Pond Karen. Getting Genki In Japan: The Adventures and Misadventures of an American Family in Tokyo

Illustrations by Akiko Saito. — North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2012. — 192 p., over 40 color illustrations.The unexpected gift of a favored bottle of shiraz from her husband leads to the adventure of a lifetime for Karen Pond and her family — moving from rural Maine to the largest city in the world: Tokyo, Japan.Getting Genki in Japan is a collection of illustrated travel and culture essays and musings of a Down East Mom's absurd and exhilarating adventures in the Far East. From bewildered and befuddled (and back again) to (somewhat) wise, these narratives recount a journey of cultural discoveries, experiences and the follies of a newcomer to Japan; including (mis)identifying food, (mis)pronouncing Japanese, (mis)pantomiming for necessities, and finally figuring out how to flush the Japanese toilet!A humorous and helpful cultural book for newcomers, expatriates in Japan; international travelers; the Japanese community or anyone interested in laughing and (no promises) learning as the everyday turns into the absurd.Karen Pond worked as a catalog copywriter for LL Bean before moving to Tokyo with her family, where she chronicled her culture shock with essays that appeared in iNTOUCH Magazine, Tokyo Families Magazine, and Being A Broad Magazine. Karen still lives in Tokyo, Japan, with her husband, three sons, and their border collie Fergus.