Konichi wa!
I am now living in Japan! I've finally secured a great job about an hour out of Tokyo in a place called Hanno City, Saitama. I will be teaching conversational English to children for 2 years, and the school sets me up with a roomy, fully furnished apartment for Brad and I to live in. My apartment is bigger than I thought it would be, the city is cute, and Naomi (my Japanese host and co-worker) and her dad and husband are wonderful! They also give me a bicycle, so I can ride 5 minutes to the school for work!

I am busy working on figuring everything out about how to live in Japan! Everything is really quite a shock, and it's going to take much time to adjust, but I can do it! Everything is going much better after the initial shock. The first couple days, I felt awkward and nervous, and wanted to go back to my creature comfort of a familiar place with familiar people and customs. But the sun came out, I got my apartment organized and homey, I'm spending fun time with the students this week, and I've started exploring my town. My bike (with a basket! They all have baskets!) is perfect, and takes me all over this cute, quiet town.

I have all the conveniences of 7-11, dollar store, supermarket, department store, train station, etc. right next to me, yet Hanno City is very peaceful and much better than I imagine the big city to be. Yet Tokyo is just an hours train away, so I will go this weekend and explore. I am desperate to start working on my Japanese, as it's soooo needed here (if I don't want to spend two years in virtual silence!)

The kids at Kidz Talk are adorable and fun, although it just really sucks to not be able to talk to them!! I wish we could talk and joke in a common language. But that is what I'm here for...to teach them to talk freely to me in English. The English schools don't actually seem to be too successful at doing this, as the kids have no chance to speak English aside of that one hour a week. It will be a challenge for me as a teacher, and now I'm starting to look forward to it. I wear jeans and T-shirts and flip-flops or sneakers, and no one ever wears shoes inside carpet areas or houses, so I love getting to wear slippers or be barefoot at work!

This country and experience will truly be a challenge like I have never had before. I have lots to tell, so I'll just start with some interesting bits from the first few days:

*I have a mobile (cell) phone that emails AND takes digital pictures!
*The Japanese Jehovah's witness knocked on my door today!
*Naomi (who is 27) and her husband have about 300 CD's, about 250 of which are American music. They have a beautiful apartment, eat eggs and toast or cereal for breakfast, and drive a VW Golf (which she mostly drives, cause he rides the train)
*Food, clothes, and other things here are much cheaper than you may think. Most of which I've seen and bought so far are comparable prices to the U.S. or Australia. Around the corner from my apartment, there is a 100 yen store, like our dollar store (or in London, the 1 pound store).

Brad should be here in a couple weeks. Yay!

Love always,
Rebecca