Lately...

This week we experienced going to the Dr. and the hospital for the first time in Japan. Nothing serious happened, but Brayden had the typical fever and cold symptoms for the third time this month. So I finally took him to the Dr. to make sure it wasn't developing into anything worse. The teachers at the daycare told me where to go and called to make an appointment for me. An employee at our school who speaks fairly good English went to the appointment with me to help translate, although the Dr. spoke a little English himself. The Dr.'s office was just like any pediatrician's office you would find in America--lots of kids and a fun looking waiting room with toys. The Dr. prescribed him an antibiotic which I went ahead and took because I was tired of Brayden being sick so often. They make/have all their medicines on hand so I got those in about 5 minutes and didn't have to go to another location for them. And, the total cost was really cheap, considering I had no proof of insurance (yet) and went home with two medications. That is one thing that is cheap here--healthcare. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but you can buy into their national insurance, which I believe is based on your income. From there on they pay 70% of health related costs. Anyways, he had a fever the rest of that day, and most of the next day. He just laid in my arms and slept most of the day and was very inactive. By the time we put him to bed on Tuesday night he was breathing really fast and shallow. A few hours later I counted his breaths per minute and I counted 80! I counted it several times and got an average of about 75 breaths per minute. Thats why we decided to take him to the hospital. I could not go to sleep knowing he was breathing like that all night long. I was worried he was getting pneumonia or something. The Dr. at the hospital listened to his chest and said it sounded fine, and that his breathing was fast because he had a little bronchitis. He also said he had a little ear infection, but basially sent us home and said there wasn't much he could do. We just had to keep an eye on him, continue the meds he was already on and wait it out. So we did, and the next day his fever went away and he was up and playing much more! It always seems to happen like that--they get really sick and scare you right before they turn the corner and start to get better! He is back to normal now and is playing/eating/sleeping like he always does. I hope the sick stuff going around is done for now, and that with the Spring coming soon we can be healthy for a while!!

School

I started language school a little over a week ago. So far it has been a mixture of really fun and really hard! We are learning so much at an accelerated pace so it is hard to remember everything we've been taught before we have to cram even more stuff into our brains. The course I am in is an 8 week crash course in Japanese, so that is why it is so fast paced. When I am done with this course I will meet with a tutor about twice a week, while Mike continues with full time language school. I am much happier with this plan because it means that Brayden does not have to go to daycare so much! He will only have to go for the couple of hours I am in tutoring. Its a much better fit for our family. This picture is a picture of my class. 6 of us are from our team (3 are in a different class), 2 people are from England, and one Canadian guy. There are so many different people at the school, it is definatly a multi cultural experience. I have met people from Germany, China, Taiwan and more. It's very interesting!

Our Home

I have finally got our home feeling like home lately. Here are a few pics of our dining room, kitchen, entry way, living room, our room, and Brayden's room. Brayden's room has a big desk in it that we are going to give to our friend eventually. We also have a third room that is Mike's office but I'm not even putting that picture up here because it is a disaster. (He likes it like that.) All of the furniture was already here when we moved in. The only furniture we have bought has been our bed mattress. We also bought a small convection oven, a big kitchen rack for appliances and food storage, and some of the miscellaneous things to make our place more homey, like picture frames and rugs. It was nice to not have to buy the rest. The furniture cost is included with our rent and for now is a better way to go for us. Stuff is so expensive here! I was expecting to live in a tiny apartment, so this has been a nice surprise to have this house. We really like it. We will still live in a tiny apartment when we move to Tokyo so we are going to enjoy linving here for the next couple of years!

Snow!

February is supposed to be the coldest month here in Okazaki. Yesterday, it began to snow at about 11:00am and kept going until the sun set that evening. The snowflakes were as big as half dollars. It was beautiful! It only snows every once in a while here, so it was a nice surprise. It melted away fastly today, but it was fun while it lasted. Here are a few pictures at the mall. One is from our car in the parking lot, the other one was taken from the parking area on the roof of the mall, looking out. And the third one is from our front window, looking into our front yard.

Lucille Ball in Japan

Well that was me today. Today I was the most annoying and noticeable foreigner in Japan, I'm sure. I started school today, and you would think I would have embarassing moments in class, being clueless since I don't know any of the language and our teachers only teach in Japanese. But school went just fine. I went to a Wal-Mart kind of store today, and thats where my crazy day sort of began. I was bending over to look at something on the bottom shelf, and as I did, I heard a little breaking glass sound. I turned around and realized that my butt had just knocked over a ceramic figurine onto the floor and it had broken!! A Japanese woman was standing nearby and saw it happen. I looked at her to see her reaction, and she was telling me something, which I thought was "pick it up." But no, she was telling me to sweep it under the table. I pointed to the store clerk to gesture that I was going to go tell on myself but this woman said 'no no' and waved her hand for me to walk away and ignore it. Well, I hung around for a few seconds because I felt bad just walking away, and two other women came into the store and started pointing at it and saying what I assumed was "Oh no, look at that! Someone knocked over that figurine!!!" So I went ahead and turned myself in because I felt really bad. I didn't know how they were going to see the situation. Did I just have a little accident or did I do something horribly offensive or klutzy to them? (I mean, it was klutzy, but I don't know all the social rules yet). The store clerk was surprisingly and fortunately very gracious to me and said it was ok and that I did not have to buy it. I was SO relieved!!! So then I finished my shopping and went up to the counter with two baskets full of stuff, (which no one in Japan goes to the store and buys 2 baskets worth of stuff, they only buy about half a basket at a time, I've noticed). I realized that they did not take debit cards and I only had $10, but my things were probably going to be $50. In America, I paid with a debit card most of the time, so I'm not used to carrying cash with me or making sure I have some cash before I go to the store.) So I started trying to ask the cashier (through charades of course) if she could hold my things behind the counter until I could come back after school with money to get them. We went back and forth with gestures trying to communicate, then she said this Japanese word that all store clerks say which is very loud and nasally and sounds like "EEEEEEE," which means "I'm here to help you." Well when she said that, about 5 store clerks come from all corners of the store and they were saying it back to her. They came up and were trying to figure out what was going on with me. So we did more gesturing and I figured out that I THINK they are saying its ok for me to return later to pay and they were going to hold my things. I left and hoped that I understood them right. So I went back to the store after school, and while I was grabbing one more thing to add to my basket a Japanese guy (probably about 20 years old) came up and said to me "Excuse me, English?" And I said "Hi" which in Japanese is "Yes." Why in the world did I speak Japanese to him when he asked me "English" while I speak English to people who are speaking to me in Japanese? I confused him for a while but then he asked me if he could take his picture with me. So I said OK and he used his cell phone to take our picture. So weird! Some people here think we're amazing, others are scared of us and think we're weird. So anyways, I went to the front of the store and noticed that the clerk had in fact held my baskets for me so thankfully I was able to buy everything just fine. So then I drove home and was getting ready to turn left into my neighborhood. I was on the left side of the road, trying to turn left. (Because they drive on the left here.) A car was trying to come out of the street that I wanted to go in but she was waiting for me. She was sort of in the middle of the road, but sort of on her left side. Well I forgot to go on the left and so I drove around her to enter the road on my right, which is the wrong side. Because she was in the middle there was a little room for me to go to the right side, but it was still a very tight squeeze because like I said she was in the middle, but just enough to her side to make it difficult. So I was pulling around her trying to squeeze through thinking "Geez, could I have a little more room?" Then I realized she was looking at me like "What are you doing?!" Which is when I realized I was on the wrong side of the road and was looking like an idiot trying to squeeze past her. Thankfully there were no other cars around besides her so it wasn't dangerous and I didn't look like an idiot in front of a lot of people, just 1. That was the first time I've driven on the right side of the road (besides in my neighborhood). So, all of those things added up plus school made for a very eventful day for me. I hope these kinds of things will happen less and less as I live here longer!

Update on Jehova's Witnesses

Last Friday the two Jehova's Witness women came back and this time Mike was home and was able to talk with them as well. We talked about a lot of different passages in the Bible, and a little bit about the differences in our faiths. They seemed to say they believed that Jesus was the Messiah and their savior, which I had read they do not believe. So we are not sure what all they believe because it was still very hard to communicate, even with an English speaker. (She spoke little, broken English.). At the end of our conversation, they said they wanted to be our friends and would like to invite us to their house sometime. They were also surprised at how much Mike knew about the Bible and said they could tell he has studied a lot. He told them that we were here because he wanted to teach the Bible to Japanese people and they seemed so excited about that. Although we did not set up another time to talk, I hope that we will see them again. They seemed to want to see us again. We are praying for them and for us to meet with them again and have more converations. I have to go for now but as soon as I have another opportunity I am going to write an update about our family. Bye!