As I write this, there is a man walking around our neighborhood banging two sticks together very loudly! This has happened every night at 9pm so far since we have been here. Apparently it is to remind people to switch off their heaters so they don’t burn down the house when they go to bed…. Pity it’s the middle of summer and only our air conditioners are on… but tradition is strong in Japan so they do it anyway.

Today we went to the city office to become ‘aliens’… We rode there on the bikes – around 5km total for the trip (before this I had only ridden about 200m down the road). So tonight I am sitting on cushions!

We forgot some photos that we needed to get the registration complete so our fellow missionary and translator rode back to our house to get them while we filled out the forms and tried to follow the instructions from the officials… VERY difficult to communicate with the poor people at the desk when we don’t speak the language, but they were very patient with us and we did finally understand (I think).

Then we were sent to get our garbage bags for the next 6 months (I cannot begin to describe what a difficult and intricate process doing your garbage is in Japan! You have to see it to believe it!)  Jurgen told us afterwards that they often make new people watch a video about it as well but thankfully we were spared that due to our bad Japanese!

Then we went to the Hanku shop to order our seal so we can sign (stamp) papers. Ours will simply be ‘J.H’ for now, until we choose some Kanji characters to represent ourselves. And after that we headed to the Post Office to set up our ‘post Money Account’…. This is used much more than the normal bank as most banks seem to be only in one area (e.g. Shiga Bank) but post offices are everywhere so we can always draw out money in Japan with this new account.

After lunch Jurgen drove us out to the Wec Japan Headquarters and we were able to pick out some furniture to take to our house that was being ready to get thrown out. We were able to get a few good pieces, especially for our office/sewing room. It was a nice drive through the country side.. it is definitely more run down and poor in the rural areas,  the houses are very traditional Japanese, without a lot of the modern influences… there are lots of rice paddies and melon farms as well.

We arrived in Japan on Friday night after a 1 hour delayed plane…. I was glad for the delay because while we were waiting I was able to talk to the Japanese women sitting next to me, her name was Fumi, and she was a medical doctor from Osaka… it encouraged me to be reminded of how friendly the Japanese are.

We were met at the airport by our field leader who helped us find our way home to our little house in Kusatsu. We were exhausted when we got finally got here…Fell asleep literally as we hit the pillows (which by the way, are very strange… not nice and soft like we have in Australia, they have plastic ball things all around the pillow..hmmm)

The house was different than I expected. I had only seen pictures of the outside.

Upstairs is three lovely tatami mat rooms. They are comfortable and freshly wallpapered. We have designated one as the office/sewing room, one as a prayer room and one as a bedroom. We sleep on futon mats on the floor – and they are suprisingly comfortable!

Downstairs there is a genkan (entance way), a lounge room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. It is hard to describe.… It is a typical Japanese house.. with bits tacked on everywhere and 6 different renovations that were never quite finished! Our backyard is a strip of concrete about 50cm wide (ben can hardly fit out there at all!) Our front yard is non existent –and we walk right out onto the street, which is quite a busy one.

We have borrowed some bikes for the time being – so we can travel the Japanese way… I am still very wobbly on mine and I panic each time a car drives towards me – which is quite often! If only I had videoed the first time I got on the bike, the missionary taking us to the shops was in hysterics because I looked so funny and rode so badly!

It is so hot here, and humid… It was the first thing I noticed when I got off the plane. It is the most intense heat I have ever experienced. They say a few weeks ago it reached 40.5 degrees C… this week it has been around 33 – 35.

So far the most frustrating thing for me is not being able to communicate with people… I have so much I want to say but I don’t know the words to express myself. Language school is still 1 month away. Slowly I am learning new phrases.. one that I hear ALL the time is ‘KawaiI’ which means ‘so sweet’ or ‘cute’.. it’s very popular!

I have walked to the shops a couple of times a day just to wander around, see people and experience Japan. There are so many funny inventions and things that they sell! The 100Yen Shop (like our chickenfeed – but good quality) has so many things packed in and it is fun to try and guess what they are by looking at the pictures.

The food is fantastic, healthy and mostly cheap (except the rice). I don’t really have any idea what I am buying and so far we have only had 1 mistake.. We were trying to buy Wakame (seaweed salad), which is one of our favorite dishes… but we ended up with just the plain seaweed, which is really not very appetizing, quite chewy and we don’t know how to make the nice sauces and things to make it into Wakame, so it is still sitting in the fridge. But so far so good.

Everything is different from Australia… most in subtle ways though.

There are so many things to try and remember. Shoes off, slippers on, slippers off, shoes on etc!

‘Haji me mashite’ for when you first meet someone. ‘Ohaiyo Gasaimasu’ for hello before 10.30am. ‘Konichiwa’ for hello other times of day.

The correct way to bow – hands in front and crossed for women and beside the legs for men – at a 45 degree angle with eyes downwards!

We have been to a few church meetings. Church on Sunday was really interesting.. in some ways it was very similar to Australian church.. yet of course in Japanese. They have a time for testimony of what God is doing in peoples life, and then they pray for them (which I really enjoyed)… some of the songs were familiar tunes as we sing them in church in Australia, but they had been translated into Japanese… (eg. Hosanna). There was a sense of reverence towards God, that I had not really seen experienced before in a church.

Today I went to the ladies meeting… They were really getting into the bible and were very quick to share about what they had learnt.. there was a lady who was not a Christian who came along and she really seemed to connect and just be drawn into the group. We shared lunch together afterwards, as we did after church on Sunday as well.

Oh – there is so much to tell! But this entry is probably long enough for now.

I’m off to practice my bike again!

17th September 2007

Well. It’s been almost 2 months since I wrote in my blog….. There’s a couple of reasons for that –the first is that I have only had sporadic internet access for a few minutes at a time this past month, as we’ve been living in other peoples houses… and the second is that I didn’t really know how to express myself as I have been through a difficult time… I was never quite sure what to say.. But now things have calmed down a bit I have time to write and explain.

Ben and I are in Japan now… we arrived two weeks later than excepted.

We left for Melbourne after a wonderful commissioning service with our church in Tasmania – we felt so supported and loved.

Our purpose for going to Melbourne was to receive the certificate of eligibility from the Japanese immigration department so we could apply for a Visa at the consulate in Melbourne. After 1 week waiting, waiting, waiting in Melbourne and four days before we were scheduled to leave Australia for Japan we received word from Japan that our application for visa had been rejected and that we couldn’t come to Japan!

It was a big shock for us as we were told everything should be fine.. and then it wasn’t. People began praying all over the world for our situation… We felt that God was telling us to keep going forward, that he did want us in Japan to serve him and that somehow he was going to open the door and soften the hearts of the immigration department. So we sat and waited (though sometimes NOT very patiently!) and waited and waited..

God did work miracles… I could write about this for pages and pages – but in short, our field leader and a Japanese pastor visited Japan Immigration and had a meeting with them, asking them to reconsider… and they did! We had to reapply again from the beginning but the whole process only took 1 week instead of the 4 months it took the first time. God opened the door for Ben and I to serve him in Japan. We received a 12 month visa just 24 hours before we had scheduled to fly out to Japan for the second time!

So I am here now! Jessica really is in Japan… now the blog can really start! It feels surreal.. strange and different, yet very homely.

The Journey Begins