Quarantine isn’t that bad, actually. I feel like lockdown gave me a lot of experience sitting indoors and entertaining myself, which — let’s be honest — I’ve always enjoyed anyways. There’s really no shortage of blessings here: three (vegetarian!) meals a day are delivered to my door, housekeeping comes daily, my south-facing window graces me with beautiful sunrises and sunsets… Not to mention daily baths! I forgot how much I love taking baths ❤️

Since arriving, I’ve been able to catch up with my aunt and uncle and a couple close family friends, all of whom live pretty close to where I’ll be teaching. Apparently, when I tried to be polite and ask my aunt, “Can I come visit you sometime?”, she thought I was being overly considerate. In Japanese, it’s called 気を使う (ki wo tsukau), meaning when you’re concerning yourself with the needs of others. For example, I’m 気を使う when I’m hosting a houseguest: making sure they are comfortable and entertained, even if it means changing my behavior. So my auntie was worried that I didn’t like her or something. 🥴 I’m just polite, Auntie… Not to mention not super confident in my Japanese! But we’ve got that cleared up, and now I’ll bother her all the time 😝 It was really funny though, when I called her yesterday evening, and she said, “You know, I think it’s a good idea if you study Japanese while you’re in quarantine.” Is my Japanese that bad!? (⊙_⊙)

Really, though, I consider myself so, so, so fortunate to have so many people here on whom I can rely. My uncle, a realtor, is going to help me find an apartment, and I’ll stay with him in the meantime. My auntie is a diehard foodie and has a ton of amazing restaurants and trips she wants to share with me. The family friends (who live in the same town as I do!!) are super genki (lively) retirees with old cats who are super excited to help me go shopping. Even cooler, one of those family friends used to be a teacher at my assigned school, and the principal is one of her former students!! With every passing day, I get ever more excited about the life that awaits me, just ten days and a train ride away. 🚄

It’s day five. Tomorrow is Halloween, and today couldn’t be any less creepy. It’s a bright Saturday morning with a pleasant breeze and the low drone of a lawnmower wafting in from outside. I’m sipping on sweet lemon jelly. But you know what? Once I put on my Halloween playlist¹, it’s a graveyard smash!