Konnichiwa from Atsugi, Japan!

After two months of living nomadically without a home, we have finally made it to Japan! These last two months have been jam packed, with James traveling between Virginia, California, and Florida for training, a vacation for James and I in Savannah, GA, two friends weddings in Blacksburg, Spring Game, lots of visiting with family, two showers for my new sister-in-law, my brothers college graduation, and his wedding! Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we left for Japan.  We left on Sunday morning (the 23rd) at 6:00 in the morning, and we arrived in Tokyo at 1:30 in the afternoon on Monday (the 24th). Our check-in went surprisingly well, despite the fact that the Navy spelled my name wrong on my plane ticket.  The flight to Dallas was only a few hours, and we slept the entire way, since we decided to not sleep on Sunday night.  (And we still had to pack for Japan, since we had spent a week in Connecticut up until hours before our flight left!) James and I have a way of jam-packing everything into small amounts of time, and then desperately getting our stuff ready for some crazy move we are doing.  Such is our way our life!

The flight to Tokyo was thirteen and a half hours, but it really didn’t seem very long.  I slept most of the way, and James went in and out of sleep, despite the three year old kicking him and creating a great deal of chaos with the flight attendants.  We were hoping the kid would fall asleep, and when he finally did, it was on the ground, which just created another scene.  We saw the flight attendants quite a bit on that flight.  Long flights mean lots of food, although I thought three meals was a bit excessive.  Our first meal included sushi (yay!) and I was hoping we’d get more, but it was just part of the first meal.  When we landed in Tokyo, it seemed like we had just gotten on the plane, yet like we had been on the plane forever.  We didn’t really know where we were meeting our sponsor, but we had hopes of running into him.  Customs and immigration took us less than five minutes, and all of a sudden there we were, in our new home! It was the first time it really hit me, and I was excited, but anxious as I realized what a big airport it was, and that we had no idea where we were being met.  We wandered for a bit, and couldn’t find the military liaison, which we later realized was in a completely different terminal.  Thankfully, James had met the guy who picked us up at his school in Florida last month, so they recognized each other.  I was thankful, since I almost had my first breakdown when I didn’t think it was possible to find the people picking us up!

The drive from the airport to the base was about two hours, and we were exhausted, so I didn’t take much in.  The freeways looked pretty much the same as ours, except you drive on the other side of the road, and I couldn’t read the signs.  But, basically exactly the same.  We’ve been here almost a week now, and we have finally started to really adjust to the time.  In the first few days, I woke up at 4:00 am every morning, and I would be wide-awake.  Usually I need an hour or two to feel even slightly awake, and that is slowly coming back.  We are moving into our new apartment on Friday, so these nomadic Hokies will finally have a place to live for the next three years.