Below are random photos of our life and surroundings in Akita City, Japan. There will be more in the future, but for now, until we get Internet in our home, this is the best we can do, posting from the unbelievably sunny main room of aL*Ve, a sort of hybrid between a mall and convention center in the middle of Akita City. It has wireless, but you aren't allowed to plug in your computer (which Tricia found out when a police officer told her to unplug from the socket; incidentally, the police here are kind and helpful as opposed to abrasive and intimidating. They don't carry guns, and they don't have much to do. Bike theft seems to be the main crime here, and I suspect most of the thefts are incidental, as nearly all of the bikes (called Mama Cherry) look the same (see pic below)). Life here has been good, and will get much better once Tricia and Jonas arrive. Our city has about 300,000 people, but feels much bigger. The city and people are far less spread out than comparable cities back home, and makes the place feel more vibrant, which I like.

Our supervisors greeted us at the airport with homemade signs welcoming us. The shorter of the two is Jason's supervisor, Naoko (NOW-oh-ko), who has the exact same Subaru as we did back home. We got a chuckle out of this. The other is Yoko, who helped us get our phones and took us all over the city shopping. They both have been very helpful and generous with their time, and made the transition much easier. Notice the baby Jonas in the corner of the sign.





Pictured below is the train/bus station and city center, which looks drabier in this picture than it actually is in real life. Below that is a house across the street from our apartment, and below that is our small but comfortable apartment. The living space here is smaller, but more than enough, as we have two bed rooms, and living room, and a separate kitchen and bath area.




















Our local grocery store. A short bike ride further is the much swankier "Gran Mart," which also has a McDonalds. But this place is cheeper and closer.



Fruit is expensive, while fish and most vegetables are cheap. Two small melons cost 1000 yen, or about $9.50.



Also in our neighborhood. Have yet to try the pizza or the ice cream. But seeing as its world famous, it must be great. Apparently, the Japanese love to drizzle mayo all over their pizza. In fact, them seem to love mayo on all their junk-type food, which is a good reason to avoid it.





This giant sign is on our bike route to downtown. To get perspective of how huge it is ("ridiculously large" is how our Japanese teacher put it), look how small the cars below are.



The famous Japanese karaoke bar. We went with a group of people, and I was underwhelmed (Tricia enjoyed it more than I). Instead of it being just a huge bar, each group gets its own personal room, and the whole deal just seemed more performance-oriented than fun-oriented. Still, its popular. This picture was taken on a Wednesday afternoon, and the parking lot was packed.



Kanto Festival. Akita City's big event. Guys hold giant poles affixed with lanterns and parade up and down the street. Unfortunately, it was so dark, we didn't get any good pics of the actual parade. But this is some of the post-parade fun.












A couple more shots of the Tokyo fish market.




A typical row bikes. Tricia and I each have one. They are very useful.



Our local dance/aerobics instructor, who apparently was trained at Universal Studios.



Coolbiz is not as cool as you might think. Its an indicator to all the men that they need to wear short sleeved shirts to endure the heat, but wherever it is they work, the air conditioning, if it exists at all, will not be turned on.



The soccer kids at my base school.



The exterior of my school, which is ancient and hot. Tricia's school (photos to come) is new and modern, and air conditioned throughout.



And finally, a picture of these girls, who have been terrorizing me for the last hour while I've posted this. They like to run up to me and shout something in English, and whenever I respond with some Japanese, like calling them "genki" (energetic), they roll around on the floor and laugh. They've also taken my cell phone, my mp3 player, and keep looking at the computer to see what I'm doing.

Jonas - Kawaii

Kawaii means cute in Japanese.
Jonas is having fun with my sister and her family in Missouri. We miss him a lot and can't wait for him to join us in Japan soon, but he does look happy and is always having fun during our video calls. Today when I called him he got really excited and said, "Mama." He waves and says "bye"at the beginning of the call, so he thinks bye means hi and bye, which makes sense since we wave for both. Our co-workers are excited to meet Jonas soon. Jason's supervisor has two kids and she said they can't wait to meet Jonas too.

We Have Arrived

After a long flight from Chicago via Kansas City, we arrived in Tokyo three days ago. Since then, its been a whirlwind. We attended conferences, speeches and welcoming ceremonies, and skipped conferences, speeches and ceremonies to catch up on some much-needed sleep. We've met many of the people who will also be working in our prefecture (like a state in the States), a list that includes people from Australia, Ireland, South Africa and Canada. Many of them are very young, though not all, and seem to be operating on a kind of euphoric high that you feel having recently graduated from college, started a new job and being in a new country. To a point, its been good to be around. But I think we're both ready to leave the party-atmosphere of Tokyo and head to what will be our new home, Akita City. There are actually many people in our area who are our age. And we've already have multiple babysitting offers. Now all we need to do is get that baby over here.

A large group of us went out for eating and (some) drinking the first night for a get-to-know you event. Highlights for me included being able to successfully ask for the restroom in Japanese, and being told by an extremely inebriated young JET, "That facial hair on you is really sexy." I'm not sure that was a highlight for Tricia, who was sitting right next to me.

The next day we got up a four a.m. and managed to negotiate the subway system through Tokyo (with much assistance from a couple of new Japanese-savvy friends) to the the wholesale fish market, the largest of its kind on the world, which was definitely a highlight for all us.

There is more, but that is all for now. In a few hours, we are off to Akita City, where we'll be living and working. Some photos are posted below. Talk to everyone soon.





Early on in the flight ...



... 12 hours in.




Jason checking himself out in a Japanese robe.

The welcoming ceremony at the JET orientation in Tokyo.






On the way to fish market via the subway around 5 AM.

Jonas is one and has a new haircut!

We regretfully have not been updating this site often enough! Jonas is now walking/running all over the place and is leaving baby-hood right before our eyes. He turned one on June 5th. We had a birthday BBQ with a 'baseball cake' made out of cupcakes.

On Tuesday Jonas went to the barbershop in Brookside for his first haircut. He did a great job and sat fairly still with Jason's help. I think he liked the buzz of the razor.

Updates on what Jonas is doing these days--His first word was dog. He loves our dog Lou and all other dogs. When he sees a dog, he points and says, "do." He also says "ba ba" for bottle and 'talks' using all kinds of noises. His cousin Holden can really get Jonas 'talking.' Jonas also says bye, bye and waves bye. He is demonstrating his independence more by getting upset when redirected and is often on the go. He will stop and take a break to listen to and look at books, which is fun to watch. He is trying to use his spoon to eat sometimes, but more succesfully uses his hands. He likes to explore anything new and is keeping us busy chasing him wherever we go.

Right now, we are trying to get ready for our move to Japan. We leave in four weeks! Time is going by fast...We will update this more often while in Japan to help us keep in touch with family and friends. We are going to miss everyone!