New Furniture and Explorations

Hi all! We got some furniture last week and the apartment is looking much homier now! The sofa and table came as is, but the kitchen cabinet, a bookshelf, and a TV stand came in flat boxes and I put them together myself while Braden was at work. I was pretty proud of myself for managing it, but boy was my right arm tired when I was done.

I got a small oven from a yard sale page on Facebook, so I can bake now. It's also a microwave (those Japanese sure are inventive when it comes to space saving devices). A couple days ago I bought a washing machine and it's coming tomorrow (yay for not having to walk uphill with a bag full of laundry). All we have left to get for now is a TV and a car. The car is going to be a lifesaver around here. The buses only run once an hour most of the day, and they're often late... or early. 

The kids and I have done a lot of exploring recently, mostly in the big Urasoe Park behind our apartment complex. The park is huge, and we still haven't seen all of it. Last week while we were walking we saw some wooden steps going up a small cliff with some stone masonry set into the hill, so we went up to investigate. 

Google called it the 'Iso High Tomb'. There was an explanatory placard nearby but it was all in Japanese. I found an English explanation on a sign elsewhere in the park.

It says: "This tomb was made from a cave in the middle of a cliff and the front of which was sealed with stone masonry. The entrance to the tomb is large and of an old style, and it is said that Esonoyononushi, the father of King Eiso and three Aji (local rulers) are entombed here." The kids thought it was pretty cool and asked me if a zombie or ghosts would appear haha. 

Speaking of ghosts, Urasoe park surrounds a pretty massive cemetery. We walked by it today on our way through a different part of the park. Okinawan cemeteries are really different from the ones on the Japanese mainland, which are all concrete and consist of many small monuments all crammed together in a tight space. The cemetery in Urasoe was full of small stone buildings with monuments out front, all lined up in rows like quaint ghostly houses. 

We saw one that was particularly large and even had its own stone courtyard of sorts. Taran bravely went in to investigate.

Another interesting thing we did today was walk down a cobblestone road that is more than 300 years old. I was following the Google maps navi trying to find a nearby shopping center, and it took us to a really rough, stony road that went very steeply down into a ravine, over a small stone bridge that traversed a narrow river, and then very steeply up out of the ravine (apparently the King who had it built did not believe in switch backs. Only the shortest route was good enough for him XD).

We found an explanatory placard at the bottom of the ravine giving a little history of the road and the King who was known to traverse it frequently. The final paragraph says: "In the valley where the Makiminato River flows, an approximately 200m long and 3m wide stone paved road remains. The road in this area was called 'umadukerashi' (umakorobashi) as the slope was so steep that horses often collapsed from exhaustion. The bridge over the river was rebuilt in the Taisho and Showa periods."

All in all it's been a pretty interesting last couple of weeks. I found a couple of Japanese tutors for the kids, and we made some new friends at the local LDS church. One of the families had us over for dinner a couple nights ago. They have five kids and Clara and Taran had a lot of fun playing with them. Their little girl Noa, who's four, wanted to follow Clara everywhere, and Taran was in awe of their eleven year old son Riku and his set of battling tops. I'm going to try and find some for Taran's birthday next week. 

Well, that's all for now. We're hopefully going car shopping this weekend or sometime next week, and I hope we'll have one by the time I make my next post. 'Till then!

Urasoe Shi

 We made it to Okinawa!

Sorry for the wait, we've been pretty busy the last few days trying to set up house and such. Okinawa is beautiful, and the weather right now is great, warm but not stifling, and it feels like there's always a breeze coming from the ocean. 

On Monday we met in the lobby of the hotel where we did our quarantine with the other JETS, and then we were ushered onto a shuttle and to the Haneda airport. The flight to Naha was fairly smooth, no problems, and then the nice people from Urasoe City Hall met us at the airport with a cute banner that said "Welcome Braden, Melissa, Clara, and Taran." They asked if we were hungry (we were very hungry, as we had not had much to eat at the airport or on the flight) and Clara was craving McDonalds, so our first stop was Mcdonalds haha. After two weeks of cold meals the hot burgers and fries were amazing. 

After that, Braden was taken to the real estate agent's office while the kids and I were taken to a big park containing the ruins of Urasoe Castle. It was really interesting.

The views were AMAZING. The ruins were cool too, you can see them on the right of the picture where Taran and Clara are running up the path. I'll have to take a better picture of them next time. After Braden finished at the real estate agent's office, we all met up at the apartment and the real estate agent showed us the apartment and gave us the keys. It's a really nice little place, clean and well maintained, though the exterior is not very attractive.

For the last few days we've been doing a lot of shopping and exploring. The people at City Hall have been really great, taking us shopping and showing us where we can get good deals. We ordered some furniture from an outlet store, delivery on Wednesday, and then we were able to buy a stove and food. I'm glad I can finally cook again. Despite not being a very adventurous cook, and despite regarding cooking as a chore, I love eating home cooked food. 

We live very close to Urasoe Park, which is BIG, and contains not only castle ruins but a big playground and slide as well. The play area is on the other side of the park, so it's a bit of a walk, but totally worth it.

The kids really enjoyed playing around in the park, even though the big playground was closed due to Covid concerns. They still got to ride the big slide though. There were so many butterflies and birds, and it was so sunny and warm. It's easy to forget that it's November!

Braden is getting settled into his new job at Urasoe City Hall, and today he got to interpret for a couple of Marines who called City Hall with questions. 

The kids liked the big tree outside City Hall. It had a lot of vines on it and the kids told me it was the tree's beard. The building itself is pretty large, and Braden works in the International Relations Division on the 4th floor. It's only a ten minute walk away from our apartment, which is very convenient. 

Yesterday we got to visit Urasoe Elementary School, where the kids will start school in April (the Japanese school year begins in April, and we decided to homeschool until then so that the kids can learn a little more Japanese before they start). City Hall told us that all the kids starting first grade next year are required to have a health exam, and it happened to be yesterday. So we went, along with a bunch of other Japanese parents and their five year olds. We were the only foreigners that I saw, but the staff were very helpful and patient with us as we tried to navigate from one room to another. It was a fairly basic health exam, with quick checks of vision, hearing, teeth, speech and development, and then a doctor checked his heart and lungs. Taran was very sweet and told everyone ever 'konnichiwa!' and was greeted with smiles every time. Clara had fun tagging along and watching the proceedings. When it was over, we took the kids to the local convenience store for an ice cream.

Today, the kids and I rode an Urasoe City Bus for the first time. We don't live super close to any grocery stores (very different from when we lived in Nagoya and there were THREE within easy walking distance). We went to the nearest department store called San-A (in Japan, a large department store is like a small mall, with lots of stores and even a food court). We had fun exploring and then we ate some food and had ice cream at the food court. I filled a backpack and a big bag with stuff and managed to get it home, though I was sure tired by the time we got off the bus and trekked up the hill to our apartment (we live nearly at the top of a big hill). 

Anywho, that's all for today. Tomorrow we're going to a JET meetup near Okinawa City. Next week, our furniture is coming and I'll take another pic of our apartment when it's more filled up. The big appliances will come later, when we can get to a second hand shop. In the meantime, someone at City Hall gave us a medium sized fridge and we have a coin laundry nearby, so we haven't gotten a washing machine yet.

Until then!

Last day of quarantine! We are so excited to get out of here!

Here's some pics of what we've been doing to stay entertained during quarantine and the view from our hotel room:

As you can see, we've all had a lot of screen time, hehe. Taran made those little drawings on paper coasters that came in the room, and we also had some origami paper that we got in our bag of instructions when we arrived. I also had my embroidery and my e-reader, both of which have helped to pass the time. The view of the city from our window has been nice to have. A couple times the kids saw window washers cleaning the building next to us and they thought that was pretty cool. 

Tonight for Halloween we're going to eat some little ice cream cups and pocky (chocolate covered cookie sticks) and watch Halloween movies. And then tomorrow, we're off to Naha! We meet in the hotel lobby at 8:30am with about five other JETs who are also headed to Okinawa, and then a shuttle will take us to the airport. Our flight is ANA471, leaving Haneda airport at 11:15am and arriving in Naha at 2:15, so about a three hour flight.

Clara says that the first thing she wants to eat when she gets out of here is McDonalds, haha. I told her that the airport might not have a McDonalds, but we'll be sure to get her something tasty. 

I'll be sure to put some photos of our new apartment in my next post!

 Welcome back to the blog everyone!

It's been a while since I last wrote an entry here. We moved from Nagoya, Japan to Federal Way, Washington in the summer of 2017 and now, fall of 2021, we're back in Japan! Braden applied for the JET program again, the same program he was in while working in Nagoya, and once again he was accepted! This time, he has been assigned to work in Urasoe City Hall in Okinawa, Japan. 

It's been a wild ride getting here. We're currently in our 11th day of our 14 day quarantine at a hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo. We flew to Tokyo on the 16th (arrived on the 17th) and after a long and grueling walk through the airport presenting our negative covid tests, getting another covid test, and navigating various checkpoints (I have since dubbed this journey 'the trek through the nine circles of bureaucratic hell'), we finally made it to Immigration. The kids were real troopers, but we were all very tired by the time we got there. Thankfully, since we had kids with us, we were permitted to skip the regular line and use the Priority line (thank goodness for small favors). After getting through immigration, then getting our bags and getting through customs, we were ushered onto a shuttle to the hotel. The Japanese Consulate in Seattle, the Nippon Travel Agency, and representatives from JET and CLAIR (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) were all extremely helpful when it came to helping us get the right paperwork ready and arranging everything, it all would've been much more difficult without them.

Life in quarantine is pretty boring, but we've got a schedule figured out and we haven't gone crazy yet. The kids do school work in the morning, we exercise, call family, watch music videos, and then in the afternoon/evenings we play video games or watch TV. Braden has been doing online orientations and classes in the morning while I help the kids with their school work, and it helps the time go by.

The room we've got is nice, and very spacious (by Japanese standards). Probably the most unpleasant thing we've had to put up with is the food...

We aren't getting hotel room service. Instead, CLAIR has arranged for meals to be brought to all the JETS three times a day. The meals are typical convenience store style bentos. They aren't completely awful, and honestly I think that Japanese convenience store food is better than your average American convenience store meal, but the meals they bring us are cold, and there is not a microwave in the room to heat the food up. So yeah, stuff like cold fish and rice with cold cooked vegetables gets REALLY old after a couple days. There is a small store in an upstairs lounge that was set up especially for the JETS in quarantine and we can buy small pastries and instant ramen there to supplement the meals they bring us, but the kids complain a lot about being hungry (unlike us adults, they haven't quite honed the skill of eating something when you're hungry even if it's not that tasty). Good thing they like instant ramen.

But it's only for a few more days! On Monday we'll be boarding another plane, this one bound for Naha, Okinawa. We already have an apartment picked out and should be able to move in that day. The good people working at the Urasoe City Hall have arranged to take us to the Real Estate Agent's office as soon as we get off the plane to sign the necessary paperwork. We're very excited and can't wait to show you all pictures of our new home!

Here's some pics of the kids eating so you don't feel TOO sorry for them. But we're all very excited to get out of here and eat fresh food again. 

Check back in next week for my next installment. Goodnight!