Let the Games Begin!

Well, we are finally officially in our apartment! It feels good to have someplace to call "home." I think that we have all agreed that our favorite part of our new home are the toilets. Yes, the toilets...they have heated seats!!! They are actually bidets - though we haven't really used any of the features (it's all computerized - very hi-tech! :). Our air shipment is being delivered tomorrow so it will be nice to have some of our things.

Maddie and Nathan began school Monday. Their bus stop is right outside of our apartment. The buses are not like U.S. yellow school buses, they are more like charter buses with seat belts. Darren and I rode with the kids on the bus to school the first day. It takes about 45 minutes (each way) to get to and from school. The ride itself actually seemed to go pretty fast and wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Hopefully it will continue to be that way for the kids. We've allowed them to bring their Nintendo DS's (a couple of days a week) and on Wednesday they had a seven way Mario Brothers game going on with other kids on the bus (I guess they can join in wirelessly). Anyway, we dropped them off at their classrooms and then we went to an all day parent orientation meeting. Again, information overload. We were able to purchase supplies at the school store and lunch tickets. Lunch for Maddie is 500 yen (about $5.00) and for Nathan is 550 yen (about $5.50) a day! I'm sure once we get our kitchen stocked with food they'll be taking lunch most days...but for this week they're getting school lunch. The menus have been pretty American: hamburger, spaghetti, pizza, mac and cheese. But today's menu is: Gyoza, Yakisoba, Edamame and Egg drop soup… needless to say, it was a lunch box day. I’m not even sure what all that is, except for the soup of course.

The cost of lunch and the cost of everything else actually doesn't really matter when you're spending Monopoly or play money though (that's what I feel like I'm using when I spend yen!).

The kids had their first Japanese class on Tuesday and they both liked it. Nathan actually said he loved it and that the class wasn't long enough (hopefully he'll feel that way next week!). He learned how to write his name in Japanese and can do it by heart now.

Maddie's teachers name is Mrs. Lavender and Nathan's is Ms. Campbell. They both seem very nice. After the first day of school we asked them to rate school on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest and Nathan rated it a 1o. Maddie rated it 100. They have both made friends very quickly. We have done something with friends everyday after school since Monday. Our building reminds me of our cul-de-sac in Georgia. There are a lot of great families and friends to play with. We are planning a "building" pot-luck dinner in February.

One thing I have noticed is that all the ex-pats (ex-patriot's or ex-pats are people who live in one country but work in another - like us) are so overly helpful and generous. I heard that the ex-pat community in the Minami-Azabu area where we live is close and it seems to be true. We have been so blessed with meeting so many wonderful people in just three short days of school starting.

Darren seems to be enjoying his job. He went back to work on Tuesday. He's been working long hours. Hopefully now that the Internet is hooked up at home he will be able to work more at home in the evenings.

We are still trying to meander our ways around the subways. I haven't been brave enough to go on it by myself yet (except today for one stop). I do have a funny story to tell. We were on our way to IKEA last week and a Japanese lady asked me what stop Disney Land was and how she could purchase tickets (she must have been from a prefecture far from here). So upon confirming the stop with Darren I was actually able to help her buy her tickets...yes, VERY shocking I know! I was so proud of myself. Of course I got off the subway today and turned the wrong way and went out the wrong entrance and had to turn around and go back through the subway to the correct entrance, but hey, baby steps! :)


The thing that I have noticed most on the subway is that everyone sleeps between stops. It's very funny. Also, fashion is very evident here. The women dress to the hilt. Many wear short skirts and long boots with very high heels. It's crazy with all the walking they do - and it's winter! They must think, poor American girl, she has no fashion sense (but I like my sensible tennis shoes).



I have also noticed that the Japanese people are so very kind and work very hard. If they are working in the service industry they truly work to please you. I had a package come for me and missed it and the post office re-delivered it the same day I called them about it. They are really beautiful people, inside and out.

Here is a picture of what the Coke machines look like. They are ALL over the city...even down the off-beaten paths.



Here is a sign that we saw in a park. Very funny. Darren's inter-pretation of it was: Don't feed the pigeons because they poop on our clothes. A lot of people around the city (not our area) will hang their clothes off their terraces to dry.

I still feel like I am living somebody elses life or having an out of body experience!

I'll update more next week! (Maddie's class is making onigiri (rice patties) on Friday and we are going to Ueno Koen (a park) to hand them out to the homeless on Saturday).