Under the Same Moon

So, we've arrived in "The Land of the Rising Sun" and everything still feels new and exciting. We've already learned some new things about traveling not-so-light as Veronica and I have very little experience between us when it comes to checking bags at the airport (usually we pack so light we never have to check a bag). It all started before we left Minnesota. As busy as we were getting ready to depart last Sunday morning, we didn't bother to check the American Airlines website for checked baggage guidelines. Hence, I ended up paying an extra fifty dollars for my luggage because it was seven pounds overweight. However, if I had packed the extra seven pounds into an additional second checked bag, it would have been free. Go figure. By the way, don't let Veronica try to fool you into thinking that I packed more clothes than she did for this trip (she may make this declaration later). I'll just say that size 13 shoes take up way more room than a size....uh, I don't know...6. End of story. I win.

Jet lag is an interesting phenomenon. You see, the primitive parts of the human brain like the area that tells us, "Jon, you're getting very sleepy, you need to find a pillow quick!" haven't evolved a coping mechanism for this type of situation. Needless to say, Veronica has overcome her jet lag and I'm still struggling with it at the moment. How else can I explain the fact that I just can't sleep past 5am no matter how hard I try. For anyone who knows how much I just love my mornings, you'll find some humor in that one. So, on Wednesday morning (sometime between 3 and 4am) I found myself doing some stargazing. The slim crescent moon was performing a dance with Mars and they almost had me convinced that I was witnessing a newly choreographed play by a new cast of characters. They simply looked too brilliant and too light on their feet to be the old cast that I've come to know so well. Was it my brain playing tricks on me? Perhaps...but it was a most memorable sight indeed.

America is in denial. You know how difficult it is to see out of your windows at night when all of the inside lights are on? However, at the same time, anyone outside looking in can see you as plain as day? Okay, in this analogy Americans typify the people inside while the rest of the world identify with the passerby. "America, I can see you now very clearly and guess what, you are extremely overweight and unhealthy." Ponder the following. Veronica and I have been in Japan for four days now. Guess how many Japanese people we've seen that are obviously overweight (more than 5-10 pounds)? Anybody? Well the answer to that question is ONE. That's right, out of thousands of people we could only find ONE overweight Japanese person (at least he looked Japanese, we weren't able to talk to him to confirm his nationality). Just let that sink in for a minute. I know it makes you want to step outside of the "house" so you can get a clearer picture right?

The stereotype of Japanese being very nice is true. We were a bit lost...O.K. a lot lost when we were trying to make our way from our Hotel in Narita back to the bus station at the airport. While most Japanese were doing the "I'm not going to engage in dialogue unless it's a matter of life and death" thing, one college aged woman took notice of our situation and asked if she could help because we looked like we needed some help. She was more than helpful. It was like she felt an obligation to not only tell us but show us where we needed to go. She was awesome. We only wished that we had taken a picture of her to remember her by.

How many times have you seen a Mercedes Benz or a nice BMW parked in front of a farm house? Well, if you come to Japan then you'll see it a lot. America needs to start paying our farmers better for the important service that they provide for our nation. We've got our priorities backwards in many ways. How did this happen? Can we undo it?

(By the way, the farm houses were really nice too, amazingly so.)

We just finished our second and last day of our training with Heart. There were eight other ALTs in the training with us. I was perhaps the oldest. I definitely wasn't the tallest (see picture). All of the others were American except the one Canadian (the ethnically Japanese man who was born and raised in Canada) and the one chap Carl, I mean "Cahl" from Great Britain. Everyone was really nice. We hope to keep in touch with everyone else as we all head our separate directions to the cities that we'll be teaching in.