Sayounara Los Angeles. Konbanwa Tokyo.

Sayounara Los Angeles. Konbanwa Tokyo.

We made it across the big pond today. After months of selling; packing; donating; trashing; shipping and pawning our junk off on our friends, my family and I have relocated to the largest metropolis in the world. What’s our plan now? I dunno. Good question!

I’m Brett: a tallish white bad actor with bad hair- think of a Nicholas Cage that no one had ever heard of (wouldn’t that be nice?) People who new me as an actor new me by my middle name: Jonathan. You with me? Last October (2011), my awesome ninja Japanese wife Yumi and I had our first baby, a beautiful little biter named Kyte. Over the last year, we got to thinking that it might be a good idea to take our little boy to Japan for a decade or so. Things weren’t going so well in America at the time- bad economy, bad school-system, my acting career went from a snail’s pace to just plain dead, and Yumi and I had both been laid-off multiple times, losing our health insurance in the process. We figured it was high-time we jet over to her native Tokyo and give Kyte a better start than we could in the good olde U. S. of A. Don’t get me wrong, I love my country, but when you have a kid who has dual citizenship, you owe it to him to let him try both out, and maybe start him off with the one that will give him better education, health care, child care, healthier food, multiple languages starting in Elementary School, etc. So we’ll bring him back to the US in ten years or so and give him the things America can the Japan can’t. Kyte’s gonna be one amazing boy! Once he stops biting my face every chance he gets.

But for now, we’re off the plane and walking around Tokyo like zombies wandering through jello. Yumi’s family are here, and we’re staying with her parents in their four-bedroom place until we’re on our feet. So it’s up to me to get a job and get us our own place as quickly as possible. The idea is for me to start teaching conversational English in the private sector. I have a bachelor’s degree (in theater- does that even count??) and I’m a native English speaker. That’s about the only requisites, or SO I HEAR, for landing a job at an eikaiwa, or English Conversation School. These schools take students who’ve learned grammatically correct English in the public school systems over here (it’s required starting young!) and teach them what English actually sounds like. The idea is that no one in America speaks proper English (WHAAAAA???) so, forget everything you’ve learned. We’ll teach you to understand what a mess we’ve made of the language. So that’s what I’m going for… starting Tuesday… once the fog of jetlag has oozed out my ears. We’ve arrived on a holiday weekend- Monday is Old People Day (celebrating those over 60 Years Olde!)

In the meantime, Yumi’s parents are being very helpful about making such a large transition as easy as possible. Item 1: I LUUURVE me some Halloween. It’s right up there with Christmas for me (neither of which are really celebrated over here). So Yumi’s mom researched a little bit about Halloween traditions and found out about carving pumpkins. Then she asked me who Jack of the Pumpkins is and made the announcement that she is ordering me a pumpkin online! Yup! That’s right. An online pumpkin delivery service that even provides you with a carving tool! I’m eagerly anticipating an exquisitely-wrapped pumpkin-shaped cardboard box arriving any day now :D  I already love Japan. I’m thinking of creating a sort of Halloween-educational event and showing John Carpenter’s “Halloween” in the park, just to give the little kiddies here a taste of how great American holidays can be!

Oh, and Special Bonus Thought: Watching “The Final Countdown” on Japanese tv with my father-in-law = Awkward Awesomeness.