questions took so long for us to figure out what he was asking, because he only knows a few English words, but he did a lot of charades. We somehow got out of the English lesson we were giving in the grocery isle and got out to the parking lot. But he followed us out to the parking lot and
insisted on giving us a ride home ("He, she, my I car. I drive"). We tried telling him we were fine and didn't need a ride, but he thought we were saying we didn't understand and kept trying to ask if we wanted a
ride. I was like "Danny, should we just go with him?" and we did. So we got into the car with a stranger and he gave us a ride home. I can't believe how trusting and friendly people are here, but I guess there is relatively no crime in Yonago. We got into his minvan and he insisted on giving me 2 of his daughter's Hello Kitty toys that were in the car. We arrived to the house safe, dry, laughing, with dinner and Hello Kitty inhand.
Sorry for the long letter - had to catch everybody up. I need to finish my French class lesson plan for this evening. I miss everyone terribly and will send postcards as soon as I can find them (Yonago isn't a touristy area). Take care!
Cheers!
Ingrid
Here is our address in case I've forgotten to give it to anyone:
2-8-22 Sanbonmatsu
Yonago, Tottori 683-0842
Japan
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