When we first started dreaming of living short-term in Japan, we were thinking one year. At the time, I was teaching in a traditional classroom, so I planned on taking off a year. But as we got closer to that magical time when our youngest son was four, one year felt overwhelming. What about our house here? Could we swap with someone? How would that work? Would we just be in a furnished house there so we wouldn't have to pack as much? Not to mention, our sons weren't thrilled about being gone from their friends and from our church for that long. We realized that we'd rather plan for a few months and actually do it than dream about a year but being so paralyzed it never actually happened.
So one year got shortened to "maybe 6 months" (although the tourist visa is only 3 months) or "maybe over the summer" (although the summers in Japan are unbearably hot).
Eventually, 2.5 months was settled on because of the circumstances regarding our way there and the timing of our way back. When the October 2 cruise option with Worldschooling Journeys opened, I knew it was something to seriously consider. So that set our date on the front end. We had always said we'd wait until our youngest was four. Chance will turn four on the way over! And then the boys wanted to be home by Christmas, so that set our end date. We'll fly into Indianapolis on Christmas Eve and spend Christmas morning with my mom in Indiana before driving back home. So it turned out that our length of time in Japan was kind of decided for us through these circumstances. And I think 2.5 months sounds great! It's long enough to really dive deep into a city and live like locals (well, as much as possible!) instead of flitting around on a frenetic itinerary. But it's not too long. There's FOMO (fear of missing out) either way. Yes, we will be missing out on some things here, but if we never go, we'll miss out on this dream to live overseas short-term.
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