65 hours

So it's been just about that since we left our favorite country. It's been a fantastic whirlwind, I think better than either of us expected--maybe because we didn't really know what to expect! Tuesday night Mom let J choose our last meal . . . pork loin on the grill and then we watched old home videos. (We'd eaten Chipotle for lunch) We got about 3 hours of sleep and left for Dulles about 4:30am Wednesday. All was uneventful. And then we arrived at Dallas. We had minimal time between flights and upon boarding, they started called "All rows all passengers" right away. Weird, right? For a 13 hour international flight? To Tokyo? Sure enough--the 777 had hardly anyone on it and J and I ended up with a row of 5 seats for the 2 of us . . . our feet met in the middle for what turned out to be a great 6 hours of sleep! :) We arrived at Narita airport in Tokyo at 1:10pm on Thursday. TYPICALLY (and so far, without exception from the polling I've been doing) people moving here spend their first night in Tokyo and then transfer to Haneda airport the next morning. Somehow our tickets were not set up that way--and to change them would have required J going back to Korea with his credit card (really--so stupid). SO we rushed through immigration and customs and buying Yen and bus tickets--and were on a bus to Haneda at 2:05. Our flight left at 5:25. We've heard that bus ride can take up to 3 hours. Yikes. Ours took just over an hour. So by 3:30 we'd checked in and were searching for the advertised Starbucks!! :) The flight north was also uneventful; however, it was quite interesting to watch as we went further and further north how the weather turned darker and cloudier. And it hasn't stopped raining since we got here. There were probably 20 people from J's work waiting at the airport when we arrived. Super fun--but hard to remember names. Working on that! When we checked into our hotel, our sponsor family had already left us with tons of snacks, welcome packet, and even manacotti and garlic bread in the fridge! It was amazing! Friday morning I was up off and on from 2:45am on while J slept . . . we started some errands about 10--found out that 2 of our 4 shipments are in Japan if not here already. And we started house hunting about 11:30. We found 2 right off that we liked, and then later in the afternoon, about 4:45, we found #3--that we loved. And although nothing is official, J talked with the agent last night and it looks like we can have that house near Sept. 20. And if not . . . we still like the other 2! This particular one is 3 bedroom/2 bath with a garage. 3 bedroom--bonus!!!!! We've only had 2 our entire marriage! 2 bath! yippee!!! GARAGE--in a world of carports even though they measure snow in feet here!!! And we were both in bed by 7:30 last night. And it's 5:23am as I type this. J has already gotten us coffee and started a load of laundry. Jet Lag. So our plan for the weekend is to look into transportation. I kid you not, J has already looked into a mini-van. It's a souped up mini-van, but that's still what it is :) And when it's gets to a better hour we'll call about a SUV type thing for me . . . we're advised that 4WD is the only way to go here . . . so that's where we're looking. Sunday our sponsors (who are friends from our time in Arizona) are probably taking us to a fish market . . . And Monday morning we should be able to start the paperwork on this house. What else . . . our mail works. We have gotten almost everything we sent ourselves from the States and Korea. Internet is ONLY downstairs in another building--so I haven't been able to SKype near what I had hoped--or at all. But looking out the window right now I can see blue skies beyond the clouds and it looks like it'll be a beautiful day! We woke up to the sound of seagulls out our window . . . The first thing J said to me was "I think we're going to like Japan."