One year came fast!

It’s been a year now. Well, almost. Next Monday is the start of our second year here and probably our last. Mom, Dad (especially Dad), I say probably because you just never know… but we’re like 98.7% certain we’ll be headed home home this time next year.

And by home home I mean New Zealand. 

So, going off the stats, Carmon and I are nearing our halfway point of living in Japan. Let me take this opportunity to look back on what’s happened, how we’ve changed, and what we tentatively want for the second half of our adventure here in the land of the rising sun.

Travel

The city we live in is considered country and has a less than enthusiastic vibe about it. Mito is sort of the Bartlesville of Japan. By Japan’s standards, it’s kind of just out there with not much going on. Of course to two Okies it’s quit a different story. We’re roughly in the center of Japan on the East coast, which means were two hours by train from Tokyo (the same amount of time it takes to make a trip from OKC to Tulsa by car) and 30 minutes from the Pacific. Add another two hours west or north and you’ve got gorgeous mountains and forests. To say that we’ve had a change of scenery is an understatement.

Don't worry, in 40 minutes there's a McDonalds!

Although we miss the plains of Oklahoma, we’re doing our best to make the most of our time here in this beautiful country. In addition to our surrounding locations, we’ve been able to experience the more distant settings of Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Osaka, Niigata, Nikko, Daigo, Sado Island, Arashiyama, Sendai, Fukushima, and, thanks to the Dudley’s, Tokyo Disney!

Japan has so many places to explore and we plan on hitting Hokaido (the northern Island- pretty much Japan’s Alaska) and Konshyuu (the southern, more tropical islands) later this year. During Japan’s nation-wide holiday “Golden Week” we’re headed to Seoul in South Korea. Don’t have much of a plan for that but it should be interesting. Oddly, we’ve just realized that tickets to Okinawa will only run us around $100 so perhaps we’ll make some weekend diving trips there if we can manage to schedule it.

...or $7.50 for first class with Malaysia Air. 

One great thing about this past year is that, amidst all our travels, I’ve grown to really appreciate and study the art of photography.

Before we left the States I already enjoyed taking photos but I had a rather shallow knowledge of it, and I didn’t understand the mechanics behind producing wonderful images.

I always wanted to know what masp meant.

Being in such a beautiful country has spurred me on to practice photography in a more intentional way. I’ve also been afforded a special opportunity to be an official photographer for one of my favorite bag companies, although I feel super uncomfortable calling myself a photographer!

At best, I’m learning everything I can about the craft and I’m aspiring to be such. Anyway, I don’t want to go into details about that yet (I’ll save that for a separate post). Ultimately, this year has been a huge learning and growing experience. I’m shooting as often as possible and soaking up everything I can from books, articles, podcasts and anything else photo-related. And through out it all, my wife has been cheering me on the whole way, even through the expensive process of upgrading cameras.

RIP
2011-2013

Speaking of Carmon, we celebrated our first year of marriage last May! Being newlywed and young, making the decision to move to Japan was going to have its effect on our marriage for better or for worse. I can happily say that moving here was most certainly for the better. Japan is awesome, but it definitely will give you your fair share of culture stress. Luckily, at the end of the day Carmon and I have had each other to come home to and rely on. If anything, this experience has brought us closer together, and as corny as it sounds, I’ve grown to love her even more than when we left.

I’m really looking forward to next year.
First year, you kind of don't know what’s going on. I didn’t really have any grasp on the language.  Everything’s just so new and potentially overwhelming. Going into the second year I can see that things will be smoother.

lesson 1. T-shirts don't have to make sense. 

Carmon is changing to an elementary school and pre-k, which is a big change from junior high kids. She’s going from flirting boys to flinging boogers. She's a bit nervous about the change up but I think it'll be a wonderful new experience!

Finally, relationships at the church and with our Japanese friends (and other AET’s) will continue to develop over the next year. I'm doing my best to be intentional about building relationships and sharing my faith with others. As of recently, the relationships we've established so far are beginning to stretch into deeper waters. Talking about things like faith, struggles, God and grace are beginning to happen. Spiritually, God has blessed our time here so much. I say “spiritually” because he’s obviously blessed our time here with travel and most certainly friends and building relationships, but God has been even more gracious to us in that he’s clarified and affirmed some things in my life and in my understanding that was very needed. We’ve been fortunate enough to have people enter into our lives that have blessed and encouraged us in so many different ways. This short paragraph won’t do justice in telling our faith walk this past year so I’ll save it for another post sometime.

Ok, so that was a bit short and rather rushed but till next time...

MattaNe!