Posted by Jess
30 July 2010

This morning the moving man came and packed up our pile of household goods.  And I got the good question from yesterday's post, "is that it?"  - hooray!  While he was packing everything up, I came up with a few more things to throw in - more clothes, more toys for Abby and a few more books for the girls.  I think we had more room still, but as Jason says - its not like we have a lot of space for stuff once we get there anyway!  The mover came around 8 and by 10 he was gone with all of our stuff.  And all I have is a sheet of paper with his signature to show for it...

In case you are curious, we shipped a lot of clothes, diapers/wipes, some food (like M&C, peanut butter, granola bars, etc) and a lot of toys, books and toiletries/OTC meds. Knowing our girls and their chronic ear infections, we loaded up a lot of kid's tylenol and ibuprofen. I've been told that the last thing you want to be doing at 4am when your kid is screaming from a fever is trying to translate a box of Japanese cold meds to make sure its the right thing! 

So our goods are on their way.  Here's how it works from here.  Our goods will be shipped to Japan via air freight.  It will stay there in customs at the airport until we arrive.  Once we arrive we have to fill out two customs forms - one saying we've arrived with our suitcases (like everyone does) and then one signing for our unaccompanied luggage (the air shipment).   We have to send that customs form plus a copy of our visa showing that we have arrived to the freight company once we get to our apartment.  Then they will hopefully release our goods from customs and take it to our apartment.  I'm hopeful that we can arrive on Thursday night and have our goods delivered to the apartment by Monday or Tuesday as long as customs doesn't have an issue with our mac and cheese! 

Next up, cleaning up the house and getting it ready, packing suitcases and a few last minute appointments.  And lo and behold (because right now if it can happen it will) we got a call from the realtor today asking to do a showing of our house on Sunday.  We've had the house on the market since May and have only had 1 showing so far.  What are the odds that someone would want a showing this weekend?  Like I said - if it can happen, it will.  We weren't really planning on having the house in tip-top shape over the weekend, but I guess plans change.  With the small amount of showings we have these days, we're certainly not going to turn one down.  Luckily my family is in town this weekend so we'll have a few extra hands around to help get things done - like cleaning up and cutting the lawn, cleaning up the floors and putting things away.  And of course we need to save some time to go to the Anoka County Fair, celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, and do some very last minute errands.   Speaking of which....I better get going - still a few more errands to run today before heading to an engagement party tonight!

Kanpai!
Jess 

 

Posted by: Jess
29 July 2010

Today was my last day at work before the move.  Just a few things to clean up and pass on to others before I head out.  It's hard to know that I'll be out of touch for a few weeks as I have to leave my laptop here and get a new one when I arrive in the office in Tokyo.  Not that I don't have enough other things to do, I just want to make sure people can find me if they have questions.  My cube is empty though and ready to go - since that's the one small corner of my world that's organized at the moment!  The rest of our living spaces are in chaos :) 

As far as home goes, the movers come tomorrow to pack everything up.  So nervous that everything will fit in the container.  I have no idea how to tell.  We'll see what the movers say when they come - I'm hoping for a "that's it?!" instead of a "are you crazy?!".


We had to send a list of everything in the shipment to the moving company so that they can insure our stuff.  My contact at the moving company said ours was the most detailed inventory she's ever seen.  I laughed and I'm sure for those that know me well, that doesn't come as much of a surprise! 

Just a few more errands to run and things to do to get ready, but we're winding down now.  Hoping everyone stays healthy for the flight and we get to enjoy the weekend with friends and family without too much worry. 

Kanpai!
Jessica

19 July 2010
Posted by: Jess

On Saturday night, the girls were kind enough to throw me a Girls Night Out Going Away Party in Uptown.  It was a blast!  Thanks to everyone for coming out.  We started with drinks at Meggan's house, then went to dinner at Chino Latino.  You'll see in the pictures below that Meggan and I did Sake-bombs and Kelly ate Sushi.  Signs that it was to be a good night for sure!! 

After dinner, we started to head back to Meggan's but by then the rain started coming down pretty hard.  With the tornado sirens going off, we decided to stay there for a little while and let the worst rain pass before heading back out again.  We changed plans from bowling to karaoke and headed to the local VFW after about 30 minutes or so.  Yes, that's right, the Uptown VFW.  The girls were so great about getting up and singing and embracing Karaoke. 


Thanks again ladies and to everyone for coming out (especially Anna and Kelly for driving over from Sconnie to celebrate!).  It was great to have a night to forget about the move and all there is left to do.  Hope everyone was feeling ok on Sunday.  I was not, but am grateful to have had my family here to take care of the girls so I could work on recovering.  Nothing like a night out to make me feel so young and then the next day to feel SO OLD!!! 

And now back to packing and getting the house ready to go.  17 days and counting...

1 July, 2010
Posted by: Jess

Today Jason and I attended an all day session with a cultural consultant.  She is someone who has lived in many different parts of the world and just goes through what kinds of things we should expect during our year abroad.  We talked a bit about what excites us about the year and what we maybe aren't looking forward to as much.

Some of the things we liked about the day:
1.  Lunch was really good.
2.  We weren't at work.
3.  There was another executive-type woman from Malaysia that talked to us for about an hour about local customs for visiting people's homes, etc, and about working with the Japanese at the office.
4.   Our consultant told us about this crazy thing called the Hash House Harriers where groups of people do these weird scavenger hunt type runs and then end the day drinking heavily.  Different chapters all over the world, run by ex-pats.  Sounds totally up Jay's alley.   {http://www.gthhh.com/}

Disappointing features of the day:
1.  Neither of the consultants have ever lived in Japan.
2.  Some of the surveys we took were totally bogus.
3.  A lot of discussion about how Jay and I work together, which we kinda already knew since we've been together a while now;)
4.  Pretty much the whole day.

Headed to GRB tomorrow for the 4th.  Happy Holiday Weekend Everyone!!!