The House/The Contract

Well we got a packet of information from Ichinohe. It was my contract, a brochure about the town (in Japanese), and some other information about the house. After a moment of reading, you know the other party was good at English, but they aren't a native speaker. In the part about the house it said, "Your place contains the following items:Everything (Furniture, Appliances, Cooking ware, etc)." Everything? Everything leaves a lot of room to interpenetrate. Does everything include heaters? Yes. Does everything include towels? Maybe.
What I am more worried about: does everything include piles of junk accumulated by former Teachers who lived there? Answer: probably things that were to big to take home and not big enough to sell. I'm told that between the three ALT houses there is a large collection of books. That is the kind of stuff that is good to know is there. The good thing about what Samantha and I are doing is that I'm going first so if there is anything I forget that we just have to have she can bring it.

The things I know I have to bring are gifts for 75 teachers that can be small. Prizes and teaching aides suitable for middle and elementary students. A nice gift for my boss. Professional/winter clothes for me and money. The many generous wedding gifts that we received will help with all that.
There are many other things to get done before we leave. I will need to make a power point about my life in America. We have to get our visas to enter Japan which we applied for.

There was a little hiccup with Samantha's ticket. We bought her ticket when we believed she would be changing her name. Now, for various passport-related reasons, she has to keep her maiden name for a while longer. 10 years ago, this might have been a simple fix. In a post 9-11 world though this name change is treated with all the severity of a TERRORIST THREAT. An hour and a half on the phone with Orbitz (somewhat) fixed the problem. Hopefully this whole escapade doesn't backfire somewhere in Chicago airport.

About Ichinohe

Ichinohe is a small town in Iwate Prefecture which is in the Northern part of the main island of Japan. The town has 15,000 people, 4 of them foreigners. Three of them are English teachers for the local school board and the other is Samantha. One of them has already been there for a year. For a little more background on the town: it's cold. There are several feet of snow a year and the only thing that anyone has told us there is to do in winter is ski/snowboard. I think that this means we will certainly learn to ski/snowboard. The guy I'm replacing says not to expect to see the ground from about December to April. To make the cold even more fun, houses in that part of Japan don't have insulation or central heating. That means that all of the heat we have in the winter will be from space heaters mostly kerosene which in turn means that for ever hour the heater is on we will have to have a window open for an hour. This will keep us from dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. Also, at night we will have to turn all the heating devices off to prevent fire. Which means that when we wake up the house will be as cold inside as out. However, we are both excited for the adventure of it all. It will be a new experience and we will learn a lot about each other and Japan.

About this blog. Samantha and I will both be posting here. That way you will get both our perspectives in one blog. We look forward to sharing our experiences with you and hearing your comments about them.