Rigdon Review: Our Adventures Abroad

 I mentioned previously that our definition of adventure has changed since embarking on this journey (which began months before we arrived at the airport to take off).  We have decided, as a family, that we have to look at the ENTIRE experience as an adventure, even if the adventure sucks sometimes.  Even if, occasionally, it is a bust.   We had a bust this last week. Monday, Labor Day.  American holiday but not a Japanese holiday (obviously..?).  BUT...with a Super Typhoon Haishen coming our direction, our prefecture closed public schools, so Holland also had no school that day. The typhoon wasn't expected to hit hard, really we were supposed to get a bit of wind and rain, so we decided that as long as it stayed like that, we would go to Hiroshima (45-60 minute drive).  Keane has been wanting to go to a Pokemon center since he found out we were moving to Japan, and there were a few other things we thought would be fun to check out. The weather co...

Long before we even arrived, we knew that we would have two very different options for our children to attend school in Japan: 1. The DODEA (Department of Defense Education Activity) schools located on the base.  These schools are American style schools, they are top of the line, the resources they have are incredible and no expense is spared.   2. Local Japanese schools, located off base.  Here the children would have all classes in Japanese, they would attend a "Japanese as a second language" class, but other than that, it would be an all in type of situation. Andrew and I thought a lot about this, and before coming we thought that for our family and for our situation we would really like the kids to go to Japanese school.  Our intentions for coming to Japan were and still are to have an immersive cultural experience.  On the base, you don't even realize that you are outside of the United States.  We decided, however, to wait to make the final decisi...

 So here we are, in the "small", "rural", "country" town of Iwakuni, in the Yamaguchi prefecture (like a small state?), on the southern part of mainland Japan (it's about 45 minutes from Hiroshima). 1. This town has a "downtown" area. 2. The population is around 150,000 So..."small" is relative.  Everyone keeps telling us it's tiny, but..ya know...we came from Spanish Fork, Utah, so...... We spent the first two weeks out of ROM on foot.  We walked everywhere we had to go.  It was the start of the Japanese holiday called Obon, which we know very little about because we had just arrived, but from what I understand it is where people celebrate their families, heritage, ancestors who have passed away.  So for 10 days everything was closed, meaning we couldn't look for a house or buy a car. So. Much. Walking.  Also, 95 degrees and 93% humidity.  Multiple showers every day, yall. Wooooof! But since buying a car, we've been cru...

When COVID really got real, we had already accepted the job in Iwakuni, Japan to work as a therapist on a U.S Marine base.  We were told that the process would be "delayed indefinitely". We didn't know exactly what that meant, but felt good about the fact that it wasn't "cancelled permanently".  So we waited.  We did what everyone else did: school at home, stay home, do nothing, try not to spread "the virus".  FINALLLLYYYY in the end of May we were told that we were to be in Japan (we being Andrew....) July 1.  AGH! Stress!  We had a house to sell, cars to sell, a house to pack up, people we wanted to visit, passports for the children to apply for.  Let's go there: PASSPORTS: guys, as soon as we had OFFICIAL orders from the government of Andrew's employment we went to apply for passports.  We KNEW the process was delayed but were confident that because we were supposed to be moving across the world, they would somehow have a magical excepti...