Sorry for the delay. We haven't had any access to any sort of internet or phone for a few days now. We've moved into our house, the fabled New Covenant address that we had hoped for. It's gorgeous and due to the kindness of our upstairs neighbors we now have internet access. We're going to be getting fiber optic internet access, but as everyone tells us pretty regularly here, things take longer in the East than they do in the US. (Except getting apartments, we accomplished that in about 4 days.)
So, let's see, what all things can I tell you? So much has happened in so little time.
I'll try to start at the beginning. We went to the housing office with our paperwork for the apartment, in order to see if I had set it up correctly. There was supposed to be a couple of different types of downpayment, but our friend and helpful housing agent set us up so we don't have to pay them till PSD reimburses us. (Which they have done, supposedly, yesterday. I should really check that out...)
Ok, checked it out and it's fine. The question that remains is how to pay it to anyone. We get paid in dollars, which then have to be transformed to Yen, but that's complicated due to the rambling, changeable exchange rate. You never know what you're spending on anything, really. We can usually guess that Y100 is equal to $1, but it's always a little different than that. It's really a mystery, though. How do I write a check for Yen? Is it possible? No way to know today, I suppose.
This is the view from our back porch. It's amazing. Obviously this photo was taken on a cloudy day, but it's GORGEOUS today. I'll try to get a picture of it, hang on.
There you go. It's great!
The whole thing is pretty special. I was thinking this morning that everything is working out so well, that there either needs to be a big fall or maybe God is trying to show me that everything CAN work out well for people who are honest. It's probably just grace towards Margaret, but I am a lucky side benefitter.
Below is the letter I sent home, and to many of you, so it won't be news to some, but people whose e-mails I can't find, you might like it.
To one and all, whether you cared or not, I am terribly sorry for not getting in touch with any of you for the past several days. (Though some of you have been out of touch with me for far longer. That's the difficulty with this sort of long-range, wildly random, e-mailing. Those folks with the telegrams, they knew what they were about.)
My wife and I are in Japan. Well, we're in Okinawa, it counts though. Lovely place, there are some photos of it up at my blog, if you have the chance to l
ook. There will be more up before too long. Margaret is planning on getting a
Flickr.com account and there will be links to it sent to everyone, when we know what it is.
We got here about two weeks ago and we already have a place to live and all of our stuff set up. Yesterday we bought a couch and carried it a mile down the street together, before our upstairs neighbor came and picked us up in his minivan thing. (That's a point, all the cars here look like Hot Wheels. It's pretty cool. The highest speed on the whole island is about 50 MPH, so the cars don't have to have a lot of pep or be particularly impressive. As a result, we love every car that goes by. Our next purchase will be a vehicle and Margaret has her heart set on a van-like contraption that has 13" wheels.)
Our house is gorgeous, all wooden and, as Kanye West would say, Japanese-y. The drains attach directly to the sewer so they pong a bit sometimes, but there is a trick with bleach that seems to work well. Our view is incredible, the ocean is directly outside our back doors. We could, if we so desired, throw our furniture into the ocean. (We don't generally desire that.) The hot water heater is a little kerosene boiler that has to be turned on a few minutes before you want to use the water, but that's pretty cool, too. The whole place is wonderful.
A mile away is a store that we have affectionately titled, "The Everything Store." For those who know what I mean, it's like Conley's. For everyone else, it's a mixture of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, a grocery store, a Best Buy and a Pier One. Possibly the coolest store ever. We discovered it a couple days ago and have not gone a day without visiting it since. Everything is in Japanese, which makes every trip an adventure. In direct contradiction to what everyone was telling us on the way here, no one speaks English. We're as foreign as can be, which is really, really strange. Little kids look at us like we're some sort of bipedal dogs. The adults are barely more solicitous. It's pretty amazing.
Right up the street from us is a Family Mart, which is sort of like a 7-11. For reasons that, since we haven't learned a lick of Japanese, are a deep mystery, the teenagers who work there start talking, a series of rote phrases from what we can tell, the moment anyone walks in the door and then continue to chatter off slogans until the various, and also seemingly rote, cashier slogans as you leave. It has become sort of a game, trying to figure out what they might mean.
"Hello foreigners, welcome to our plus-good store with the fantastic prices and the expensive beer!"
"Enjoy your time in our frightening bathrooms, do your best to aim at the hole in the floor accurately!"
"Thank you for spending our comical coin money at our super-wonderful and extra glossy cash register, please place your money in this tray and keep your gaijin hands aways from mine and have a nice day!"
I haven't really found out what I'll be doing for work yet. I start on Tuesday morning, so I'm hoping it's good. I am a little worried from what I am hearing. It sounds like work here mostly consists of not doing much at all. Apparently we take a lot of classes on nonsense and then wait to be deployed. I want to do something a little more meaningful, but I guess we'll have to see how that works out.
How are you?
O+M
