WELCOME TO JAPAN
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After 4 amazing seasons with the UCLA football program we have decided to leave Westwood. It was a tough goodbye for Jerry. He was actually born at UCLA’s hospital, he was taken to the practice field before he even went home. I think he might actually win the real title of “Bruin born, Bruin bred”. We had decided to move on from UCLA and ultimately planned on heading into the coaching world, but Jerry was given an amazing opportunity to continue playing football somewhere else. This somewhere else was a complete curveball, in fact we actually thought it might be a joke at first. The man called and said “Jerry, I am a huge fun of yours. I would love to discuss your future playing professional football in Tokyo.” My first thoughts were, ‘Japan has football?! Wait, do they mean soccer?!’ Nope, Japan actually has American football. So we thought about it for a little bit, we weighed the pros and cons, but really why wouldn’t we go? We are 23 years old and we have nothing that is holding us back to up and move to another country. We don’t have a mortgage to pay, a dog to feed, children to raise, plants to water, this is the time in your life that you are supposed to go out and experience what the world has to offer. We have the rest of our life to sit at home and watch the weeds grow. Now is the only time that you can do something like this and not worry about the repercussions. Sorry I am wrong, the only other time will be when we are 65 years old, retired and waiting for a hip replacement. I’m sure this move isn’t for everyone, honestly I wasn’t really sure if it was for me at first, considering I don’t really care for Japanese food, but I put those petty issues behind me and booked a flight! It is an incredibly rare experience and a story we will be able to tell for the rest of our lives. So we packed 4 ginormous suitcases full of clothes, shoes, an American flag, my camera and we left. Our friends and family keep saying, “I can’t believe you are moving to Japan!!” but we just kinda think of it as an extended vacation. I get to travel and take photos in a country that I never even imagined visiting, and Jerry gets to keep living his dream playing football! How lucky are we! It really is such an amazing opportunity for both of us and we are so incredibly grateful. We can’t wait to share more about this journey but for now, here are some photos from our first week of exploring Tokyo!
