6 years ago, as I’m writing this now, we were meeting our friend, Kevin, at Fukuoka International Airport, loading up luggage, and setting off driving across the northern part of Kyushu.
How did we get to this point, and how have we stayed for so long is a mystery to me.
A random Facebook post about looking for teachers by Kevin, someone we had known from conventions a long time ago (codename: Vinnk), interested my husband. He was a teacher in the US, but only a part-time hire, and it sounded fun to him. Why not move to the other side of the world for 18 months?
It was only supposed to be 18 months!
This is a running theme with foreigners here, I think.
Once we went through all of the interview stuffs and got the job offer, we had about a month to pack up and get to Japan. A month. To pack up a life, a sewing business, and everything we’d need to live somewhere really, really different than where we were at that time.
I didn’t do much research ahead of time, because everything I found was about surviving in Tokyo or Osaka, nothing really about inaka, country side, Japan. Nakatsu was described by Kevin as, “you’ve seen Totoro, so take that, but a little more city.” Where we live now is straight on Totoro, but that’s another story.
I flopped between being excited and terrified. I didn’t want to go, as the date crept closer. What would I do? How would I live? How would I even grocery shop if I didn’t know Japanese? How do I learn a language, when I know I’m bad at languages? These swirled around constantly, and my saving grace was reminding myself that it’s only 18 months. I’m strong enough to handle that.
How we fit our lives into 4 suitcases, I’ll literally never know. Except that the customs guys were really confused about a sewing machine packed in one.
Our first few weeks were rough. While we got help from the English school we worked at, it didn’t seem like a lot. Getting cellphones was a pain, and still is confusing when we go in to renew them or whatnot, because of how weird it was set up. We had nothing in the apartment except a bed, a hutch, a dresser, and a few dishes.
My first experience with Japan bureaucracy happened that first week, too. We had traveler’s checks that we needed to get cashed into Yen. We figured that shouldn’t be too bad, because the airport rates are horrid. We found an Oita bank, and headed in. Knowing no Japanese, we figured traveler’s checks are universal, they should get the hint. Oh boy, yeah, that was a trip. They found the one guy, I realize now, who vaguely remembered High School English, and had him act as translator, because it was a Saturday morning and no help lines were open. We sat for over an hour, watching the same pieces of paper get moved around, stamped, shuffled, put on someone else’s desk, stamped, handed to another person, who stapled them together, stamped, and handed back to the first person. A stack of at least 10 sheets of paper, just to cash traveler’s checks.
But that’s standard, I now realize. At least they didn’t have to fax anything anywhere.
We got bikes. We went to a used shop, and got a kotatsu (small heated table). We walked around the neighborhood. I learned how to cook with next to no money and one pan (a skill I still utilize to this day!). I also learned that you can’t use credit/debit cards to buy food in this country (or maybe that was just their policy locally, who knows?), which almost meant we didn’t have food for a few days.
That was, of course, before anyone bothered to tell me that 7-11 has international ATM’s. Or maybe they didn’t at that point; I don’t know, but it was a rough few weeks.
Regardless, we were here. We were somewhat settled. And, while it was so different from where we lived prior, it was so normal. I guess that’s what no one ever expects when you move to somewhere so far away, so different, is how normal it is.
And it has stayed that way. We went from no furniture to a sloppy apartment filled with stuff, including cats. It feels just as much home as when I come back to visit. We have no plans yet on when we’ll leave, but, all in all, it’s been a long, crazy ride.
There’s lots more to tell, I’m sure, as I look back through facebook, instagram and flickr, I realize all the things that we did that first month or so. I’ll have to post another time, because this one is getting rather long as it is.
I’ll leave you with some images from Nakatsu, the first few are from the first weeks in Japan.
