Welcome to Japan

Mrs. Mandy and i have arrived at our temporary destination and are (we guess) over the jet-lag.  It wasn't actually very debilitating at all.  We found ourselves wide awake at 5:30am the first couple of mornings, but now we can happily sleep until 8 if we want to.  

We were issued bicycles to use during our stay here, so that's a bonus.  Every bicycle in Hekinan is exactly the same, so you have to memorize rust spots or kick stand style, or serial number if you want to find it in a crowded bike-park.  Mandy said she will tie a ribbon on her bike.  I thought that was a good idea.

We are into our work schedules already, but as observers.  Next week we will finally move into our new digs and begin work for real.  Actually, i have a problem calling it "work".  We have it pretty easy, teaching our mother tongue.  Our foreseeable challenges will be

A) to go slowly enough, and B) to make it fun.  The poor students go to school seven days a week and usually they are tired and over-stressed.   

We were quite lucky to witness a geisha girl performance one night.  She is from Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan.  It was performed for a crowd of beer-swilling small town folk who very much enjoyed the show.  What a collision of ancient and modern. That's a common thought of mine here.  You have the slow, quiet, "Zen" traditions of ancient Japan, and then there's the chaos of crowded subways, department stores and over-stimulating video arcades.  Everybody's playing games on their phones all the time, or texting, or whatever.  We have to get phones too.  

Within a 10 minute bike ride from our apartment ("man-shon" in Japanese--not the most fitting word to appropriate into Japanese to refer to tiny, crowded quarters) is a Home Expo (a mini Home Depot), a batting cage, several restaurants of all types, a few 

supermarkets (these usually include upstairs department stores, dollar stores and video arcades), electronics stores, a library with a few shelves of books we can read, a train station and the Hekinan ACC office. 

Mandy has been offered a fork on a couple of occasions, but she's getting the hang of these things.  

ACC has around eight schools in the district.  Mandy and i each work at three of them, but never on the same day as each other.  We can bike to two of them, and i'll be driving to the one in Kariya, which is about 30 minutes by car.  The school has two servile econo-boxes that staff can use to get to work, and Mr. Adachi (the boss) even lets his teachers use the cars on weekend outings sometimes.  

This is a public toilet.  Not all of them are like this, but it sure is a nice treat 

when you sit down and the seat is oh-so-warm.  Notice the spray pressure is at half.  ...you gotta work your way up to full pressure. 

                                                                              

More to come!