Hi…

3 weeks ago we started our language study. we are going to a school in Imadegawa. 100 students, tiny building – 13 in our class (Shokyu A – Beginners class)…It’s quite multicultural – european, asian and us 2 aussies. a good mix of 1/2 western and 1/2 asian. Many of the students have done prior study so they are already further ahead than ben and i – we need to work extra hard to keep up with them, especially the asians students as the language is already similar and familiar to their home country.

The intensive course is for 6 months. 3 1/2 hours a day 5 days a week… The pace is amazingly fast and is based mostly upon listening skills (uh-oh for me!!). The Japanese language is so different and alien to me. This is probably, realistically, one of the hardest challenges i have ever faced in my life. I am beginning to slowly make sense of the grammar..because it is all taught totally in Japanese I spend much of the class guessing the meaning of new words and grammar and when I get home I can check them in the dictionary. I think this is the best method of learning though – we are totally immersed in the language for about 5 1/2 hours a day at least (counting traveling)… already i can understand the gist of a conversation, or answer simple questions such as ‘no thanks i don’t want chopsticks with my sushi’ or ‘no i don’t have a point card for your shop’ (at least twice a day!)

Sorry the blogs are so slow coming… I had imagined it would be easy to post every two weeks – no problems… but since starting school all i have done is travel, study, homework and sleep… I think soon my body and mind will adjust to the new schedule and i can get back to doing things like blogging and socializing again! We are managing to still do bits of different ministry besides language learning though – meeting up with seekers or Japanese friends, doing some admin for WEC Japan and some sewing of banners for a church in Hikone City… so it’s nice to have some others things just besides studying… it gives us a bit more purpose.

There are so many thing i love about Japan – my new home… it is beginning to feel normal already and i feel that the adjustment period has came quite quickly for me as this is my second trip to Japan..I already had some idea about what to expect.. and i spent many many nights researching the culture and the country on the net so i was prepared and knew what we needed to do when we got here – i really think this helped us to not have so many unwanted suprises.

TV watching is also fantastic for language learning – so it’s a little bit of downtime that I can take without feeling like I am wasting precious time.

Tomorrow we have a test on chapters 4 – 7 of our Japanese study book so i should get to studying again. On Monday did a test on 1 – 3 and aced it. but not so sure about tomorrow as it’s much more in-depth and confusing. Still – it’s a good measure of what I understand and then i will know which bits to study more.

I cant belive we have been in Japan for almost one month – seems unreal!

So what has our time consisted of so far? A list of things I can think of…

1. Meetings…. it;s the tome fo the year for missionary meetings / pastors meetings etc. this has been good as we have been able to meet lots of people, talk and find out more about WEC etc.

2. Teaching an english class to people in our city… I was able to share about my life and also some about my faith… i think they enjoyed to listen to what I had to say ??

3. Sewing – fixing up and mending some clothes for other missionares.. and sewing table cloths and couch covers for our house.

4. Wandering the city – chekcing out the sights and observing the japanese people and way of living.

5. Orientation with our field leaders.

6. Ladies meetings at Kusatsu church.

7. Prayers meetings with whoever turns up on wednesday nights..

8. trying to pick up some language and to learn the alphabet.,.. it’s not as easy as i thought to be able to remember the different scripts! Augh!! I still havnt got it right and we start language school in 3 days time!

SO life has felt busy…. it hasn’t been an easy couple of weeks… homesickness and tiredness have been around a bit… but also remembering that God has called us to this country and it is him working through me that will accomplish kingdom things… not me working in my own strength…

I  wonder that these next few weeks will bring as we get stuck into language study!?

Bits and pieces of things I have noticed and experienced in japan so far.

sometimes when I am home in my house it almost feels like I am still in Devonport, Tasmania… all our belongings have arrived now and it feels more like ‘home’. Being in japan so far has felt like a holiday – I wonder when the transistion will come from holiday to home for me? Because Japan really is our new home, our new life and where we are going to be for an unknown period of time.

In Japan ‘Fragile’ obviously doesn’t mean anything (see the picture of the start our boxes arrived in!)… only 1 picture frame was broken, I couldn’t believe it because the boxes were so squashed they looked at least 10cm shorter than when we sent them!

Eating in Japanese style is quite affordable over here Before I came I heard so many reports of how expensive it is to live in Japan… but now I see it is only expensive if you want to eat and live like you would back in your home country, like a foreigner.

So far I have only seen 2 other white faces (besides the other missionary family here with wec)… I guess there are not many here in Kusatsu.. most people would probably choose to live in Kyoto if they were to come to this area… When we walk down the street, people stare at us, very politely though!. Some people even point or nudge their friends… and they talk about us too! I dont really mind… but I am surprised how not multicultural japan is compared to Australia. If only I could understand what they were saying! I wonder how long it will take before the novelty of having new foreigners in the city will wear off?

I am getting better at riding my bike – a few times I have even ventured out in pretty pointy toed shoes! Though it’s not as easy to ride in, most of the japanese ladies don’t wear sneakers when they ride because they are going to work or shopping etc. I still cant ride and hold my umbrella up at the same time though!