I don't know if anyone cares about this or not, but here are more pictures of places we've been looking at. So far none has tickled our fancy like the first one (technically second) that we saw however. I have to say I'm getting tired of the shoddy construction (RV feel).
3 more schedule for tomorrow, and we'll try to get 3 more for Friday. We are thinking if we don't find any serious competition by then, we'll go with the first one.
So, on to the iPhone nightmare. In Germany a few months back, before I had any guarantee of finding a job anytime soon, I bought an iPhone 4s unlocked from Apple and had it shipped to Germany. I didn't think I'd have any trouble using it in Japan, so even though I said a couple of times I probably should wait til I got to Japan, I figured...how could it not work? It's a world phone, truly unlocked, no problem, right? Right... So in Germany, I took my iPhone to the local cell store to get a SIM so I could at least turn the darn thing on. They suggested I take the SIM from my existing phone and convert it to micro SIM. She even pulled out a device designed for the job (looks like a stapler) and with one click, my SIM was now a microSIM and once inserted it started working fine. Even used it a few times to make calls. No data or anything...that was going to wait for Japan!
There are only 2 companies in Japan that supply iPhones, much like AT&T had the monopoly in the US originally. AU and Softbank. Softbank is on the base, so I went there first and explained my situation. They said simply that they could not provide me with a SIM and data plan. At all. Unless of course I wanted to by an iPhone from them locked to them (permanently). Event though they acknowledge (grudgingly) that the SIM should *work* just fine in my phone, they won't give me one. Wow. So I went in town and asked at AU...they said the same thing.
The problem is...I don't believe them!!!! There has to be a way to make this work, so I'm not giving up just yet. I've asked around and so far found no one who has been able to make this work, but I have some hope. My first shot today was to buy a cheap phone/SIM from SoftBank. I tried cutting the SIM myself, but botched it, so I'm going to buy another one tomorrow and be more careful. At least I would have a cell phone number. Second, we might try to make our way to Akihabara in Tokyo tomorrow. This is supposed to be an electronics/anime/manga mecca where one person told me I should be able to at least ask at about a thousand different shops to see if there is some way. This is so I can get a fully functional data plan.
At any rate, this is shaping up to be quite the nightmare and is reminiscent of my experience in Kuwait trying to get high speed Internet at our apartment. We eventually gave up on that fight after getting no where after months and months of trying. The blank stares in peoples eyes when I explain what I want to do is so frustrating. It's like...what, no one in the world has tried to bring an unlocked iPhone this country?! Anyway...
Oh, btw, the food is indeed awesome. We've had ramen (the real thing) once so far, and ate at a Hawaiian restaurant today for lunch. I want to eat at every restaurant I see...but time and money are limiting. Oh well, we'll get around to it.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Looking for houses
Yesterday was the Housing Brief, wherein we were informed of the process to go about finding a house here. Basically we were told we should make sure we sign a "navy lease" as opposed to a normal japanese lease because with the Navy Lease we don't need a co-signer, we can give 10 days notice (if we have to), and the Navy can get involved if there are any legal problems. I think that's going to be the way to go.
As contractors, we can't get appliances from the Housing Office, but otherwise we can take advantage of their other services such as listings, translators, etc... So it's a pretty good deal for us.
I had to run to another appointment with my company right after, so Kerri began looking through binders. It was kind of like shooting in the dark, so she just picked one at what we understood was our price range and made an appointment to see it later that day.
Meanwhile, I was getting the unfortunate news that due to contract changes, the way housing expenses are paid has changed. Instead of a cap and being reimbursed, we are being paid a flat amount each month. This amount is about $1000 less than we would have had if we had used all of our cap under the old system. We are still reeling from this alteration to things...
But we made our appointment to see the house anyway as at least it would get us off base (finally!) and out seeing what things look like. The first house was a disappointment. Aside from being too expensive, it was more "western" in style with only one tatami room, and felt very small. I think that's what comes of trying to do "western" style in a small space. The japanese approach seems to make more use of the space available with the sliding walls and such. Also, the building quality of the house was oddly shabby...it felt like the same materials used in a motorhome...lots of plastic and such. The final kicker was that the house was no where near any train or bus lines, so getting to work would be difficult for me.
So our agent (having learned more about our price restrictions and desires) showed us another house more in line with our new budget. It's a kilometer from a train station, very much more traditional in style, and quite large for the price (maybe too large actually). But we really liked the place and the area, so are pretty excited about it. Trying not to do our usual thing and jump on it right away...we do have time to keep looking. I took some pictures of this place and will try to put them up with this post.
Today we'll look at more listings at the Housing Office and try to set up more appointments. I've got an HR call early in the morning, but then nothing for the rest of the day. I've been told to keep Friday flexible as there may be more things to do (work wise) there. My first "real" day of work is supposed to be Jan 30. We have pretty much the rest of this week to keep working on finding a house. Next week is a week long orientation, so I don't think we'll have much time to look around. We are supposed to find a place within 2 weeks, but I don't know if that will happen. My employer seems to think it won't happen that fast either as we've been booked here at the Navy Lodge for 30 days (instead of the more common 14).
Oh, some of you may wonder what happened to our plans to find a short-term lease in a furnished place. Well that went down the tubes pretty quickly as 1) it's very expensive and 2) would pretty much restrict us to Yokohama and a downtown lifestyle (which I'm ok with, but Kerri and Rowan are not so cool with). So we decided to give up on that and just try to find our permanent home nearer Yokosuka than we originally had hoped. This means we probably won't be able to go to the church downtown Tokyo we were hoping to try out. There are some other churches nearby, including one affiliated with Victory in the philippines (my dad's church). We'll probably try them out next Sunday. There's also a Baptist church just outside the base.
Here's a map with directions from the base entrance to the house we looked at yesterday:
View Larger Map
And here are some pictures:
As contractors, we can't get appliances from the Housing Office, but otherwise we can take advantage of their other services such as listings, translators, etc... So it's a pretty good deal for us.
I had to run to another appointment with my company right after, so Kerri began looking through binders. It was kind of like shooting in the dark, so she just picked one at what we understood was our price range and made an appointment to see it later that day.
Meanwhile, I was getting the unfortunate news that due to contract changes, the way housing expenses are paid has changed. Instead of a cap and being reimbursed, we are being paid a flat amount each month. This amount is about $1000 less than we would have had if we had used all of our cap under the old system. We are still reeling from this alteration to things...
But we made our appointment to see the house anyway as at least it would get us off base (finally!) and out seeing what things look like. The first house was a disappointment. Aside from being too expensive, it was more "western" in style with only one tatami room, and felt very small. I think that's what comes of trying to do "western" style in a small space. The japanese approach seems to make more use of the space available with the sliding walls and such. Also, the building quality of the house was oddly shabby...it felt like the same materials used in a motorhome...lots of plastic and such. The final kicker was that the house was no where near any train or bus lines, so getting to work would be difficult for me.
So our agent (having learned more about our price restrictions and desires) showed us another house more in line with our new budget. It's a kilometer from a train station, very much more traditional in style, and quite large for the price (maybe too large actually). But we really liked the place and the area, so are pretty excited about it. Trying not to do our usual thing and jump on it right away...we do have time to keep looking. I took some pictures of this place and will try to put them up with this post.
Today we'll look at more listings at the Housing Office and try to set up more appointments. I've got an HR call early in the morning, but then nothing for the rest of the day. I've been told to keep Friday flexible as there may be more things to do (work wise) there. My first "real" day of work is supposed to be Jan 30. We have pretty much the rest of this week to keep working on finding a house. Next week is a week long orientation, so I don't think we'll have much time to look around. We are supposed to find a place within 2 weeks, but I don't know if that will happen. My employer seems to think it won't happen that fast either as we've been booked here at the Navy Lodge for 30 days (instead of the more common 14).
Oh, some of you may wonder what happened to our plans to find a short-term lease in a furnished place. Well that went down the tubes pretty quickly as 1) it's very expensive and 2) would pretty much restrict us to Yokohama and a downtown lifestyle (which I'm ok with, but Kerri and Rowan are not so cool with). So we decided to give up on that and just try to find our permanent home nearer Yokosuka than we originally had hoped. This means we probably won't be able to go to the church downtown Tokyo we were hoping to try out. There are some other churches nearby, including one affiliated with Victory in the philippines (my dad's church). We'll probably try them out next Sunday. There's also a Baptist church just outside the base.
Here's a map with directions from the base entrance to the house we looked at yesterday:
View Larger Map
And here are some pictures:
Monday, January 16, 2012
2am in Yokosuka
Good morning Nippon!
Our flight over wasn't too bad, as far as flights go. Aeroflot turned out to be pretty decent, especially on the long flight from Moscow where we actually had in-flight entertainment systems which go a loooong way to making a long flight more bearable. Kerri says the last few times she's flown to the states there have been no such thing, so we were grateful. Nonetheless, it was plenty long and other than Rowan (who slept for a couple of hours) we did not sleep. We arrived at Narita and made our way to immigration.
We had been told by our in-processing manager at CSC to present our "orders" (2 letters) to immigration and we should get our SOFA stamp. (SOFA = status of forces agreement; it means that we work for the military and are therefore under a different set of rules as far as living in japan is concerned). Well we did that, but they said they couldn't do it there and gave us 90 day stamps instead. They said we could change them later.
Fine, so then on through to baggage, where everyone else had already left and so our bags had been put onto a cart all ready for us! Easiest baggage experience evar. Outside to the pickup area where we were to be met by someone whose picture had been given to us...but there was no one there! In our near delusional state, we began to try and figure out how to make a phone call. The phone machines all accepted phone cards, which you could buy from some vending machines. So we needed Yen. Found a money changer, found the little form, waited til I got to the front and then saw that you needed your passport. So back to find Kerri with the luggage and get my passport, and back in the long line. Then I saw a sign indicating an ATM was nearby. Yay! So off to find the ATM. I had no idea what the exchange rate was, so I just pulled 50,000 yen (which I see now is $650, so not a bad first amount). Then of course, I discovered the phone machines don't take 10,000 yen bills. So bought some water (poor little stand...I didn't realize 10,000 yen about $100), but they didn't bat an eye and gave me my change. As I turned around I saw Kerri greeting a man! Yay! So we didn't have to figure out how to get to Yokosuka by ourselves.
He was very apologetic for being late, but there was terrible unusual traffic on the way (which we saw still backed up on the way back). In our stupor we made conversation for the 1 1/2 hour drive to the Yokosuka Naval Base, just south of Yokohama (which is just south of Tokyo). The fast roads are all toll roads here, and the signage is profuse. I'm sure we'll get used to it eventually, but for now I couldn't imagine navigating my way by car. Apparently though, when you rent a car for a specific route, the car rental companies give you all the pre-paid toll tickets you need to get there and back, which is convenient.
So, first impressions of Japan? Not too many since I don't feel like we've really seen Japan yet! At the airport it was a bit disconcerting how difficult it was to make a simple phone call (I was kinda hoping the phones took credit cards). But I was on my way to figuring it out. The drive back was mostly blocked by walls as they do a good job of trying to prevent road noise from seeping into the surrounding town. It was pretty much one contiguous city from the airport to just past Yokohama. At least once we started getting into the Yokosuka area proper the topography changed a bit and became really hilly with lots of trees and scrub brush. Everything is very dry...as in brown and gray. Odd, but I guess common as winters are quite dry here, so all the plant life dries up.
We were very tired, so we went straight onto the base (which is humongous!) and all the way to the other end, right at the northern tip on the water, where the Navy Lodge is located. We checked in, got our stuff upstairs and bid adieu to our friend who had driven us. After a couple of showers (it was about 4pm) we walked next door to the Chilis (I know, I know) ate dinner, walked back to our hotel and barely managed to take clothes off before falling asleep in bed at 5pm.
So now it's almost 3am after writing this post and Rowan and I are awake. Kerri's still sleeping though, so that's good. Once we are all awake I guess it's time to tackle our bags and stuff. We will be living here a maximum of 2 (possibly 3 but I hope not) weeks, so we need to kind of treat it semi-permanently. Can't have stuff lying all over the place or it wlll feel lots smaller than it is.
One big surprise to me yesterday was that apparently you have to register your bike to ride it on base. Yikes! My whole plan was to ride my bike on base (especially at first) because it is soooo huge! We'll have to try and figure that out today if possible as I have to start being places on Tuesday. Monday is a holiday though, so it might not pan out. Nonetheless, I plan on riding my bike and pleading my case if caught. There is a bus system here, but we're not sure how frequently it goes (especially on holidays).
We can leave the base and come on (passports + orders are necessary) so we might even venture out today if we feel up to it.
Tomorrow we attend the Housing brief, where we'll learn more about the process of finding a house. They give you several days up front to start the search, so that's nice. We are leaning towards finding a furnished short-term lease at first so we can have more time to find the place we really want. We'll see...
That's it so far, not much to go on yet (and no pictures!) but hopefully we'll have more for later.
Our flight over wasn't too bad, as far as flights go. Aeroflot turned out to be pretty decent, especially on the long flight from Moscow where we actually had in-flight entertainment systems which go a loooong way to making a long flight more bearable. Kerri says the last few times she's flown to the states there have been no such thing, so we were grateful. Nonetheless, it was plenty long and other than Rowan (who slept for a couple of hours) we did not sleep. We arrived at Narita and made our way to immigration.
We had been told by our in-processing manager at CSC to present our "orders" (2 letters) to immigration and we should get our SOFA stamp. (SOFA = status of forces agreement; it means that we work for the military and are therefore under a different set of rules as far as living in japan is concerned). Well we did that, but they said they couldn't do it there and gave us 90 day stamps instead. They said we could change them later.
Fine, so then on through to baggage, where everyone else had already left and so our bags had been put onto a cart all ready for us! Easiest baggage experience evar. Outside to the pickup area where we were to be met by someone whose picture had been given to us...but there was no one there! In our near delusional state, we began to try and figure out how to make a phone call. The phone machines all accepted phone cards, which you could buy from some vending machines. So we needed Yen. Found a money changer, found the little form, waited til I got to the front and then saw that you needed your passport.
He was very apologetic for being late, but there was terrible unusual traffic on the way (which we saw still backed up on the way back). In our stupor we made conversation for the 1 1/2 hour drive to the Yokosuka Naval Base, just south of Yokohama (which is just south of Tokyo). The fast roads are all toll roads here, and the signage is profuse. I'm sure we'll get used to it eventually, but for now I couldn't imagine navigating my way by car. Apparently though, when you rent a car for a specific route, the car rental companies give you all the pre-paid toll tickets you need to get there and back, which is convenient.
So, first impressions of Japan? Not too many since I don't feel like we've really seen Japan yet! At the airport it was a bit disconcerting how difficult it was to make a simple phone call (I was kinda hoping the phones took credit cards). But I was on my way to figuring it out. The drive back was mostly blocked by walls as they do a good job of trying to prevent road noise from seeping into the surrounding town. It was pretty much one contiguous city from the airport to just past Yokohama. At least once we started getting into the Yokosuka area proper the topography changed a bit and became really hilly with lots of trees and scrub brush. Everything is very dry...as in brown and gray. Odd, but I guess common as winters are quite dry here, so all the plant life dries up.
We were very tired, so we went straight onto the base (which is humongous!) and all the way to the other end, right at the northern tip on the water, where the Navy Lodge is located. We checked in, got our stuff upstairs and bid adieu to our friend who had driven us. After a couple of showers (it was about 4pm) we walked next door to the Chilis (I know, I know) ate dinner, walked back to our hotel and barely managed to take clothes off before falling asleep in bed at 5pm.
So now it's almost 3am after writing this post and Rowan and I are awake. Kerri's still sleeping though, so that's good. Once we are all awake I guess it's time to tackle our bags and stuff. We will be living here a maximum of 2 (possibly 3 but I hope not) weeks, so we need to kind of treat it semi-permanently. Can't have stuff lying all over the place or it wlll feel lots smaller than it is.
One big surprise to me yesterday was that apparently you have to register your bike to ride it on base. Yikes! My whole plan was to ride my bike on base (especially at first) because it is soooo huge! We'll have to try and figure that out today if possible as I have to start being places on Tuesday. Monday is a holiday though, so it might not pan out. Nonetheless, I plan on riding my bike and pleading my case if caught. There is a bus system here, but we're not sure how frequently it goes (especially on holidays).
We can leave the base and come on (passports + orders are necessary) so we might even venture out today if we feel up to it.
Tomorrow we attend the Housing brief, where we'll learn more about the process of finding a house. They give you several days up front to start the search, so that's nice. We are leaning towards finding a furnished short-term lease at first so we can have more time to find the place we really want. We'll see...
That's it so far, not much to go on yet (and no pictures!) but hopefully we'll have more for later.
Friday, January 13, 2012
The Final Countdown
Well we finally made it! We are sitting on our floor after having shipped the final boxes and moved everything else out of our house. There is nothing left to do tomorrow except pack our actual bags, eat a final meal at Rowan's favorite Italian restaurant, and go to the airport on Saturday morning.
Now of course, we're thinking tomorrow will be dull and boring. We'd much rather go now. But I have one more day of work left and all the final outprocessing to do on base. And of course our flight leaves on Saturday. Thankfully it leaves in the middle of the day so we're going to be plenty occupied that morning with getting to the airport with plenty of time to spare.
We fly about 3 hours to Moscow, have a 3 hour layover, then 10 hours to Narita in Japan. We'll be met at the airport by someone from my new company who will drive us to the base hotel. Other than that...we have no idea what's about to happen!
What a wonderful feeling...I've missed it.
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Road to Japan
Ok, I promised we're going to try to do better about updates now that we're moving on, so here's another post.
I mainly wanted to cover what it's been like from my (Jesse's) perspective with applying for and getting this position. About 3-6 months after getting here, we decided Germany wasn't for us. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that we were not looking forward to another year and a half here. However, I found some language in my contract that freed us from the full 2 year obligation, and meant that after 1 year we could leave. I'm fuzzy on the dates, but sometime in the August timeframe, I started looking for jobs in earnest.
Here's the breakdown of what I did:
1) Updated resume (2 versions: Word and Text file)
2) Sent emails to previous associates mentioning my desire to find work in Korea/Japan and see if anyone had any leads (BTW, this is ultimately what ended up landing the job).
3) Did some research on the web to find the top 10 or so contracting companies with large contracts in Korea/Japan.
4) Opened accounts with the job sites for all of these employers, input resume information, and began checking for available jobs that met my criteria. Repeat every week until leads start solidifying.
What ended up happening was that I got a contact/introduction from a former co-worker to a hiring manager at CSC, my new employer. He mentioned that their contract in Japan was up for bid and that some jobs would be coming up, so I should apply for them when I saw them on the website. It would be Oct/Nov before the jobs appeared. This was pretty accurate, and when the jobs showed up, I applied for any and all that I was remotely or overqualified for. Seriously...I would have done just about anything. Then I emailed him and let him know I had done all the online stuff and was anxious to hear back from them. He kindly kept me appraised of the situation as a couple of delays to the contract award occurred. Once the jobs firmed up, he let me know that I'd hear from the actual managers on the ground if they wanted to interview me. They did, and after a failed attempt or two, we did a phone interview via skype, early in the morning. A couple of weeks then passed as we waited to hear back one way or another...this was interminable! But after a little prodding, I did hear back that the answer was yes!
What followed then was a phone call with HR to hammer out details of the official offer, and then another week until I actually got it. I believe in being above board with my current employer and let my manager know what was up, though I could not officially resign yet until the offer letter arrived with the start date. This was all occurring just as our guests for Christmas arrived (Steve, Mayen and LuAnne), so we were a little weirded out by the idea that we would be leaving in about a month, but could do nothing to get ready for that fact until everyone left on the 4th (2 days ago!). Not completely true, we did start asking questions and trying to line up people to take our car (etc...).
Speaking of which, a new lesson learned is not to ask too many questions about something free! I.e. MPS (military postal system) is a free method of mailing stuff from one base to another. We did this with all of our stuff from Kuwait to Germany. Great! So I was asking the local post office about how they did it here, and he must have gotten the gist of what I was talking about because he outright asked if I was *moving* permanently to Japan (which of course I was). Apparently, if you are doing this, you are not permitted to use the free MPS...you have to pay for it like normal (about $70 for maximum of 70lbs). Ugh! Of course everyone told us to just say we are mailing it to someone over there instead, but now that we know, we couldn't break the rules like that. Anyway...quite a bummer. And here we thought we had at least one thing figured out by now!
Anyway, we have been using the website Bookoo (which is heavily used here in Germany by the military folks) to sell our furniture and other stuff. We were blessed to know a new family who took most of our furniture in one fell swoop! Well, they will take it on Saturday at any rate. Most everything else has sold, and we are confident we know what to do with what won't. There is a recycling center on base that we can dump most anything at, and the local bike store can sell our bikes for us if we can't find buyers prior to leaving.
Today we spent the day packing up the big stuff that has packaging and boxes (sound system, playstation 3, iMac, etc...) and we shipped 5 packages. Someone came for Rowan's bed too. So now things are looking quite manageable as we end this week and go into the final stretch. We just need to pack up the clothes and little stuff into the gorilla boxes we bought, and I think we'll be ready in plenty of time!
I mainly wanted to cover what it's been like from my (Jesse's) perspective with applying for and getting this position. About 3-6 months after getting here, we decided Germany wasn't for us. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that we were not looking forward to another year and a half here. However, I found some language in my contract that freed us from the full 2 year obligation, and meant that after 1 year we could leave. I'm fuzzy on the dates, but sometime in the August timeframe, I started looking for jobs in earnest.
Here's the breakdown of what I did:
1) Updated resume (2 versions: Word and Text file)
2) Sent emails to previous associates mentioning my desire to find work in Korea/Japan and see if anyone had any leads (BTW, this is ultimately what ended up landing the job).
3) Did some research on the web to find the top 10 or so contracting companies with large contracts in Korea/Japan.
4) Opened accounts with the job sites for all of these employers, input resume information, and began checking for available jobs that met my criteria. Repeat every week until leads start solidifying.
What ended up happening was that I got a contact/introduction from a former co-worker to a hiring manager at CSC, my new employer. He mentioned that their contract in Japan was up for bid and that some jobs would be coming up, so I should apply for them when I saw them on the website. It would be Oct/Nov before the jobs appeared. This was pretty accurate, and when the jobs showed up, I applied for any and all that I was remotely or overqualified for. Seriously...I would have done just about anything. Then I emailed him and let him know I had done all the online stuff and was anxious to hear back from them. He kindly kept me appraised of the situation as a couple of delays to the contract award occurred. Once the jobs firmed up, he let me know that I'd hear from the actual managers on the ground if they wanted to interview me. They did, and after a failed attempt or two, we did a phone interview via skype, early in the morning. A couple of weeks then passed as we waited to hear back one way or another...this was interminable! But after a little prodding, I did hear back that the answer was yes!
What followed then was a phone call with HR to hammer out details of the official offer, and then another week until I actually got it. I believe in being above board with my current employer and let my manager know what was up, though I could not officially resign yet until the offer letter arrived with the start date. This was all occurring just as our guests for Christmas arrived (Steve, Mayen and LuAnne), so we were a little weirded out by the idea that we would be leaving in about a month, but could do nothing to get ready for that fact until everyone left on the 4th (2 days ago!). Not completely true, we did start asking questions and trying to line up people to take our car (etc...).
Speaking of which, a new lesson learned is not to ask too many questions about something free! I.e. MPS (military postal system) is a free method of mailing stuff from one base to another. We did this with all of our stuff from Kuwait to Germany. Great! So I was asking the local post office about how they did it here, and he must have gotten the gist of what I was talking about because he outright asked if I was *moving* permanently to Japan (which of course I was). Apparently, if you are doing this, you are not permitted to use the free MPS...you have to pay for it like normal (about $70 for maximum of 70lbs). Ugh! Of course everyone told us to just say we are mailing it to someone over there instead, but now that we know, we couldn't break the rules like that. Anyway...quite a bummer. And here we thought we had at least one thing figured out by now!
Anyway, we have been using the website Bookoo (which is heavily used here in Germany by the military folks) to sell our furniture and other stuff. We were blessed to know a new family who took most of our furniture in one fell swoop! Well, they will take it on Saturday at any rate. Most everything else has sold, and we are confident we know what to do with what won't. There is a recycling center on base that we can dump most anything at, and the local bike store can sell our bikes for us if we can't find buyers prior to leaving.
Today we spent the day packing up the big stuff that has packaging and boxes (sound system, playstation 3, iMac, etc...) and we shipped 5 packages. Someone came for Rowan's bed too. So now things are looking quite manageable as we end this week and go into the final stretch. We just need to pack up the clothes and little stuff into the gorilla boxes we bought, and I think we'll be ready in plenty of time!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Moving to Japan
Jesse here: Kerri just sent out a great news summary of our move to Japan. I'm going to post it here. Some additional minor details are that I'm going to be working at the Yokosuka Naval Base, which is a couple of hours south of Tokyo. We'll be in a hotel on base for a few weeks until we find our house. That's about all I know at this time!
Here is Kerri's email:
Here are some details on our upcoming move to Japan. I was writing this email and realized that it would make a good family and friends newsletter of sorts.
There really is nothing like having a house full of guests and getting the news that you are moving 10 days after they all leave. I can honestly say that this is a first for me. Jesse had been talking with the hiring manager from this company that had jobs in Japan, and did finally have an interview, but we hadn't heard anything back for several weeks. We started thinking that it was falling through, or it would be delayed and put it out of our minds. So about two days after Steve and Mayen arrived, Jesse got a phone call saying, "You're hired". They asked when he could start and he said that mid February would be ideal. They came back to him with, "we need you to start Jan. 17th."! It really took me some time (maybe a week or so) to even comprehend what that meant and that it was really happening. I just kept saying, "Oh, it will be fine." A lady at church said, "either you have a really good attitude or you're in some serious denial." I think maybe it was a little of both, but mostly denial. Don't get me wrong, we really want to go to Japan and have for a long time, it's just the crazy timing and the speed at which it's happening.
When we moved to Germany and purchased all our furniture (having sold everything in Kuwait) we decided to get decent stuff that we wanted to keep and actually ship it to the next place. Well, as it turns out, this job doesn't offer shipping. We had a guy come and give us an estimate for what it would cost for us to ship the stuff on our own, and it was more then we paid for the furniture in the first place. So once again I am selling everything we own (for the third time in a row). In Kuwait it was easy because we lived in a complex with tons of people who were in and out and always looking for cheap furniture. Then there were the maids to take all the small odds and ends. Here, everyone is moving out since the base in closing and not many people are coming in. I was quite worried that selling furniture would be very difficult, especially in the midst of holidays and people on vacation. Even so, we have already sold almost everything to a new family in Heidelberg that we actually knew in Kuwait. They just moved in to their house and needed a lot of stuff. They are also graciously allowing us to keep the stuff until we are closer to going. So I just have a few big items left, and I can take small things to a thrift store in Heidelberg. Another big difference this time is that Jesse is around for the actual packing, selling, and moving. I have done it myself in the past and the whole process is kind of like a black box to him. I'm not sure yet if having him around will be a good thing or not, but at least he will have a better understanding of all that is involved in an international move. It turns out that you don't just pack one bag and get on a plane! Also for the first time we are flying to our new country together. We have tickets for Jan. 14th, which is exactly 10 days after everyone leaves. We will get it all done, but I won't pretend that it won't be a stressful 10 days.
Rowan never really took to Germany, so he is ready to go. That makes things a lot easier than leaving Kuwait, which he loved so much. He would still rather go back to Kuwait, but the idea of sushi and noodle soup being a stone's throw away has him pretty excited. The saddest part about leaving Germany is saying goodbye to our landlords who have been the most wonderful people to live with (they live in the bottom apartment and we live on top). They had all of us down for a big meal last night and we had such a wonderful time. They have truly been a blessing to us and we really hate to leave them at such short notice. Other than that, it really isn't a big emotional hardship for us to leave Germany. It's funny, because we really loved Kuwait and most people hated the place so much, but most people really love Germany and we are rather indifferent. It's not that we hate it here and there are many good things, we just feel (and have felt from the beginning) that it wasn't the place for us. We are really hoping that Japan is a place that we can settle down for a while, maybe even a long while. I think we are ready to stop this crazy pin balling around the globe and just settle somewhere. We plan to have a guest room so please feel free to stop on by!
Here is Kerri's email:
Here are some details on our upcoming move to Japan. I was writing this email and realized that it would make a good family and friends newsletter of sorts.
There really is nothing like having a house full of guests and getting the news that you are moving 10 days after they all leave. I can honestly say that this is a first for me. Jesse had been talking with the hiring manager from this company that had jobs in Japan, and did finally have an interview, but we hadn't heard anything back for several weeks. We started thinking that it was falling through, or it would be delayed and put it out of our minds. So about two days after Steve and Mayen arrived, Jesse got a phone call saying, "You're hired". They asked when he could start and he said that mid February would be ideal. They came back to him with, "we need you to start Jan. 17th."! It really took me some time (maybe a week or so) to even comprehend what that meant and that it was really happening. I just kept saying, "Oh, it will be fine." A lady at church said, "either you have a really good attitude or you're in some serious denial." I think maybe it was a little of both, but mostly denial. Don't get me wrong, we really want to go to Japan and have for a long time, it's just the crazy timing and the speed at which it's happening.
When we moved to Germany and purchased all our furniture (having sold everything in Kuwait) we decided to get decent stuff that we wanted to keep and actually ship it to the next place. Well, as it turns out, this job doesn't offer shipping. We had a guy come and give us an estimate for what it would cost for us to ship the stuff on our own, and it was more then we paid for the furniture in the first place. So once again I am selling everything we own (for the third time in a row). In Kuwait it was easy because we lived in a complex with tons of people who were in and out and always looking for cheap furniture. Then there were the maids to take all the small odds and ends. Here, everyone is moving out since the base in closing and not many people are coming in. I was quite worried that selling furniture would be very difficult, especially in the midst of holidays and people on vacation. Even so, we have already sold almost everything to a new family in Heidelberg that we actually knew in Kuwait. They just moved in to their house and needed a lot of stuff. They are also graciously allowing us to keep the stuff until we are closer to going. So I just have a few big items left, and I can take small things to a thrift store in Heidelberg. Another big difference this time is that Jesse is around for the actual packing, selling, and moving. I have done it myself in the past and the whole process is kind of like a black box to him. I'm not sure yet if having him around will be a good thing or not, but at least he will have a better understanding of all that is involved in an international move. It turns out that you don't just pack one bag and get on a plane! Also for the first time we are flying to our new country together. We have tickets for Jan. 14th, which is exactly 10 days after everyone leaves. We will get it all done, but I won't pretend that it won't be a stressful 10 days.
Rowan never really took to Germany, so he is ready to go. That makes things a lot easier than leaving Kuwait, which he loved so much. He would still rather go back to Kuwait, but the idea of sushi and noodle soup being a stone's throw away has him pretty excited. The saddest part about leaving Germany is saying goodbye to our landlords who have been the most wonderful people to live with (they live in the bottom apartment and we live on top). They had all of us down for a big meal last night and we had such a wonderful time. They have truly been a blessing to us and we really hate to leave them at such short notice. Other than that, it really isn't a big emotional hardship for us to leave Germany. It's funny, because we really loved Kuwait and most people hated the place so much, but most people really love Germany and we are rather indifferent. It's not that we hate it here and there are many good things, we just feel (and have felt from the beginning) that it wasn't the place for us. We are really hoping that Japan is a place that we can settle down for a while, maybe even a long while. I think we are ready to stop this crazy pin balling around the globe and just settle somewhere. We plan to have a guest room so please feel free to stop on by!
Friday, May 6, 2011
Latest News
Wow...things are not going well for this blog so far.
I don't know what it is but for some reason it's just not flowing like it did in Kuwait.
Oh well, if I keep putting it off I'll never post anything.
Since the last post:
We got our bikes! Yay! Kerri and Rowan have been riding everywhere on the tandem (at least twice a week to do laundry on the base). My folding bike is awesome too.
We've started riding in to Heidelberg on Sundays for church. It's about 20km and takes about 1.5 hours. But the train is 1 hour and costs 15 euro, so we have some pretty good motivation to bike. And now that the sun is rising earlier and it's not so freaking cold outside, it's getting easier.
We went to the Starkbierzeit (strong beer festival) in Munich a couple of months ago. That was our first trip via train out of town, so it was a learning experience. But we had a good time, travelled with a friend from work, tried the strong beers at least 4 different breweries. Generally we prefer the strong beers because they have more flavor. However, I tried the Augustiner Heller (a lighter beer with a nutty flavor) and was pleasantly surprised. We also met up with an old friend of mine from the Philippines (Sarah for those who know her) and her husband Martin and 3 little girls. They live about an hour west of Munich and drove in to see us and have a lovely picnic lunch in the Englischer Garten. They were really cool and we hope to go visit them again in their little village which is near Lake Chemsie. It was only for the weekend, and there was so much we wish we could have seen, but it's only 3 hours away by train so pretty sure we will get back to Munich again.
We took another day trip to Wiesbaden which is close to us. They have hot springs and otherwise a nice town. The base in Wiesbaden is one of the possible places my workplace may be relocated to eventually.
Speaking of day trips, we've been using 60 Day Trips in Germany as a very useful guide for our travels. It is oriented around day trips that you can get to by train from 4 major hub cities. We're trying to concentrate on Germany since we are living here, so the rest of Europe is kind of on the backburner. I'm sure we'll be back this way again someday.
Between Heidelberg and Mannheim is a cute little town called Ladenburg. I rode through it by accident when riding to church and we've been back several times. They have a lovely cobblestone downtown area, with buildings that are from the 1600s. Restaurants and a green riverbank...it seems off the beaten path and there is little information about it. Most of the "tourists" are Germans out for a weekend walk. This is becoming our "town" that we take visitors to see. It 's about half way to Heidelberg, so about 45 minute bike ride. We figured out how to get there by train the other weekend and took Kerri's dad who is visiting.
Kerri's been to Poland with some friends to buy pottery (beautiful and cheap!), and we hope to go back for our church retreat in about 3 weeks.
As I said before, Kerri's dad is visiting and they are all (including Rowan) currently in Venice for the weekend. She'll put her dad on a boat and he'll do some more travelling on his own.
We're getting more involved at church, as much as we can living where we do and not having a car. I've taken over doing the church bulletin as the guy who used to do it will be leaving soon. Also starting to learn the sound board. The worship leader is leaving soon too and no one has stepped up. We could do it...but being so far away puts a damper on being able to get to rehearsals and such. The local home group we've been going to has started meeting at our house as the leaders (worship leader again) are leaving soon. We hope to keep it going after they leave but so many people are leaving there might not be anyone left. This is normal for around here though, so we hope some others will show up. There is a John Deer factory in Mannheim, so there are some expats living here associated with them.
We took a german class at a nearby "people's high school" (volkshochschule). Once we had our bikes and we heard about it, the price was right, and it was Tues/Thurs from 6-7:30pm, so we signed up. Did that for about a month and half til the class was over. We opted not to continue on to the next part as we got what we wanted and were getting pretty tired of having Tues/Wed/Thurs evenings completely taken over (homegroup on wed). So now we are back to normal.
There was an incredible (and incredibly funny) cultural experience we had a few weeks ago at our landlord's surprise 60th birthday party, but I'll let Kerri write a post about that.
I think those are all of the high points since the last post. We have a few pictures, but really not enough. Getting the pictures off the camera, into the computer and then sorted through is just not happening lately.
Work is...meh. I could vent more but why? I can make it through the 1.5 years left easy...at least there is plenty of other stuff to enjoy. We are once again aiming our sites at Japan/Korea/Asia after Germany. I heard from several people after the tsunami along the lines of "good thing you weren't in Japan!", but I actually felt sad that we didn't get to be there to live through that experience with the people. Maybe we could have been a more direct help to them. Kerri and I are more and more finding our hearts drawn to the Japanese people and culture. We are hoping to see if after moving there we can find a way to become tentmaker missionaries. The gospel is sorely needed there.
Anyway, that's it for now...it's late...got to ge to bed.
I don't know what it is but for some reason it's just not flowing like it did in Kuwait.
Oh well, if I keep putting it off I'll never post anything.
Since the last post:
We got our bikes! Yay! Kerri and Rowan have been riding everywhere on the tandem (at least twice a week to do laundry on the base). My folding bike is awesome too.
We've started riding in to Heidelberg on Sundays for church. It's about 20km and takes about 1.5 hours. But the train is 1 hour and costs 15 euro, so we have some pretty good motivation to bike. And now that the sun is rising earlier and it's not so freaking cold outside, it's getting easier.
We went to the Starkbierzeit (strong beer festival) in Munich a couple of months ago. That was our first trip via train out of town, so it was a learning experience. But we had a good time, travelled with a friend from work, tried the strong beers at least 4 different breweries. Generally we prefer the strong beers because they have more flavor. However, I tried the Augustiner Heller (a lighter beer with a nutty flavor) and was pleasantly surprised. We also met up with an old friend of mine from the Philippines (Sarah for those who know her) and her husband Martin and 3 little girls. They live about an hour west of Munich and drove in to see us and have a lovely picnic lunch in the Englischer Garten. They were really cool and we hope to go visit them again in their little village which is near Lake Chemsie. It was only for the weekend, and there was so much we wish we could have seen, but it's only 3 hours away by train so pretty sure we will get back to Munich again.
We took another day trip to Wiesbaden which is close to us. They have hot springs and otherwise a nice town. The base in Wiesbaden is one of the possible places my workplace may be relocated to eventually.
Speaking of day trips, we've been using 60 Day Trips in Germany as a very useful guide for our travels. It is oriented around day trips that you can get to by train from 4 major hub cities. We're trying to concentrate on Germany since we are living here, so the rest of Europe is kind of on the backburner. I'm sure we'll be back this way again someday.
Between Heidelberg and Mannheim is a cute little town called Ladenburg. I rode through it by accident when riding to church and we've been back several times. They have a lovely cobblestone downtown area, with buildings that are from the 1600s. Restaurants and a green riverbank...it seems off the beaten path and there is little information about it. Most of the "tourists" are Germans out for a weekend walk. This is becoming our "town" that we take visitors to see. It 's about half way to Heidelberg, so about 45 minute bike ride. We figured out how to get there by train the other weekend and took Kerri's dad who is visiting.
Kerri's been to Poland with some friends to buy pottery (beautiful and cheap!), and we hope to go back for our church retreat in about 3 weeks.
As I said before, Kerri's dad is visiting and they are all (including Rowan) currently in Venice for the weekend. She'll put her dad on a boat and he'll do some more travelling on his own.
We're getting more involved at church, as much as we can living where we do and not having a car. I've taken over doing the church bulletin as the guy who used to do it will be leaving soon. Also starting to learn the sound board. The worship leader is leaving soon too and no one has stepped up. We could do it...but being so far away puts a damper on being able to get to rehearsals and such. The local home group we've been going to has started meeting at our house as the leaders (worship leader again) are leaving soon. We hope to keep it going after they leave but so many people are leaving there might not be anyone left. This is normal for around here though, so we hope some others will show up. There is a John Deer factory in Mannheim, so there are some expats living here associated with them.
We took a german class at a nearby "people's high school" (volkshochschule). Once we had our bikes and we heard about it, the price was right, and it was Tues/Thurs from 6-7:30pm, so we signed up. Did that for about a month and half til the class was over. We opted not to continue on to the next part as we got what we wanted and were getting pretty tired of having Tues/Wed/Thurs evenings completely taken over (homegroup on wed). So now we are back to normal.
There was an incredible (and incredibly funny) cultural experience we had a few weeks ago at our landlord's surprise 60th birthday party, but I'll let Kerri write a post about that.
I think those are all of the high points since the last post. We have a few pictures, but really not enough. Getting the pictures off the camera, into the computer and then sorted through is just not happening lately.
Work is...meh. I could vent more but why? I can make it through the 1.5 years left easy...at least there is plenty of other stuff to enjoy. We are once again aiming our sites at Japan/Korea/Asia after Germany. I heard from several people after the tsunami along the lines of "good thing you weren't in Japan!", but I actually felt sad that we didn't get to be there to live through that experience with the people. Maybe we could have been a more direct help to them. Kerri and I are more and more finding our hearts drawn to the Japanese people and culture. We are hoping to see if after moving there we can find a way to become tentmaker missionaries. The gospel is sorely needed there.
Anyway, that's it for now...it's late...got to ge to bed.
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