{"id":34502,"date":"2014-04-03T15:54:52","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T19:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=34502"},"modified":"2014-04-04T12:14:37","modified_gmt":"2014-04-04T16:14:37","slug":"a-jet-love-story-vote-and-share-your-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/03\/a-jet-love-story-vote-and-share-your-own\/","title":{"rendered":"A JET Love Story: VOTE and SHARE your own!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Paul<\/a>

Paul and Joy at hanami at Wakayama Castle.<\/p><\/div>\n

Two JET alumni (Wakayama 09-12), Paul Champaloux and Joy Young, have entered their JET love story in a Facebook contest. \u00a0They are asking the JET community for help to reach their goal of 1,000 votes by April 10th.\u00a0 JETwit realizes their story is one of many, so we\u2019d like to take this chance to support them in their endeavor and hear from other JET couples about their own stories!<\/i><\/p>\n

HELP VOTE for Paul and Joy\u2019s story, then SHARE your own JET love story in the comments below!<\/p>\n

1. Vote here:\u00a0A JET Love Story<\/a><\/i><\/i>
\n2. \u201cLike\u201d the Ko\u2019olau Ballroom Facebook page (top right) to see the story.<\/i>
\n3. VOTE for \u201cSerendipity in Japan\u201d by clicking the black \u2018VOTE\u2019 button. One vote per person.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cExpect the unexpected.\u201d As I prepared to leave for Japan, that phrase kept popping up whenever I asked for advice on the JET experience. \u201cSure,\u201d I thought, \u201cthe food will be different. The culture and language too, but I did my research and I\u2019m ready for anything!\u201d Well, almost<\/i> anything. Little did I know that I would sit in front of my future fianc\u00e9e on Day One of Tokyo Orientation!<\/p>\n

\"Tokyo<\/a>

Tokyo Orientation 2009, Group B JETs<\/p><\/div>\n

The pair of us certainly make a unique couple: I\u2019m from the East Coast with French and Spanish roots and never expected to meet someone as beautiful and cute as Joy from Hawaii. \u00a0By some extreme luck (or was it destiny?), we ended up both being placed in the same prefecture: Wakayama, whose JET inhabitants affectionately called the \u201cLOVE ken\u201d thanks to a fairly catchy song \u201cWAKAYAMA LOVE SONG<\/a>.\u201d Ironic, right?<\/p>\n

No experience bonded us more than the JET experience did. Wakayama is very inaka<\/i> and with each JET located far apart, everyone would try to stay connected in other ways typically through Facebook and Skype. \u00a0As soon as we connected to the internet, most of us immediately \u201cfriended\u201d all the ALTs around us, Joy and I being no exception. I still recall our extensive Facebook messages sharing everything from favorite Japanese pastries to great local places to try out (note: we like food). Even when a huge typhoon struck two months into our first year, I still remember Skyping Joy well into the night while we huddled under our respective kotatsus and the buildings groaned under the shrieking wind outside.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>

At Kishi with Station Master Tama the cat<\/p><\/div>\n

Those types of unique experiences really solidified not only the relationship between Joy and I, but our friendship with other JETs as well. While the exact situations each JET has lived through are different, there still exists an underlying ability to relate to one another. When Joy and I eventually returned to the U.S., we, like many others, felt lost and struck by culture shock. We reached out to our networks and quickly realized the value of the JET alumni in Washington, D.C. for they not only understood our situation, but they also could offer professional advice and priceless friendship.<\/p>\n

Our wedding day would not be complete without our JET friends who will be invited to this joyous celebration and also moments that defined our JET experience. Ours is not only a personal love story, it\u2019s a JET love story too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two JET alumni (Wakayama 09-12), Paul Champaloux and Joy Young, have entered their JET love story in a Facebook contest. \u00a0They are asking the JET community for help to reach their goal of 1,000 votes by April 10th.\u00a0 JETwit realizes their story is one of many, so we\u2019d like to take this chance to support […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-8Yu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34502"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34513,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34502\/revisions\/34513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}