We're Here - Teddy McCormick

Sorry for the slow update; we didn't have internet the first week or so we were here. But we do now, so here you go!

We didn't fly directly to Hakodate. We left Virginia at 7:00am and, after a brief layover in Los Angeles, had a ~12 hour flight to Tokyo.

It was really not terrible; my dad let us use his miles to get premium economy seats instead of basic economy, which apparently makes a huge difference in international flights. Our seats felt like they were twice the size of basic economy, they reclined more, they had better trays... it was really nice! The hard part was sleeping at the right times; we knew we'd be struggling to adapt to a 13 hour time difference, so we tried to sleep during what would be nighttime in Japan, and be awake starting at like 8am JST.

(Also, side note: I have discovered the secret to long-haul flights, and it is bringing your own seat cushion. You don't bring a seat cushion because it's more comfortable than the plane seats; you bring it because it's different. You know how when you've been sitting in the same seat for like four hours your butt starts to get sore? if you have your own cushion, you can change to a new seat without actually changing to a new seat. Cassie and I brought an inflatable cushion and just swapped it back and forth every couple hours; made a massive difference.)

We had a couple days but no real plans in Tokyo; the only reason we didn't go straight to Hakodate was just to break up the travel days. But since we were there, we made sure to check out a few things.

For one thing, we went to an aquarium that Cassie had wanted to visit last time - Sumida Aquarium, at Tokyo SKYTREE. It was so worth it, even just for the first room - a dozen different types of jellyfish!

They also had a penguin enclosure, which was crazy impressive because it was indoors. If you've never seen penguins at other zoos, you may not know this, but penguin enclosures tend to stink terribly - this one was spotless, though, so the only thing you smelled was saltwater. We got a glimpse at how they kept it so clean when one guy geared up with scwuba gear to clean the tank's floor by hand.

This is them feeding the penguins. They have three people feeding the penguins by hand, and they shout up the penguin's name (?) to a fourth person when they do, so they can check that one off the list.

We did a very little bit of shopping - a couple games from Book Off, an undershirt from Uniqlo - and got some of our favorite meals, like the ramen from the top of Yodobashi Akiba. We also got to meet up with our friend, Abi and even went to her church on Sunday, which was great!

(Oh, I can't wait to be back at our church in Hakodate, though!)

Then on Monday we took the long train ride up to Hakodate. We took the train instead of flying because it wound up being about the same price; a flight would've been faster, but trains are so much more comfortable!

We got to Hakodate around 4:00pm, and then met up with our new landlord Takayanagi, who took us to the apartment we'll be staying in for the next three months.

Let me tell you: it is wonderful. Takayanagi kitted this place out with so much more than we were expecting - not just a fridge and a stove and a bed, but a rice cooker, a table and chairs, a TV, new carpeting, a microwave, some storage bins... seriously, so much more than we were expecting.

[I was going to put a picture here, but we didn't take one immediately on arrival, and Cassie refuses to let you see the current state of our apartment, haha. I'll post pictures in the future once we're fully unpacked and sorted.]

Florence came over and brought our stuff that she's been holding onto for the last sixteen months, and we had a very happy reunion. Then for dinner, we went to Ohana and surprised Ohanamama - though unfortunately she was so busy we didn't get much time to sit and talk with her after our meal! Which was just as well though, really, because Cassie was exhausted - and we did wind up making some new friends who were sat at the table next to us. Japan is just such a friendly place!

Yesterday we got the rest of the stuff we brought with us from America (we shipped it to Hakodate from the airport in Tokyo when we arrived) and so now we've begun the task of organizing our apartment! It is a lot of stuff, but we can afford to get rid of some of it; there's duplicates of some things we needed while we were gone, there's some clothes that don't fit us anymore (we've both lost weight since we started exercising!), that sort of thing. But we've already got the bulk of our unorganized stuff in one corner; I don't want to make a fool of myself by predicting a timeline before we're completely settled - in fact, I rather suspect that when we're packing up in three months there'll be at least a couple things that we realize we never dealt with - but the place is already pretty livable.

I think we're both most looking forward to church on Sunday. I'll update you again after that!