It’s been a while….

Yeah, yeah…it’s been a while since I updated this page.  I would like to say it’s because I have been out doing amazing, fun and exciting things that left me with no time to write.  I have definitely been doing things like this, but it is also because I have been lazy.  I am also feeling guilty because my wife has started her blog and is pumping out posts left, right and center (for those interested, and you bloody well should be, her blog can be found here).

We arrived in Japan on March 4^th, right when the pandemic was just starting and North Americans were talking about social distancing and starting to think about sheltering in place.  At that time, the Japanese government was not wanting to pull the trigger on similar measures.  They were hoping that the pandemic would not be severe and that they would be able to salvage the Olympics.  I felt that it would have been inappropriate to start posting about my experiences in Japan when other parts of the world were shutting everything down.  Japan finally decided to set its own state of emergency on April 4^th, which lasted approximately 6 weeks, so I didn’t feel that I had much to write about.

You may ask why I have not put fingers to keyboard since then.  I have no excuses besides I really do not like to write.  I initially started this blog for friends and family to follow along with what Sarah and I were doing here in Japan.  On a personal level, I started the blog to make myself write more and get comfortable with putting my voice in print.  Writing is something that I have struggled with for most of my life.  With that being said, it has been almost four months since any sort of update.  I figured now is as good a time as any to get back on the horse and bring this blog back to life!

After living in the Shin Okubo neighborhood in Tokyo for our first month, Sarah and I have moved to Zushi in Kanagawa prefecture, approximately 30 miles (50 km) south of Tokyo. Zushi is a small beach town located in the Shonan region.  The Shonan region feels like the Japanese love child of Santa Monica and Hawaii, where people walk around in flip flops and board shorts or in wetsuits with surfboards.  Unlike Tokyo, business suits are in the minority here.  We are living in a small apartment that is a ten minute walk from the beach.  I am starting to really love it here.  We have been getting out and adventuring more now that the state of emergency and travel between prefectures has been lifted.  Both of us have been taking Japanese language classes both in Tokyo and online. We purchased bicycles and have been using them as our primary mode of transportation in and around Zushi.  Restaurants have started re-opening and we have been going out occasionally to eat, but are still being cautious. Japan seems to have the pandemic under control much more than the US, but it is still an issue here.  

I will be posting more about what I did when we first arrived, what we did to keep sane during the state of emergency, what we have been doing lately and what kind of ramen I have been consuming.  I just needed to write this to give myself a kick in the ass to start blogging again.