Konnichiwa!

Hello, and welcome to our big Japanese adventure! We are glad you are here -- almost as much as we are glad to be here...finally! It was a long road but we are finally settled in. Here's just a quick replay.

For those of you just joining us, we had a bit of a rough landing into Japan. First we were crammed into a hotel room so small Hannah Jane slept in the closet, then we were told there was no real housing available for us, then we learned that Rick was going to be deployed for months to Iraq. Things have gotten much better! We moved into a decent-sized house off-base (after 2 months!), we learned that Rick wouldn't be going to Iraq and not so soon, and then we were able to celebrate a nice Christmas together in our new home. We were then able to get away for the New Year's holiday to a ski resort where we skied and "onsened" (Japanese hot springs) for a couple of days along with folks from Rick's squadron. Later we took a tour-group trip to the Sapporo Ice Festival on neighboring Hokkaido island where we played for a few days before Rick's deployment (the picture above is in front of the Sapporo brewpub where we ate dinner, and drank a "few" beers). So we're doing pretty well!

Hannah Jane has settled in nicely, happy to have lots of other kids around much of the time. During our month-long stay in the hotel, we lived next to the other flight doctor's family which consisted of 4 (now 5!) little girls -- Hannah Jane thought she was just one of them! Now that we're all settled into our own homes I try to get her/us out as much as possible. When I'm not taking her to a playgroup or her toddler gymnastics class (she loves it!) she goes to a Japanese preschool 2 days a week where she is learning to bow and call her teacher "sensei." The "teachers" /care-providers don't speak much English and don't speak any to the children, so we're hoping we'll all pick up a little Japanese from the experience. I have to sign her in in Japanese in the morning which I only know from the cheat sheet taped to the back of my Japanese cellphone (which also has my 14 digit cellphone number on it which I will never learn while I am here). She wears a smock to "school" with goofy english words on it that make no sense ("A Happy Colors!") and when she stays for lunch, she eats from her Bento Box filled with rice which I send with her (the school provides the "toppings"). She doesn't have the chopstick thing down but then again, she doesn't have the spoon and fork thing down quite yet either (and I can't say I have the chopstick thing down perfectly either. Note to any visitors -- brush up on them before you come, because when you eat out, there aren't any other utensils!) So Hannah Jane's doing well, we're doing well, and hopefully you are too.

As for our Japanese experience so far, there's just so much to say I don't know where to start. So that will be what we'll write about mostly here in the future -- our big Japanese adventure. We hope you'll come back for a visit now and then, as much as I hope we'll be good about keeping this up! I hope we'll both be able to contribute but Rick, as I mentioned earlier, is deploying here shorlty and won't be back for six months. If he can't post entries himself I'll try to keep you all updated as much as possible. In the meantime, Hannah Jane and I will be here until we go back to the states hopefully sometime this summer. Will definitely keep you posted on our whereabouts then.

In the meantime, you can reach us by email or by our vonage phone which is my old cellphone number (703-966-5663). It'll cost you whatever it costs you to call Virginia. Just keep in mind that we are 14 hours ahead in time for you east coasters, 16 for your mountain dwellers, and 17 for you pacific folks (I find it odd that the friends we are geographically closest to right now are also the furthest away in time). We miss you all and look forward to hearing from you soon.

So "Jaane" for now (see you later) and to the U.Va "the sweet suite", sayounara, y'all!

Rick, Mary and Hannah Jane