Fuji-bound today!

Well we're here in Tokyo and have just about completed our orientation. We've learned a lot and gotten an amazingly large number of books and other materials. We've met a lot of people from all over the world which has been pretty cool. For example, the other night we went out to eat with people from our prefecture and then went and sang karaoke. The crew we were with included the following: an Irish guy, a British guy and girl, and Kiwi guy (that's New Zealand), an Australian girl, a Scottish girl, and some other Americans. It was a blast and a lot of fun to hear about their countries and to tell them about ours. It was especially funny to hear the British guy, Marc talk about how Americans have murdered the English language. We're definitely looking forward to hanging out with all of them some more in the future.

So we leave today to take a 3-4 hour bus ride to Shizuoka to go to the Board of Education there and then after that we will be taken by our supervisors to Fuji. Kely and I work at different schools so we have different supervisors and will probably be split up for the first time today. So that should be a very nerve wracking experience. But we're excited and hopefully will make our way back to the same apartment by the end of the day. And we'll also get our first look at Fuji-san today. That should be quite surreal.

I'm not sure when we'll get internet working in the apartment so it might be a while before I can write again, but I'll try to find time as soon as possible. Kelly has put up a video on her blog at http://kellyinjapan.com so check that out. Ja matta!

Getting crazy!

Well we leave in less than 4 days and I'm definitely getting excited and a little bit freaked out. Though I don't think it has officially hit me yet. It might not until I get on the plane. We're in Abilene right now seeing the Haseltines again before we go and dropping off Caspian until he's able to join us in September. We go home tomorrow and I think that I'll be sadder to leave him than anyone because he doesn't understand that we're not leaving him for good. But he'll be taken good care of and have fun and then we'll see him again in September. Jeff and Gwynn are giving us some good Japanese lessons in the midst of helping us work out countless details, and as usual we have books and papers spread out everywhere. It's a good thing our parents love us. :)

It's amazing how much there is to do when you move out of the country. I never realized how much I was responsible for until I had to start wrapping things up. Now I wish we had started sooner on some things. So (advertisement coming...) if anybody is looking to buy a car, we have two!

The Pre-Departure Orientation is Friday night at the residence of the Consul-General of Japan in Houston. I imagine that is going to be quite an experience. And to add to it all, I was asked yesterday to give a short speech at the reception that follows on behalf of all of the JETs that are flying out with us. How crazy is that? I guess I should prepare something, but I tend to give better speeches when I just wing it. Probably not a good idea in front of the Consul-General though, huh? So I guess I'll be writing that Thursday night.

So anyway, we've got almost everything done or at least figured out for the meantime. Wish us luck in final preparations. Here we go!