Trip to Japan

After a couple of weeks of very stressful moving (I don't get how some people move every few years), I finally headed out to DIA with the help of Eric my son, who dutifully drove me at 5:30 a.m. Apparently this was just a few hours before a big snowstorm in Denver. When I went through security, the guy checking was asking everyone in line, "Are you livin the dream? If you're not, you're in the wrong line." I loved it! Take a routine dull job and put energy and heart into it. It makes all the difference. And yes, I'm livin' the dream!
The flight to San Francisco was great. I had an interesting seat mate from Japan who had just attended the AAAL conference in Denver. I also met a couple of groups who were going to Japan. The trip from San Francisco to Osaka was less enjoyable, only because it felt like 4 days. (ok, ok, 11.5 hours) Watched a couple of movies, slept a little, studied some Japanese, ate pretty much non-stop, and then turned into a 4 year-old wanting to know "Are we there yet?" I asked my young Japanese seatmate how much longer it would be. His answer of 5 more hours was not well received.

I took the bus to Kobe and was met by 4 friends at the station there. We went to a cute bar for dinner (I think my third of the day) and had a great time till I started falling asleep mid sentence.

I've been at my apartment for about 3 days now and am getting it set up. It's not tiny as you might expect from Japan. It's quite comfortable, and my only complaint is that there is a 1 foot step up to the bathroom. I'm worried about breaking my leg in the middle of the night as I head for the john.

My learning curve is very steep at this point. One of the reasons I signed on for this gig is to stimulate my brain--learn new things. Good idea, but I'd like the new things to come in at a little slower pace. How to get the train. Which train to take. Where my apartment is.
I have been able to speak at a VERY basic level e.g. asking for a coffee shop as my coffee pot had not arrived yet. (Lots of them around, but they don't open till about 9 a.m.--what's the point?)
Trouble is, though I can speak a little, I can understand almost nothing. And the writing system doesn't help at all. My predecessor in the apartment left a lot of food (bottles of stuff), but I couldn't tell by looking what it was.

As I wander around the city, I'm using it as one big word puzzle. I am learning Katakana, one of the 3 writing systems in Japan, because it is the alphabet used to spell the many borrowed words (mostly from English). For example, in one store, I sounded out a word: a ru ba mu
which I finally worked out to be 'album' (it was the CD section of the store). So this is kind of fun, if you're not in a hurry.

So far I'm not in a hurry as work doesn't start until next Wednesday, when there is a ceremony to open the school year. I don't start teaching for a few days after that. The cherry blossom season is starting, and I'm looking forward to going to some lovely spots to view the'hanami'.

Think I'll go back to bed as I started writing this at about 5 in the morning. My friends don't get up till noon, so I'll need my sleep to go out with them tonight.