I've Arrived!

Hi Everyone!

I have made it to Okinawa safe and sound thanks to all your prayers and thoughts! There were no flight delays or flight problems; and customs was not as difficult as the Venezuelan customs. So hopefully all of our shipment will arrive in the next couple of months without major holdup by the customs office. The flight itself was not as bad as I expected, but it could be contributed to the fact that there was an empty seat between me and the next person! I was thankful for that! With that said, 14 hours of sitting is still hard! However, during the trip there were several cool things to look at through the window. The most interesting was the sun! I left Detroit at 1 pm eastern time and around 5:30 there was a sunset. I took an hour nap and when I woke up the sun was back. I did not set again until after I arrived in Osaka, Japan. We also flew over Alaska and I was able to see glaciers and lots of frozen things! It was beautiful!

The time difference has been a little tricky! It is taking me a night or two to get adjusted to it. The first night (after not sleeping but 3-4 hours on the planes) I slept only 5 hours (woke up at 3:30). At 5:30 last night I was in the bed and woke this morning at 3:30 am. I am sure that each night will get easier and hope to stay up until 9 or 10 pm tonight!

I was picked up from the airport by a Sterling Medical representative and she has taken me around to sign all the many papers that are needed to get governmental clearance. I now have a military id card, a bank account, a military email address (for work), and an APO (which is a mail box)! So the new address is:

Josh and Betsy Murphy

PSC 557 Box 2252

FPO AP 96379-2252

With those things being done, the lady, Janice, took me for my first sushi experience in Okinawa! It was GREAT! It was similar to the stateside sushi, just seemed to taste better! They also had a few choices that I wasn't quite brave enough to try (my stomach hasn't been normal since I got here) but will try all sea creatures at my next opportunity to eat sushi (hopefully soon)!

As many of you know, I traveled here without Josh due to the timing of the governmental approval. He will be flying this weekend (Sunday) and will be arriving to join me in this adventure on Monday! Janice and I will pick him up from the airport and then he will spend next week with her doing all the things I did this week (orientation, etc.). We will start our driver's training next Wednesday which is exciting and scary at the same time! Traffic is on the left side of the road here which will take a little getting use to! While being driven around this week, I have only had several near panic attacks feeling like we are about to hit (or be hit) by traffic. However, after only 2 days, the traffic patterns are getting easier to understand, so hopefully by next week, I will be ready to drive! Josh on the other hand..hehe.. we'll see!

We are currently staying in a hotel on Kadena Air base. We have a room with a kitchen and a living room, so it is much bigger than I thought it might be! I am sure that by the time we find off-base housing, the hotel room will be very small!! We have 30 days to find a place and are in no hurry to make that transition. I am still very unsure of where I will be going during the day (for the job), so we don't want to sign a rental agreement until we figure that out a little more.

Today I am going to go to the clinic for the first time and meet some of my co-workers! I am excited about that as well as getting some of the many questions I still have answered!

Hope all of you are having a great day!

Love,

Betsy