The First Post

WARNING: If you know me or live in Japan, this is a BORING post.  Just a little "FYI" on who I am and what I do.

I have decided to start this blog as a way to keep in touch with family back at home as well as the friends I have all over the world.  If you don't know me but want to read about the mundane details of life in Japan anyway, then go for it.    I have been quite inspired after starting to read "married in Japan" blogs.  It started with seeing Gaijin Housewife in Japan (http://gaijinhousewifeinjapan.blogspot.com/) in the Japan Times and continued on with Gaijin Wife (http://gaijinwife.wordpress.com/), Always Leaving things Unfinished (http://alwaysleavingthingsunfinishe.blogspot.com/), Nay and Naoki (http://nayandnao.wordpress.com/), Sassymoo (http://sassymoo.blogspot.com/), etc.  I highly suggest all if you want a good read on the life of a non-Japanese woman married to a Japanese man.

Just a note, if I sometimes complain about Japan it is merely a way of me blowing off steam.  I love my husband and I love my life here.

As for, "about me," I am in my late 20's, from America, and live in Okayama-ken, Japan.  Though I won't give out all my details, it will be pretty obvious who I am if you know the area.  Japan is small and the gaijin (non-Japanese) community is smaller. 

I came here in 2005 and worked for an Eikawa (private English school) for three years.  I then went home for six months in 2008 to give it a go in America one last time, and then moved back to Japan in 2009 to the same area.  This was largely to do with my then boyfriend, now husband, who is Japanese.  We were engaged in the winter of 2009 and got married during the summer of 2010.  But we have basically been married since 2007. 

I am an English teacher because that is what most non-Japanese people do in Japan.  The catch is (or might be) that I love my job and am good at what I do.  Teaching English is never boring (especially when teenagers and kindergartners are thrown in).  It requires just enough effort to be busy but not enough to be totally tied with work.

In my free time I read, Read, READ and I watch movies.  I also hang out with the other foreigners in the area, usually at restaurants or karaoke boxes.  I try to study Japanese but usually it gets passed over for a good book or movie.  I do attend classes and so am at an ok level, but nowhere near where I should be.  I also recently joined a community choir which consists of about 50 30-80 year-olds.  Everything is done in Japanese so I am always struggling to figure out what page we are on.  Thank God for being an alto- I can usually just harmonize even if I don't know the words.  I figure that is Japanese practice enough. 

Whenever my husband gets free time, we usually drive to a big city to shop (he lived in Osaka for seven years so usually we head there) or go to the beach so he can surf and I can read.  If we get enough time, we head out even further to Kyushu, Wakayama, Shikoku, or Tokyo.  We speak in a crazy mixture of English/Japanese that only we usually understand due to a lack of grammar skills on both our parts, but it works.  He is quiet and I am loud but when we are together our personalities swap and I am the quiet one and he is the loud one.

OK- that should about do it.  If you have any more questions, ask away.