ロスト in Translation

Exciting. Adventurous. Exotic. Great food. Interesting food. Complete and utter confusion.

All excellent descriptors for my first few days here.

The journey began last week on Monday when I left Dallas for an overnight stay in Seattle-Tacoma Airport. I arrived at Sea-Tac in the afternoon with an early check-in the following Tuesday morning, so I decided to enjoy my day in downtown Seattle. To briefly cover my touristy wanderings, here are pictures of the two sites I spent my day enjoying. If you're ever in Seattle, I highly recommend these brief stops:

Chihuly Garden and Glass:

And the Seattle Central Public Library - probably the coolest library to ever exist:

The long flight the next day arrived Wednesday morning. I walked the town the first night with my sponsor and he introduced me to the area a bit, a very hospitable gesture that gave me the comfort of knowing how to get back to base.

Thursday night, I was eager to get lost in the town armed with my fluent command of all four of my Japanese phrases. 

Those four phrases aided by grunts, nods, smiles, and plenty of bowing allowed me to order myself dinner at a restaurant then, later, sign a two-year contract for a cellphone. The dinner was a large bowl of ramen noodles; and not american, cup-o-noodles ramen, but savory, filling, delicious, Japanese ramen. A must-try for my future visitors.

The phone I purchased was over 50% off with the contract and I'll be paying around $90/mo, so even though I'm sure I was duped several times into buying features I'll never use because I'm illiterate in Japanese and can't even read my own contract, the price seems expected and reasonable for a new smart phone. I've been trying my luck with not-Apple electronics these days, so I decided to buy a Sony Xperia UL instead of going with the new iPhone 5S. The learning curve for the Android OS took only a few days to hurdle, but was exceedingly steeper than it should have been due to - once again - illiteracy. The first few hours with my new phone are best expressed by screenshots of this cat:

Friday morning, I sat through a welcome-to-Japan housing brief, where I learned after an hour that this moving process is going to be about as easy as figuring out why that Japanese cat on my phone keeps disappearing behind his little banner. I'm now expecting the whole process to take about a month's time, which is about 29 days more than I was hoping it would take.

I went out to the city of Yokohama that afternoon to scope out the area where I'm thinking about living; it is a half hour's train ride from the base in Yokosuka where I'm temporarily lodged. The Japanese transportation system was an adventure that I was saving until my purchase of a phone, so having my Xperia gave me the confidence to leave Yokosuka. Riding metro's and reading subway maps are not new to me, but illiteracy, once again, made the simplest tasks most difficult. Fortunately, I have an app that tells me exactly which trains to get on, so all I have to do is make sure I'm on a train that correlates with my app's instructions:

It hasn't failed me yet.

This past weekend, I enjoyed a bowl of cheap, yet incredible Udon noodles:

As with most of my food purchases thus far, I had only a very small idea of what I ordered until I ate it, when I realized I had no idea what I ordered. I only knew this meal was Udon after I asked my real estate agent a few hours later what I ate and showed her this picture. Even while I was ordering the meal, I couldn't even describe what I wanted so the kind and patient lady running her little shop had to step out of her kitchen to watch me point to a picture of the bowl I wanted to order. She kept speaking to me in Japanese and I had no idea what she was saying so I kept nodding and saying 'hai', or 'yes', until I think I counter-confused her enough to just make something  for me that closely resembled the picture I pointed to a few minutes earlier in our 'conversation' (or 'confoundsation'?).

Another food-venture was at a Sushi restaurant here in Yokosuka - a new favourite of mine. I was ordering sushi from my table's touch screen menu as if I was trying sushi for the very first time of my life. I chose any sushi that looked new or enjoyable, impatiently waited for my order to roll up to me on the conveyor belt, then hungrily snatched it into my mouth. I loved it all. I loved the impersonal, yet efficient, ordering process. I loved the conveyer belt that carries delicious products to my table. I love trying new sushi! There was only one sushi I ordered that did not taste very good. Not coincidentally, it didn't look too appealing on the plate either:

I'm not sure what I thought it was when I ordered it, but after placing the order I figured out how to turn the touch screen to the English setting and learned it is called 'Whitebait'. It didn't take me long after tasting the dish to realize that I was eating fish that is typically only used to feed other, tastier fish. It was pretty gross. My situation reminded me of the time I tried eating grass as a little kid because cows eat grass and cows make for tasty meals. Grass is not tasty. Whitebait is not tasty. My illiteracy got the best of me again.

One final, noteworthy expedition I made this weekend was getting lost in Yokohama's Chinatown! Who would of thought there's a Chinatown in Japan?? Conversations in Chinatown were about as productive as my ordering of the Udon noodle bowl, but it was still a great afternoon spent feeling tourist-y and lost in China, instead of in Japan.

Even after only a few days here in Japan, I'm feeling more comfortable with my surroundings, feeling more comfortable with the conversations, and feeling more excited about my time here. Each day so far has been a new experience and a new learning opportunity.

I can't help but thank the Lord for all these new experiences, for the new people I'm meeting each day, and for blessing all of my plans thus far by working out the details for me - the details that I've missed or could never have planned for. These past few days have been a re-realization of my dependence on Him to not only be the One holding the plan for my life, but the One who works out the details to get me there.

All glory, thanks, and honour be to the One who is the Beginning, the End, and the means to the End.

"And [Jesus] said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens:they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you."

- Luke 12:22-31