March 30th – Day 1 of Quarantine:
I woke up confused, dehydrated, and disoriented but was quickly filled with the thrilling realization of my new location. I could finally take a deep breath. The power of a shower and a hot meal is amazing… I felt like a new person. After taking care of my basic needs, I tackled my suitcases. Not literally.
Being in quarantine means I’m not allowed to leave my apartment unless it’s an emergency. An app on my phone randomly notifies me throughout the day to “check-in” and track my location to make sure that I’m abiding by my pledge to quarantine responsibly. No exploring yet.
MeySen provided me with a furnished apartment, including food and drinks to get me started. I am SO thankful to have avoided the stress of finding a grocery store upon immediate arrival. Check out the photos below to see the food I was given. I spent the rest of the day unpacking, figuring out each button’s purpose on my Japanese appliances, testing out Japanese snacks, drinking multiple cups of tea, and reaching out to family and friends on apps enabled by wifi.
Are you wondering about jet-lag? For some reason, I thought it wouldn’t affect me too much but I was severely wrong. Around 4:00pm (midnight PST), my eyelids gained about 85 pounds and a wave of nausea swept me away. In other (less dramatic) words, I really wanted to go to sleep. I powered through for a couple hours, but ended up taking a nap around 7:00pm. I felt like a drowsy, foggy slug for the rest of the evening. Can you guess what happened around 12:30am? I was wide-awake, of course.
March 31st – Day 2 of Quarantine:
Today looked a lot like yesterday. I woke up around 5:40am, unable to go back to sleep. Since it was the afternoon over in Oregon, I FaceTimed several friends and gave video tours of my apartment. Feeling extra thankful for wifi to keep me connected with the people I love back home 🙂
New things I tried today: the bidet, ‘peanut cream’, Japanese sliced cheese, cough drops (which I mistook as candy), and Japanese cornflakes. Almost all of the foods in my apartment taste like they do in America, except for the peanut cream. Still not really sure what that is, but it’s not the same as peanut butter. I’m excited to bring new foods into my apartment after my first voyage to the grocery store. Today I removed my blue nail polish because colored nail polish is not allowed at my school. I’ll talk more about the dress code in a later post, but it’s definitely much different from the dress code in America! Do strict dress codes even exist in America? I hung up more pictures on my wall and accidentally fell asleep at 5:30pm while blogging. Woke up at 10:30 and struggled to fall back asleep later… ugh.
A co-worker knocked on my door to deliver a house-warming gift. What a sweet surprise! Yet another reason to love my new home <3
April 1st – Day 3 of Quarantine:
Woke up happy. The sun came out and I finally FaceTimed my family! Unfortunately, I tested positive for COVID this morning… APRIL FOOLS!
Today is my last day of quarantine because my COVID test came back negative (for the third time) and I got approved to end my quarantine early. While on the way to the testing clinic, I got a small taste of downtown Sendai. There are many tall buildings and many trench coats. I’ll be getting an actual tour of downtown Sendai in a couple days, so I’ll have more to say about it then. It is so strange to see people driving on the right side of the car, on the left side of the road. I felt tense the whole time. I’m feeling skeptical about getting my driver’s license, but mark my words, I’m going to get an electric bike/scooter while I’m here. I’m fully convinced it’s a smart choice for convenience, gas mileage, insurance prices, and purchase price. My supervisor told me he got his for around $300! Thoughts?
I celebrated the end of quarantine with Oreos. Feeling very excited to start big things tomorrow. Let’s hope for a normal night of sleep tonight. . 
PS: Want to hear something crazy? A year ago, school went back to being in-person! As a first grade student-teacher, I finally was able to meet my students in real life. A year later, I’m starting a teaching job in Japan. CRAZY.