Arriving in Hokkaido

We arrived today in Hokkaido at 1:15 pm after a delay of 1 hour, we have had bad luck with airplane arrival times, but hey, we have been waiting for almost 2 years to make this move so what's a few more hours.

There was a welcome party for us when we arrived, with our contact from the school, one of the bosses of the Shibinai town, a boy who speaks english from Koby's school and his mom, and of course my friend snowman sporting a ice chest full of beer for Yasuko and myself and juice for the kids.

We didn't have much time to visit and was whisked off to the town hall to get registered as citizens of Shibinai village, and to apply for my foreigners card. We met the mayor and all of the important people of Higashi Kawa Town, Yasuko had to do hours of paperwork, while I took the kids outside to let them play in their first snow. I was also lucky to meet the local Assistant Language Teacher, who I have been in contact with through the Internet for almost a year. His name is Benjamin Logsdon and is from New York, he extended for another year here and will be here until August of next year. I am looking forward to getting together with him and learning about our new town. The temperature was a brisk 38-40 but was not bad, until the sun started to go down.

After all of the paperwork was done we were taken to our new house, and was surprised by a welcome party that consisted of the whole town it seemed. There were kids everywhere, even more than our neighborhood in Texas. The heater was on and they had already brought all of our luggage into the house. Shortly after arriving we went to the community center, which is less than a hundred yards from our house and got our beds and blankets, and a few dishes we would need. Everyone helped carry stuff to our new house. Wow they sure know how to make someone feel welcomed here.

After that we were finally alone to relax on our first night in Hokkaido Japan.