So we made it. After an 18 hour day of traveling we arrived to Japan on Friday. Our first weekend was spent traveling around Mito with our AET "Buddies". Casey and Trey are two awesome AET veterans who spent their time showing us the ropes.
Saturday we all went to Mito station, which is pretty much the center of the city. From there you can take a train or bus literally anywhere in Japan. While we were there, our buddies took us out for some for realz sushi. Kore Wa Oishi Desu. After lunch we traveled around all the different cell phone/internet providers. There's pretty much two main carriers for us to choose from. We're going with the one least like AT&T. It's likely we'll get iPhone 5's!!!!
....and you think I Instagram too much now...
Now it's Sunday. This morning we got to visit Mito Church. Everyone was super hospitable and Carmon got to meet one of the teachers from her school. So far we haven't done much relating to our jobs (we start training tomorrow) but we've been able to get familiar with our new apartment. Not to toot my own horn (this is MY blog) but it's pretty amazing. We have a button that fills up our bath tub. All of our lights and heaters are controlled via remote. There's a call button like on Seinfeld except we have a camera too!
KONICHIWA KRAMER
Anyway, without further ado, here's a video of our new place. Enjoy!
As of this morning, these two Okies know where we'll be teaching in Japan!
Mason will spend most of his week at Ishikawa Elementary School. Every other Tuesday he will teach at a separate Kindergarten/Preschool.
I (This is Carmon by the way. My turn to post) will be teaching at Daigo Junior High School. This is a good thing because the kids will (hopefully) be better with English than Elementary students, but it also makes me nervous because it's a lot easier to win the affection of a second grader than it is a sixth grader.
かわいい
(kawaii)
Japanese for cute
According to Google Maps and a rough idea of where our apartment will be, it is a 26-28 minute walk for Mason and a 16 minute walk for me. Throw in a couple bikes and this will be a piece of cake!
We'll make sure to turn on the "find friends" app.
As for our apartment, I believe the development is called the "Sinhara Mansions." Well, doesn't that sound spiffy! Turns out, "mansions" in Japan often refer to what we would call a condo. It's generally larger than an "Apato," and is built with more of a long term family friendly use in mind. We have been told that ours is one of the bigger apartments in the program which is a super big blessing because we plan to bunk our family and friends that visit.
We're looking at YOU Stacy and Charissa!
Our mansion is located near Horihara Sports Park which has a baseball field, ball game field, stadium, and one of the largest gymnasiums in Japan. The park itself is open 24-hours. Now we have no excuse to not exercise! Ben Berry and his wife (the AET's currently in that apartment now) have said that we will only need to buy a couch!! WOOHOO!!! That is so good to hear! That means we will have a bed to sleep in on our first night there and limited shopping to do.
Anyway, Mason and I are going to do our best to keep you updated on how life is going in Japan while we are away. With pictures, videos, and entries we should be able to keep everyone at home informed on how things are going. Please pray for the people we are to meet, our safety while traveling, and success in sharing the gospel. We leave the United States on Thursday, April 11th, arrive Friday the 12th, and start work on Monday the 15th! This is going to be insane.
And just in case we ever wonder why we chose to do this. We will just watch the following video and everything will make sense.
