We got up pretty early so we could stop in at my men's group meeting in order to get prayed over. It was a pretty emotional goodbye for me since we have been meeting together for over a year. It really meant a lot that they were willing to lay hands on us and ask God to help us on our way.
I was really stressed about getting to the airport on time (Holy moses, yes he was!), so of course we were late. God took care of us though. It was the fastest check-in and security line that I've ever seen during daylight hours before!
We were supposed to fly out on Delta and have a fifty minute layover in Detroit before heading overseas. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed by more than fifty minutes! At first Delta said we were out of luck, but they found a United Airlines flight for us through the Washington-Dullas airport.
On our flight to Japan we were in the second to last row which was good and bad. It was good because we had the whole middle row of four seats to ourselves. And the armrests lifted up! Lauren took full advantage of that by laying down all the way for about half the flight.
The downside of that was the meal choices. They fed us three times on the plane and two of those times we had a choice of meals. They actually had really good meal choices... for people sitting near the front. There was always one really good meal and one terrible sounding one and we knew as soon as they announced it that they would be out of the good meals by the time they got to us. We survived on Ramen and tea. (Coffee for Lauren of course).
The first six or seven hours of the flight were really enjoyable for us. We got to relax, read, watch movies, snooze. We hadn't really gotten to relax all week because we were so frantically trying to get everything ready before our trip. The flight just went on and on and on though. It eventually got really boring and uncomfortable.
When we got to the airport we went through passport control and then got our bags from the conveyor so we could take them through customs. When I picked up one of my suitcases, it felt really light to me, so I opened it up. My xbox, which I had packed in the suitcase, was missing. Some baggage handler somewhere has it in his house somewhere I guess. I was pretty upset at the time, but I'm over it now. I think the airline will reimburse me for it anyway.
Then we met up with all of the other new teachers and stood around in an awkward 'I don't know who you people are' get to know you kind of circle (Calling it awkward is an understatement!). We actually really like all of the other new teachers. We've had a lot of fun hanging out already.
We had a five hour bus ride from the airport to our apartment. Pretty much everybody just slept the whole time. We did make a couple stops. At one of the rest stops we were basically a bunch of tourists going through the gift shops and asking each other 'What is this? What kind of drink is that? Did you see the cute little Japanese toys?'
When we finally got to our apartment, we were so tired we didn't even care that it was approximately the size of a sardine can. We had to push our beds together, which made us laugh. We figure we can deal with anything for two months. After training they are moving us into our permanent apartment, which is supposed to be a two bedroom place.
The MeySen staff is so friendly and helpful with us newbies that it blows us away. They had the apartment well stocked with snacks and breakfast stuff and sweets and drinks. They translated all the appliances buttons into English for us. The sweetest thing about our place is that it's right next door to the campus where we'll be training.
I guess this blog post is too long already, so Lauren or I will tell you all about the last couple days in a different post later. This week is just flying by!
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