Follow Cool Your Japanese Jets

Just a "for your information" post.  Did you know you can follow my blog?  For those not hip to the blog lingo, this means you can receive emails letting you know when I post.  This way you never miss a post! All you need to do is put your email address in the "Follow By Email" tool in the right side bar.  You will then receive an email every time I post with the post in the body of the email.  You can also click on the ads on the bottom of the email to contribute a few cents to the Sarah's Asian Travels Fund! Those of you more in tune with the blog scene can follow my blog by subscribing in the "Follow By Reader" tool. Thanks for reading - more posts on the preparation for Japan to come!

Preparing for Japan

As David and I prepare for our global move, we have been boxing, selling and giving away many of our worldly possessions.  Purging everything you don't need from your life can feel really good, and that is certainly true this time.  It is with a sense of fond remembrance and new freedom that we are donating trash bags full of clothing to Goodwill and a sense of excitement as we sell off extraneous furniture.  It feels great to have less stuff and even better to not have to move it into storage with our gracious parents in Colorado.  As I was cleaning out our desk, I found these two slips of paper.

These were the fortunes that David and I received from our fortune cookies on the day we were hired by Peppy Kids Club.  Our hearts full of glee and our tummies rumbling after our teaching demonstration and paperwork session in Toronto, we headed off to Chinatown and got some fantastic food and surprisingly accurate fortune cookies.  When we opened our cookies, we both chuckled and when we traded to see each others fortunes we nearly fell off our chairs.  That very day, we had been awarded the great honor of stepping on the soil of another country, and our food knew it too.

Moving to Japan has presented both David and I with a significant amount of preparation, and very little time to do it.  Now, I thought being unemployed for two months would give me plenty of time to sort out the global move, but the date approaches rapidly.  And thus, I apologize for not posting before now - life took over as it normally does. I thought I would share all the things we are doing to get ready for our Japanese adventure. The first step in moving halfway around the world is figuring out what to do with our stuff.  Most of it we are moving to Colorado for an extended stay in our parent's basements and possibly my parent's shed.  Some of it is coming along with us to Japan - but not too much. Some of it is being sold, donated or given away.  So, I am currently boxing, selling and hauling many things.  Now, I said this when we moved to Maine, but we still have too much stuff! I am hoping that during our year in Japan, the more spartan lifestyle will rub off on me. American consumerism has overtaken my apartment and it needs to stop.

Another big part of moving to Japan has been doing our research.  Both David and I have been reading, watching films and listening to stories about Japan, moving to Japan and living in Japan.  Not only has this gotten us increasingly excited for the move, it has been eye opening.  I am constantly amazed at the infinite number of different perspectives the human race has taken on the concept of living.  All over the world, as similar as all members of the human race are, people live their daily lives so utterly different from one another.  The Japanese concept of hierarchy and emphasis on group rather than the individual is interesting and exciting.  I can't wait to truly experience another way of life and embrace it as my own. Our other way of preemptively combating culture shock is to learn Japanese.  This is going ... maa maa.This means "so so" in Japanese.  I am still very much a beginner, but I have started to understand basic grammar, which is a step in the right direction.  I luckily still have access to University of Denver's library and can use Rosetta Stone Online for free!

Well, it is getting late here in Portland, ME so I will say adieu and thanks for checking in on the blog!