Jet lag diminishing

 

Settling In

[ Local vegetables, fish, and soba noodles for dinner ]

It was a little touch and go for about 24 hours for me. I had a strong dose of culture shock and jet lag going on that amped up my anxiety level for about a full day. Ruminating thoughts of: what have I done? can I really drive in the snow? what, no dryer in the house? I'm going to miss my family too much, and will I be able to use that aggressive weed whacker after Tom leaves? set in on a grand scale. On top of that our hot water heater was not working and we were all enduring freezing cold showers on the daily :) .

I started yesterday morning with a phone call home to my mom, which really cheered me up. Then, I watched a beautiful, fluffy fox stride across the soybean field behind our house - she stopped to look at me for a long stare before carrying on ambivalent to my presence. That was magical. Next, one of my work mates showed up (the data manager) with lots of information and a friendly personality to answer a lot of the questions that I had. And finally, the landlord and his wife, and a repairman came by to fix the hot water tank. All was coming together once more in the world. I felt much better about everything and the rest of the day went swimmingly. 

[ Our neighbor, Gen ]

One of the neighbors stopped by, Gen Hisamitsu, to introduce himself. He was so friendly and curious about why were living in the nighborhood! He is a high school English teacher and he has written a book of short essays about his experiences. He went back home and brought us a copy of his book, Interactions with People are the Most Valued Treasure in My Life.  The book is available on Amazon and has both the original Japanese text and the English translation which he translated himself. 

[ Gen's Book ]

Later in the day, we found the local farmer's market where summer vegetables from local farms are sold. Each stall has a photo and information about the farmers and their work. We purchased some beautiful produce to bring back for dinner last night, along with a local wine and fish. We had a lovely evening cooking and enjoying the moment. 

[ Local Farmer's Market ]

Our next challenge is to solve the complex puzzle that is the trash. There is a very complicated separating of trash system with specific bags, specific preparations, and specific trash days that Norah has been investigating and problem solving. We did manage to find the trash depot for our neighborhood as a starting point. More on this later. 

[ Tom investigating the neighborhood trash depot ]