Getting Genki in Japan

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 essays and musings of a Down East MomAEs 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!

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.