Tuesday, August 28, 2007

July 29-Aug 1st: Tokyo Orientation

I think I will start at the beginning; it's a very good place to start.

We left SeaTac around 4pm on Saturday July 28th and arrived in Tokyo around 6pm Sunday July 29th. The group from Seattle is one of the largest JET groups - we had about 60 people.

The fligh
t was very long, but had great in-flight entertainment. :) Every seat had it's own tv screen and you could choose what movies to watch - or you could play games, listen to music, all sorts of things. You could challenge someone sitting in another seat to a video game - crazy! I watched about 4 movies...I don't really remember which ones, but it doesn't really matter, does it?

When we got to the airport we were shuffled through security and customs and loaded onto a bus to take us to the hotel. We were the last group to arrive, so all the other ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers, to be used from here on) were freshly showered and ready to take on the town. I however, went to bed. Exciting.

The next few days were spent in a training conference. We covered all kinds of topics concerning the state of English education in Japan - all very thrilling (I will spare you the details). There were a few useful sessions about money management, travel, etc., but generally the time was best used meeting people and making connections (who's living in the next town over? who's living in a huge house in Hokkaido so when you want to take a weekend trip you can crash on their floor?)

One evening, a group of older ALTs from Hyogo-ken (that's the prefecture, or state, that I'm living in) organized a night out so we could meet some new and some old ALTs. We went to a theme restaurant, very common in Japan: the theme was Haunted Chinese Railroad. No lie. Inside, the walkway was down the center of the restaurant and looked like you were walking through and iron skeleton - the iron "ribs" went down on either side. Through the ribs you could walk to your table. The cashier was behind a cage like at an old train station. I wish I had taken pictures! Ah well...

Leaving Tokyo, the Hyogo-ken ALTs took the Shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. From Osaka we took a bus to an educational center in the middle of nowhere (nicknamed Yashiro Prison, this will come up again later). This is where the representatives from our base schools came to pick us up. There was a very quick introduction and very quick good-byes to our friends before we were shuffled off into separate cars an went our separate ways. (Side note: at this point it was very hard to keep contact with these new friends. We didn't have land lines or cell phones, we didn't have access to internet so email was useless, we didn't even know necessarily where we were going to be living. I think being so disconnected made me spazz out a bit...I felt like I had left my left arm at home!). From Yashiro I was taken directly my base school, Nishinomiya Kabutoyama High School. Here I met principal, was shown my desk, signed some papers, and was whisked off again, this time to my apartment.

I still have not taken any pictures of my apartment - mainly because when I moved in, it was rather scary. Now it's not quite so scary, but I'm still rearranging things and actually I just got a brand new kitchen cupboard this afternoon! So, I promise an apartment-dedicated blog in the future...

Back to the day that never seemed to end: my supervisor and my predecessor (the ALT that I am replacing) carried my bags to my place (I'm on the first floor, but the bags were extremely heavy) showed me around a bit (not that there's much to see) and took me out to dinner -- to an Italian restaurant. :) Later that evening, my pred took me out to an izakaya, a Japanese family-style restaurant, to meet some other ALTs that live nearby. Old ALTs, new ALTs, incoming and outgoing. It was nice to be around people. We weren't out too late, but I was dead tired, so I was escorted home, since I had no idea how to get back, and crashed.

There you have it: my first 4 days in Japan. A bit of a whirlwind, huh?

Japanese phrase of the day:
Tsukaremashita, uchi ni kaerimas. I'm tired, I'd better go home.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow! It sure sounds busy! I hope you are starting to feel more settled in. Miss you bunches....the new job is going well.

Jen said...

Themed restuarants? How cool! Can't WAIT to hear more!!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a lot of fun!! I'm soo proud of you and anxious to hear about your adventures!
I hope to hear more soon!!
I've got a birthday package to send off to you, it's late but I just wanted you to stretch it out and celebrate for a month! :)
When does school start there?
Miss You!!