Welcome to my first post about my
recent move to Japan from the United States. A little history is probably
in order. I am married, I have 6 children and 2 grandchildren. I
have worked in the legal industry most of my adult life, specifically criminal
and family law. I have a Bachelor's Degree and a Master's Degree, and I
served in the Navy as an Intelligence Specialist. 5 of my 6 children are
adults, my youngest is Awesome, and I don't mean that figuratively - his middle
name is Awesome and that is the name he goes by. Awesome is 4 years old
and a bundle of energy. I also have 4 daughters (Ashli, 25, Sydnee, 23,
Dakota, 21, and Kingslea soon to be 18) and a son (Lukus) who is 19.
My husband
and I became worried about the life Awesome would have if we remained in
America, for a number of reasons (drugs, violence, terrible healthcare,
horrible education, etc., etc). We began to research the best countries
in which to raise a child, and after considering things like education,
healthcare, attitudes on childhood and child rearing, culture, and our research
led us to Japan. I made a few inquiries, found out that with my education
I could obtain employment as an English teacher fairly easily. I also
home schooled my children for more than 10 years, so I felt like this would be
a good match. My initial research took me to companies like Interac and
Jet, but after applying to Interac twice and not being selected, I broadened my
target companies and soon had interviews with GABA, Borderlink, and a few other
English dispatch companies in Japan. I believe I understand why Interac
passed me over, I am not the typical ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). I
am much older than most applicants, I was not able to jet over on a moment’s
notice and I was a package deal that included a husband and two children.
After
interviewing I went ahead and selected the company I thought would be the most
helpful and showed a similar mindset in teaching philosophy. I don't feel
the need to specify which company I went with, but I will tell you that there
are a great number of English conversation schools and dispatch companies
recruiting. I highly recommend Gaijinpot - they are a great resource for
everything from finding employers to renting apartments. There are some
great stories and wonderful advice on the site, but try as I might, I was not
able to find much information on moving to Japan with a family. I saw a
lot of information for individuals moving over, but there was very little
guidance for families. This is one of the reasons I decided to create
this blog, I want to go share my experiences as a mother, a wife, and a 40
(something) year old woman living in Japan and all the different things this
entails.
After making
the decision to move to Japan, the hunt for information and preparation began.
We began studying the language, tried to limit our diet to those foods we
believed would be available to us in Japan, packed away our silverware and
broke out our chopsticks. We bought language programs for our 4 year old,
including Dino Lingo and Pimsleur (for kids). I believe Dino Lingo was
probably the most helpful for our 4 year old. We studied the culture,
what to do and what not to do, and we started our transition several months
before the actual move.
We turned our attention to the money we would need for the
move. We knew we would need several
thousand dollars to make the move, and although I had been hired by a company,
I wasn’t due to begin work until April.
We looked at the times of the year it was the least expensive to fly,
and imagine our shock when our least expensive date range was the end of the
year. I cashed out my 401(k), we opened
an account specifically for our move, and we began to squirrel away all that we
could. We bought our tickets three
months ahead of our leave date, and all in all I felt we got a pretty reasonable
price for our flight. For three adults
and one child we spent less than $3,000.00 total for our airfare. We used Cheapo Air and I know they have
received mixed reviews, but for us, we had on problems with them at all. We also looked into accommodations once we
arrived in Japan. I booked us into a
triple room (one room, three beds) at the Narita Rest House, a hotel that is
actually located within the airport. To
avoid confusion, it is not INSIDE the airport, it is just around the corner
from Terminal One, on the grounds of the airport. I booked us for a week and began looking for
a month to month rental. In Japan you
can’t sign a lease until you have a work visa and/or residents’ card. After a lot of searching the company that
kept popping up was Sakura House. They
are foreigner friendly, they provide apartments that are partially furnished,
they don’t require anything other than your passport (to make sure you are in
the country legally) a small deposit (30,000 yen deposit per person, no deposit
for Awesome) and the first month’s rent.
The apartments were small, but that is something we were well aware of
as a result of our months of research. I
sent an email to Sakura House and received a pretty quick response. They could hold an apartment for me if I
wanted to put the deposit down straight away (they also accept foreign credit
and debit cards), or they could show me a few units when I arrived. I kept them up as an option and continued to
research accommodations.
During the last week in September I found out that I needed
to have surgery on both feet if I wanted to be able to walk regularly in
Japan. Knowing this would be my main
mode of transportation I went ahead and scheduled the surgery for the first
week in October.
Without going into any great detail, I have to have bone
shaved from both feet, screws inserted, and I would be unable to walk for a
least a month. When the doctor found out
I was moving to Japan, we discussed our options and I decided to go ahead and
have both feet done at the same time. It
would be far more painful, but it would keep us on track for the move. The surgery went well, the recovery was the
most painful thing I have experienced in a very long time (don’t forget I am a
mother six times over, but this was, I believe, more painful). I jumped right into my physical therapy,
working at home and with a therapist to make sure I would be able to walk by
the time I stepped on the plane in December.
My husband was scheduled for ankle surgery a week after I had my surgery
(his was scheduled in advance, mine just kind of popped up and happened) so
there were a couple of weeks there where we were both way below 100
percent. Top this off with the fact that
Awesome’s 4th birthday was October 18th, a couple of
weeks after my surgery and just a week or so after my husband’s surgery. We wanted to make sure he spent some time
with his friends before we left, and he was determined to go to Chuck E Cheese,
so we spent a good four hours hobbling around giant rats and screaming kids,
but he had a great time, so it was worth it.
I realize this is not directly related to our move to Japan,
but I want to emphasize here that moving to Japan begins long before you actual
MOVE to Japan. The time off of my feet
allowed me time to study more for the move, and study I did. I tried to drill some of the basic words and
phrases we would need when we arrived, and I felt pretty confident in my level
of conversational Japanese by the time we boarded the plane.
We knew space would be limited in Japan, and we were trying
to stay on a budget, but we also knew there were things that we didn’t want to
leave behind, and I was in no way prepared to leave behind my 60” 3D Aquos, so
we looked into shipping some containers.
We researched, received quotes from several companies, and went with
Riteway Shipping. We would package and
crate our own things, shrink wrap and secure them to the pallet, they would
then come to our home, pick up the pallets and ship them over, all for the very
reasonable price of $700. Sounded good
to us, we packed up 3 pallets, including my TV, and my personal Sith Lord light
sabre (no way was I leaving that behind).
We stayed within the parameters of three pallets, watched videos about
regulations for packaging and shipping items to Japan. Part of our research included a list of
things that are prohibited in Japan as well as things that might be hard to
come by. We packed 20 sticks of
deodorant each, made sure we didn’t have anything that was in violation of
Japanese customs and laws, and sent out belongings on their way a full three
weeks before we were to leave. This
meant sparse living for a few weeks but we were okay with that.
We also knew through research that there are certain drugs
that are prohibited in Japan (like my husband’s Concerta for his Adult
ADD). We also knew that any amount of medication
over a 30 day supply required special authorization. I will address that process in a separate
post.
We flew all of our children and grandchildren in for one
last Christmas in the states, gave away as many of our belongings to them as
they wanted, sold off most of our furniture, and donated the rest of our things
to charity.
I decided to rent a vehicle the day we were leaving so that
I could leave the vehicle at the airport and not have to have anyone drive
us. I thought we were packed ahead of
time – at least I was, and so was our 4 year old, but come December 29th,
they were scrambling around trying to throw their suitcases together. We ended up having to use my sea bag from my
Navy days and two additional suitcases just to make everything fit. We had a total of six large bags, 4 carry on,
4 personal bags, a stroller and a car seat for Awesome. Many airlines require children under a
certain age fly in a car seat approved for flight. I will also post more about that another
time.
As we scrambled to the airport and ran to the gate (we each
had personal computers the TSA made us take out and our newly purchased
PS4). They held the plane for us, we
struggled to get everything onto the plane, I strapped Awesome into the seat
and thus began our move to Japan.
There are several topics I touched on in this post that I am
planning on elaborating on in later posts.
This was just an introduction and broad overview of the first phase of
our move from America to Japan. I will
break down some of the parent specific topics (like what to pack, what to carry
on, what the requirements are, etc), as well as some of the more general topics
(like taking medications into Japan and how to obtain the appropriate
authorization from the Japanese government for controlled medications and
bringing in more than a 30 day supply).
I think I am writing this as much for myself as for anyone
else, but I also want to make sure there is a resource out there for families
moving to Japan with small children. I
hope I can provide a little guidance for others while keeping a journal for
myself.
My next post will cover things like traveling with
toddlers, obtaining authorization for
medications, and a list of things you may not be able to find here easily (like
chlorine bleach for clothes – that one threw me). I will also introduce some of the documentation
you will need to gather and go through the visa process (we have been able to
obtain our visas and residents’ card in less than 48 hours, something many law
firms indicated could take 90 days or more).
I will also be posting some pics and videos to help new
arrivals and trips to shopping centers and grocery stores.
