Our New Home!

It's pretty darn cool here, not going to lie! Our temporary lodging is the equivalent to a small hotel suite. It's tight but cozy. And even though it's on the Marine Base, they are trying to incorporate the Japanese style, so our flooring is actually a straw mat-type composite of some sort. Sweet. Also, our bed has memory foam and we have a cleaning service come in every day! We only have a couple of pots and pans to work with and very limited counter/cabinet space, so Joel's probably gonna be making daily trips to the Commissary just to get the food we need for the day.

Rewind to the trip over here: We left Akron-Canton around 10:30am Thursday morning (after only MAYBE 3 hours of sleep) and flew to Atlanta. From there, we had just enough time to grab a snack and board our flight to Tokyo-Narita. It was about a 13 hours flight... and it was rough. Joel and I nicknamed the flight the "vortex warphole of time and space" because it did and didn't seem like a long flight. Hmmmmm... It didn't help that we, especially Joel, were working on head colds which was uncomfortable and made it difficult to sleep. So, it was touch and go where naps were concerned. We were also majorly drugged up on Mucinex and Dramamine, thus we passed up on complimentary wine and beer on the flight so you know we were sick! :-p When we arrived, we had to go through customs and gather all our luggage, buy bus tickets and take an hour trip to the OTHER Tokyo airport in Haneda. Got there in time to grab a quick Japanese snack (the menu was all in Japanese!) and board our last flight to Hiroshima.

We arrived in Hiroshima last night (Friday) around 9pm Japanese time (8am on the East coast) and were picked up by my new boss and co-worker. They drove us the hour-ish back to Iwakuni and we talked about what to expect from our new home country for the entire ride. We stayed up to unpack and eat the cereal we were able to buy right before the convenience store on base closed down.We THOUGHT we were SO tired and SO ready to sleep for 15 hours straight. Alas, we fell asleep at 2am and have now been up and about since 6am. Today will likely have to consist of lots of naps. :)

The game plan today is to call my boss so she can have lunch with us and take us around base. We will have to stock up on some groceries 'cause you know us Dillers need lots of food to survive. :) Will post more when more happens. Thanks for all the prayers everyone! We are SUPER EXCITED to be here but definitely miss the folks back home. It's definitely real now how far away Japan is.