In Japan and loving it!

July 22^nd, 

Where to start! We arrived in Japan at roughly 3:00pm. The flight was along, over 10 hours, so we were wiped, but still felt pretty good. Brooke had a meltdown just before and after her nap, but did great for the rest of the trip. We had some nice comments from others on the plane, saying how well she did. When we arrived, Henry, a staff member at the Embassy was waiting for us, as soon as we exited the plane. Thank goodness he was there, as it would have been confusing to figure out the airport on our own. Our FIRST of many mistakes to come, is we automatically started standing on the right side of escalators, well here in Japan they stand of the Left. Henry corrected us, and let us know that Japan, being fast and efficient would get a big upset if we stood there on the right not moving, when they wanted to get by, LOL, good lesson. A short walk from the plan, we walked by a Medical station, there you HAVE to tell them if you’re sick, and they will do a medical check if you are, which means you may have to be quarantined, crazy! Also, as you walk by the medical station they somehow take your temperature, and if you have a fever, they will stop you to check out. We were able to get through customs and other areas quite quick, as we had our Diplomatic passports, which meant we could go in speedy lines, and not the long lines that was saw there.

We left the airport, and drove to the Embassy, which was about an hour drive. If there was an accident or if it was rush hour, Henry advised us, it could take up to 3 hours. It was just a small view of Japan, but from what we saw, it is a gorgeous place. When we arrived at the Embassy, Graham’s co-worker, Mark met us, and invited us over for dinner. It was 2:00am our time, but decided to go, as it would be best to try to stay up, so we could get over the JetLag sooner. Brooke was doing great as well, so another good reason we could go. We had a spaghetti supper, then went home to bed for about 9:00pm (6:00 am our time). I was up several times, but am over the jetlag now.

It’s been almost a week, and are really loving it. We live right on the Embassy, so are surrounded by other Canadians, all of whom we have met are very nice. The people in Japan are also very nice, even though we can’t understand them most of the time; you can tell they are very courteous and friendly. We have been told, that if you drop a wallet with hundreds of dollars in it 99.99% of the time, you will get it back, as people here are so honest. If you drop something they will run down the street to give it to you, or leave it at a nearby lost and found. The crime rate is very low here, which is nice to hear, and many people leave the doors unlocked. You would think with a high population, it would be the opposite, but that is how their culture is.

Within a 2 minute walk of our home there are tons of restaurants, which is nice, and I would say with in a 20 minute walk there are probably several hundred restaurants. People here tend to eat out a lot as groceries are expensive. We love it, as Edmonton we had almost nothing that was within walking distance. The restaurants are quite cheap also, you can get meals from $5.00 upwards, and believe it or not the $5.00 meal is awesome. My first Japanese meal was curry chicken, rice, and a miso like soup with noodles, it was really good. Brooke had 3 small bowls of the noddle soup, which she called Spagetti, LOL. We all love the food. There is an East Indian restaurant just down the road, that we also tried, and it was really good. Just outside of our house there are vans that park at lunchtime, and you can buy a Bento Box, which is a boxed lunch. They can be a variety of things; so far we have seen steamed pork, sushi, and curry bento boxes.

Our place is beautiful, and this is just our temporary residence. Right now we have a 2 bedroom plus den, and are moving to a 3 bedroom plus den in a month. The furnishings are very much Canadian style and sizes, and are very modern. At our next place we are going to have a huge terrace that has a good view, which we look forward to. The complex has a swimming pool, gym, squash courts, and playground.

Every Friday the Embassy puts on a Happy Hour, so $2.00 - $4.00 drinks, and you get to chill and hang out with the other residence. We went to our first one, and met several other nice people. There were 3 other children there, two of them were one year old and one of them was 2. Graham likes his job so far, and his hours are either 8am – 4pm or 11am – 7pm Monday to Friday. We plan to venture out and do something every weekend.

For our first weekend, we went to an antique show. We bought a Japanese Fan and Table runner. The table runner is actually a part of a Kimono, but a lady mentioned they also work as Table Runners, so I bought one, and it looks great! The next day we went for a walk to a place called the New Otani Hotel. On the way we seen a Buddhist Temple that was open to the public. We walked around the temple, and wow, I can’t even put it in to words, it was very beautiful and peaceful. We hope to visit many more of them while we are here. I will post some pictures soon. The Hotel was amazing, the reason I picked it out is it was a quick 15 minute walk from our home, and it mentioned a free Japanese Garden. It actually use to be a mansion of one of the old Japan Lords, it has a path, lots of greenery, bright red bridges, a pond and large Koi Fish. It was such a nice place to visit, and we will probably go back as they had a pool and a few restaurants that we didn’t get a chance to check out. We also checked out a place called Roppongi, it was roughly a 25 minute walk from our home. We will have to go back there at night, without Brooke J It is known for it’s nightlife, and to me felt kind of like Vegas, sports bars, karaoke bars, dancing places, shopping and much more, it was very cool. It is still hard to believe that all these places are so close by us.

I think that is enough for now. As I said I will post pictures soon, just need to get them downloaded