Costco is in Osaka about a 45 minute drive from our house. A slice of Little America says our new friend Art. He is going to pick us all up at 10am on Saturday, August 20 for an exciting excursion to Little America in a Big Box. Art is from Illinois and he has four kids at the international school where our kids will go. He says his wife knew that she could survive in Japan when she found out there was a Costco nearby. I actually do not have a Costco membership since I hated to buy things in such big bulk because then I had nowhere to put those huge quantities in my small house. But I’m willing…
Biking in Japan
Saturday, August 20 We’re taking the bikes out for a spin. Andrew, the homeowner, left us 5 bikes to use. There are 3 “regular” bikes of various sizes, 1 mountain bike, and 1 electric bike. An electric bike sounds like a luxury, but a lot of people are riding around on electric bikes so it turns out pretty common. Our next door neighbor at home, Greg, has an electric bike that he gerry-rigged himself that works great. He uses it to go to Trader Joe’s for groceries and to tool around town. Val says she’s going to use the electric bike as a quick escape method for any tsunamis at the ocean. Just throw Gary the cat in the basket…
8 hours in all?!?!
Friday, August 19: The plan is to finish our phone service connection at DoCoMo. I wonder how long it’s going to take today? The answer is: Another 4.5 hours! It took a total of 8 HOURS to hook up our service at docomo! Our friend says, “Welcome to Japan!” It was exhausting. Last night at docomo they weren’t sure whether we’d be able to use our phones that we brought from America. We sorted that out, and thankfully all the phones we brought – a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, 2 iPhone 6s, and Motorola Droid Razr – will work here. Today it was all about the paperwork. Mounds and mounds of paperwork. Now I have to cancel Verizon. How…
Japan Requires Lots of Patience!
It’s already Tuesday, August 16. I had a hard time getting back to sleep at 4am but I forced myself to lay there. I think I must have eventually fallen back asleep because I feel pretty rested. And Avalon’s fever feels like it’s almost gone! Yay. I had been thinking about taking her to the doctor today if she was still feeling hot. My list of things to do today include going to City Hall to register ourselves as residents of Minoh, going to the bank to get an account set up, and going to the phone store to sign up for Japanese service and getting off Verizon. International rates are knocking us out! $1.79 per minute because we…
The First Two Days
We touched down in Japan on Sunday, August 14 around 3 pm – or 15:00 Japan time. I have to get used to military time now that I’m here. It was very smooth! Except that Avalon isn’t feeling well. I think she ate too much candy because her stomach hurts. She ate a lot of the candy the Altshulers sent along with us, plus her own bonanza from the Balboa Candy store. Kansai Airport was very empty. We went straight through immigration and got our Japanese residence cards. By the time we reached the luggage carousel they had already taken our 9 large and heavy bags off the carousel for us. While we were getting our residence cards, a young…