Settling In

I never thought I'd depend on a mall again in my life. Especially after the mess/ghost town that we've got in Racine, WI. 

But then there's Mozo. It's a huge, four story, 220 store beast. Except it's in Japan, so it's spotless and everyone is nice. We broke down and got the kids McDonald's on our first day, especially so for Mr. Middle Child Seth, who hardly eats anything. 

McDonald's in Japan is so unlike our familiar U.S. version. When we visited Kyoto eight years ago, I remember being shocked by several things. First off, the food tastes good. Not exactly classy burger-joint good, but a few levels up. Probably something to do with higher food quality regulations. Also, they recycle everything (obviously this is a national thing, not just for fast food chains). My favorite is a little sink/drain where you pour the ice or whatever of your drink you didn't finish. The garbage is then lighter, easier to sort, and you don't get those nasty trails of leaking liquids that my barista friends would recognize. 

I digress. Yesterday, we returned, and 

with ALOT of help from our new teacher friend Jen, we were able to get cell phones. It took a little over 30 minutes, which seemed agonizingly slow to me (with three kids in tow around dinner time), until Jen told us the horror of her 4

hour cell phone purchase from the same company. Apparently the lengthy waits are the norm. Yikes...

Afterward, we split up so I could rush home and make tacos. We brought a few packets of seasoning from them U.S., and thankfully we have a small grocery store (probably "medium" by local standards), that carries flour tortillas. There's an international store at the mall that carries salsa, and also this gem:

Yes. If you'll direct your attention to the top right, this bag is packing GLOBAL FLAVOR. Whatever that is. I'll let you know. 

So all this lovely food waiting to be made, and rice to be made in our rice cooker. We had one back home that was used at least twice a week, so I felt excited to give the kids similar food. That confidence drained quickly when I tried to turn on the gas stove. And start the rice. 

We'll, I can always heat up leftover

Lasagna from our neighbor's welcome dinner, right? Nope. 

Our microwave doubles as a small oven. But like all our appliances, they're written in Japanese kanji. I don't speak or read the language. Our friend Jen had briefly explained then appliances yesterday, but I'm so tired I couldn't remember. 

Dinner fail. 

But today is a new day. It's Tuesday morning here, and I've been up since about 3:15am, just like yesterday. Yesterday it was Sydney who woke up then, and today it was Noah. Honestly, at this point, I don't know how I'm alive. It'll get better, I just have to believe. 

Later today our apartment should be mostly organized and clean, so I'll finally post pictures of that. Until then, here's Angela's latest purchase:

 

And from our first night, something we picked up from 7-11. Yes, they are much better here also: delicious noodles with tomatoes and pesto sauce: