Day 7 in Japan - Exploration begins!

Happy birthday Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling and Kim. To celebrate your birthday, Sam and I had a big day of nesting and exploring. First, we swapped stories of our trips to get to our house here and now – me through Tokyo, Sam through Osaka. Then we set to work moving furniture around and cleaning up the house. We rearranged the bedroom, lounge room and kitchen cupboards to set the house up a little more to our liking. I am happier with the place now, although we might still do a little more rearranging. Also talked on the phone to Mum for a while. At about midday, Sam and I hopped on our bikes and headed up to Akashikita High to show him around. We went up the hill above the school to look back a little, and found a golf range and a kids water play park (kodomo only according to a non-English speaking man who came out of his hut to chase us off). Rode back to the CO-OP for some lunch, and had delicious taiyaki – the lady asked if we wanted cream, and we said OK for one. After we had eaten our red-bean paste (ando?) taiyaki, the lady came to the table with two more, both custard cream, because she had forgotten to give us one before. She was so nice, and both the ladies at the café were really nice and helpful with trying to explain signs to us. We also found that the place next door in the CO-OP not only sold hanko, but also copied keys, so we got Sam a hanko and a key for the house here. I found out that I can fit into Japanese clothes! Very excited that I could buy an M and have it fit me.

We headed back to the house to drop off our purchases, and had a quick sit in the shade before we realised it was 4 pm already, and then walked back down to Okubo station. We spent the afternoon exploring Okuboeki minami shops – mostly the My Cal complex. We went into an arcade (although we couldn’t find any real looking games? Mostly kids stuff), took photos in a photo booth, ate a cheeseburger, played with some puppies, and ate some donut circles and bubble tea. We even went and checked out the movie times for Inception at the Warner My Cal. We found a HUGE pachinko parlour while wandering back north again, and seem to have discovered that Japanese call Toyota “Toyopet”? We are pretty confused about that. I successfully used my first squat toilet (or more accurately, had my first successful use of a squat toilet). We cruised the supaa (Max Value) again on the way home, and bought some snacks, and I am very happy to have found some garlic (ninniku) to buy. I think Max Value is probably a better supermarket for most of the packaged stuff than the CO-OP, but the deli and bakery up north are a little better. More cupboard clearing again when we got home, and Sam and I are now discovering the joys of menthol forhead packs we found in the cupboard for making us feel nice and cool while having a rest.

Food highlight of the day: TAIYAKI! These are like fish-shaped waffles filled with deliciousness. We both liked the red bean paste filled ones the best.

Day 6 in Japan - A New Challenger Approaches!

Today I rode my bike to work – it was very exciting. It’s much faster to ride to Akashikita than to walk, even though it’s slightly uphill. Today was a good day at work – lots of teachers talked to me, and I got paid in cash! 63,000 yen! WOOHOO! I’ve paid my first rent, and ate the supplied bento for lunch. I also supervised a test and FORGOT TO TAKE THE TESTS OFF THE KIDS AT THE END. I handed them out the answer cards and let them go. I am such an idiot. Yokoi-sensei had to make an announcement over the PA for all the kids to bring their tests back, and they had graded them (honestly), not cheated and actually completed everything. This is definitely bizarro land. I bought cheap sashimi and okonomiyaki at the CO-OP and then went on my maiden voyage to Okubo station – it’s so close! I walked around Vivre and aimlessly wandered a little, and then came back here to the house to wait for Sam to call. He’ll be here any minute, according to my well-calculated calculations. Have just been hanging out and talking to Mum on the phone and watching Veronica Mars since. Oh, I ate a DELICIOUS icecream. It was like Vienetta in a cone. I shit you not, dear diary. Poetry in frozen motion.

OK, Sam here! See?

Food highlight of the day: The supplied teacher bento was super tasty! For 400 yen, I think I’ll be eating a lot of these. But the 880 yen sashimi platters that I picked up for 200 yen each for dinner were pretty spectacular as well.

Day 5 in Japan - First day at school

When I woke up this morning, it was lightly raining, so I decided to walk to school instead of riding the bike (because I was worried about trying to manage a raincoat while riding after my poor effort last night). The walk (out the front door, left at the tabacco (タバコ)sign, right at the jinja (じんじゃ), left at the pharmacy, past the hospital, right at the CO-OP supermarket (スパア), left up the hill and then right into the street with Akashikita High school on it) took me about 45 minutes carrying my laptop, lunch and all the JET books. I got to school right on 8:15-8:20, which is on time for 8:30 in Japan. Kyoko-sensei (vice principal) showed me how to sign in of a morning (I got to use my namestamp – hanko – for the first time!), and how to fill in the leave sheet when I take time off. After a little while, Johnna came into the school – it was so nice to see her, and I think we talked each others ears off for a few hours. She left at midday, and I spent most of the afternoon looking at all kinds of lesson plans and materials that she had left in the desk. I talked to lots of other teachers today – they have been so friendly in coming to talk to me. I am particularly lucky with some of the first year teachers who are sitting around me! They speak very good English (particularly Ito-sensei no. 3 and Iwasaki-sensei), and I feel very lucky to be in such a good school. Johnna tells me my other school is not so good, and I will have some troubles with the students there. We went for a walk around the school and I took some photos of my new workplace. It’s so cool – it’s like I’m walking through a high school anime. At 4:45, Kyoko-sensei came up to me and said “Your job is over, go home”. He meant that my finishing time is 4:15! WOOHOO! I packed up and left pretty quickly after that. I went to the CO-OP store on the way home – it’s pretty cool. On the bottom floor is a big grocery store, and on the top floor there are lots of homewares. I checked out the prices of futons, because Sam and I will need one each. They are nice and cheap – less than 5000 yen. I decided it would be better to wait for me to have my point card on me to buy a big purchase, and also that it would be nice to have Sam to help me carry it home. We can go on Saturday morning. The most exciting part about my trip to the CO-OP was that I made a new friend! A lady saw me looking like a lost gaijin and said hello in English. Turns out that she has visited Australia and speaks decent English. After we chatted for a while, she pointed me towards the bedding, and we parted ways. Later on, she came back up to me with her husband and all of her details written on a piece of paper to invite me to go around to their place for lunch one day. I HAVE A TOMODOACHI-SAN! They were both lovely, and I will go to their house some day next weekend, I think. I bought a pillow and a folding couch thing, and then came home. I got back at about 6:30, and then was lucky enough to get phone calls from Lovey, Mum, Fletch, Sam and even Mrs. Pearman! I talked to everyone for about 2 hours all up and I felt absolutely fantastic afterwards. Even though I did manage to break a glass door in my house already. I negotiated the washing machine to get my first load done (phew), and sorted all my rubbish into burnable, non-burnable and paper/cardboard for recycling. The burnable trash will go out tomorrow morning – I hope I have done it right. Feeling somewhere between happy and a bit stunned and numb tonight. I will go and have a shower and get to bed now – early-ish night because I feel so totally wiped out! I think it’s the heat – it’s still very hot and humid, and now the light breeze that was making it bearable has abandoned me.

Food highlight of the day: Huge Japanese bread sandwiches. The only bread I could find in the supermarket was about an inch thick, which makes for a pretty epic peanut butter sandwich for lunch.

Day 4 in Japan - Tokyo to Akashi! New Home!

Today was a very big day. Us Hyogo-jin had to meet up at 8:30 (which means 8:20 Japan time), and then it was time to depart for our new home – the Hyogo prefecture. First step was to get on the bus to Tokyo train station (Tokyo-eki). We went past a big palace in Tokyo (the Imperial Palace? The emperor lives there, anyway) – when Tokyo land was going through a big period of boom the land was said to be worth more than the whole state of California! From there it was very close to the train station, where we were marched to Platform 16, carriage 14 area. We got to go and buy some lunch (tonkatsu rice for me), and then waited in the air-conditioned rooms on the platform for the train to show up at precisely 10:30. We caught the shinkansen from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka (Nozomi 27). The trip went very fast, as I was chatting the whole way. We went past Fuji-san, but it was very misty/smoggy, so we didn’t see it. The countryside was pretty awesome, though (although I couldn’t see very much out of the windows). When we got to Shin-Osaka (1:06 pm), we got straight onto a bus and then drove 1 hour to the BOE headquarters in ??? town. It was very funny when we got to the room with all of our new bosses in it – we were lined up in town order, and then our names were called out to be picked up. It felt a little like we were dogs or orphans or something along those lines. Ito-sensei and Tanaka-sensei, my new handlers, came to pick me up and we drove back to Akashikita High School in the Ito-mobile. I was so nervous and excited to meet my new workmates, and I couldn’t stop smiling at everyone. I think that they think I’m a little silly (although they did call me genki a few times). I met the Kancho-sensei (principal), and he showed me a really nifty little cup that he had made. I was very nervous and I think I made a bit of an idiot of myself, but the cup was a really clever little thing – you tipped it upside down and all the water came out. That sounds dumb, but seriously – was awesome.

After a few slightly awkward meetings with a lot of the teachers from Akashikita, Ito-sensei and Tanaka-sensei brought me back to my new place – 108 Totaku Heights, 505-6 Okubo, Okubo-cho, Akashi-shi, Hyogo-ken, 674-0051, Japan. The place is a little bigger than I had though, which was a relief. The gas man came and connected the gas with Ito-sensei, while Tanaka-sensei checked that my air-conditioner worked (it did), and after a while of looking worriedly at me (I must have looked pretty scared), they left me to my own devices. After a bit of aimless wandering around the house and crying, I started to get a bit organised – unpacking my bag, sorting through the stuff Johnna (my predecessor) had left and finally going for a bike ride to the MaxValue supaa (supermarket) nearby to get some food and drink. Just so you know – the saying about never forgetting how to ride bikes is totally untrue – I was useless! I wobbled all around the place, and I think I definitely need more practise. I loved it, though, and thankfully the supaa is only half a block from my house. After I got home, I wasn’t really hungry so I didn’t end up eating dinner, but instead took a video of my half packed/half unpacked apartment and put all of my stuff away. 23 kg of clothes don’t look like very much when they go into a big cupboard. The biggest challenge of the night, funnily enough, was trying to turn my computer into an alarm clock. Eventually I used automator to create an iCal event trigger to make iTunes start playing. Once I was happy that an alarm actually would wake me up at 7 am, I fell asleep for my first night of sleep on a futon.

Day 3 in Japan - Tokyo Orientation 2nd Day

Lots of talks today – got some good examples of team teaching and met the important people from my Prefecture. Who I have promptly forgotten. At lunchtime I went and bought myself a new power cable for my lunch break. IN JAPANESE! I asked in Yodobashi where I had to go, got redirected a few times, actually remembered the counter for floors, and then asked about Apple power cables and found out the they don’t exist here. ALL BY MYSELF! After the talks today, we had an Embassy meeting – got to go to the Australian Embassy in Minato-ku. Pretty good food to make up for the dry talks about Australia-Japan trade relations. Caught the subway there - bought my first subway tickets. I feel so cool. Last time all of us Aussies will be together – I got a few email addresses of the people I have clicked with, and I hope to Facebook catch up with a few more. Excited and nervous about tomorrow – looking forward to meeting my workmates and seeing my new town and apartment.

Day 2 in Japan - Tokyo Orientation actually starts

Today was the first official day of work, and I actually enjoyed it! Had the Welcome/Opening Ceremony, then the keynote speech from the guy on the JET Life video, who was actually completely hilarious, human and probably made me feel better about being on the program than anyone I have talked to or anything I have read so far. Afternoons seminars were pretty good, the dinner was fun and it was nice to meet people from my prefecture. Ended up going to karaoke with a bunch of Hyogo dudes and had a blast. Met lots of nice people and, reassuringly, lots of people in the same “not much Nihongo” boat as me. Bed time now! Sleep!

Day 1 in Japan - Japan Time means 10 minutes early

Touched down in Narita airport at 6 am, and flew through Japanese customs without a worry. Probably about 80 or so JETs on the same flight, and we all got through the airport within 30-40 minutes. Caught the bus into the Koei Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku and picked up and dropped off some bags. With a bunch of the Sydney JETs (Alistair, Matt, Les, Helen, Carly, Julie and a Darwin JET named Sasha) we went to get some breakfast, and then hit up the Shinkjuku depaatos for some cables and air-conditioned comfort. Eventually made our way back to the hotel to check in to our rooms, shower and grab some internet time. Afterwards I went wandering by myself – first up to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Building Tower to the observation deck on the 45th floor, then to the Shinjuku-Chuo Park, and then back through to Shinjuku Station and the Southern walkway for some shopping. Bought some postcards and managed to make a few small purchases and ask a few questions by myself. Will now try to catch a little bit of rest before heading out for dinner.

Day 0 in Japan - The Road to Tokyo

Left home at around 6 pm to be at Sydney airport by 7:45. Checked in with no worries. Tears at airport when saying goodbye to Mum, Dad, Fletch and Sam, but cleared up OK once I was inside the gate and chatting to a few other JETs. Got seated next to Alistair on the flight, which was awesome luck – he’s a really nice JET from Sydney. He’s going to be in Niigata prefecture. Dozed on and off on the overnight flight (took off promptly at 9:45 and landed 30 mins early at 6 am – first flight into Narita), and watched How to Train a Dragon. Best part of flight was opening my awesome, awesome present from Aaron and Fletch – an iPad loaded with movies from home, “our” songs and photos of everyone. I cried a bit on the plane when I opened it, and Alistair tactfully let me have a few moments to myself.