Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Tokyo Orientation

Some randomness:

The bed I've been sleeping on at the Keio Plaza Hotel is a twin-sized pull out bed. It folds up into this not quite love seat, not quite lounge chair. I guess there is some sort of mattress on it, but when I lay down it feels like I'm sleeping on the box spring part of a bed. And when my head is pressed against the back of the couch part my feet are off the end of the bed. It hasn't really mixed well with Jet lag, which I guess simply manifests itself at 2:30am when I wake up and can't really fall back asleep again.

I have been getting to bed relatively early, however. Last night we went out to nomihodai which means "all you can drink." For 2000 yen (about $17). At the current exchange rate, 1000 yen equals about $8.50. Sounds like a decent deal, but you can only get the deal for 2 hours then you have to leave. Oh- and it's all you can eat too. So I guess it was a tabehodie nomihodai. I think there's a word for that, but I can't remember it. I have been pleasantly surprised at some of the vocab words I've been able to recall at oportune moments these past few days. I went out to get dinner in the Keio Plaza with a girl named Mary Beth from North Carolina. We had no idea what we were doing- I asked a guy where a kaiten zushi was in Japanese, and he answered me in English and then started walking us to it- we talked a bit and found out he had lived on the East Coast for awhile. We ended up not eating at the kaiten, but at a place that said "290" on the outside. Here there were kanji for the prices, so my number knowlege came in handy. Also, at the end when we paid I asked, "tadashi?" which means, correct? Obviously not a full sentance, but I made sure that we weren't walking away without paying too much.

During a toast speech in Chicago the speaker gave us "3 advices." The second one was to never tip the restaurants. Really. No one tips- it isn't expected at all. I guess the price of a tip is already figured in to the prices because we were told that eating at restaurants is pretty expensive. I haven't run into that yet- I only paid 450 yen for dinner tonight. However, the portions are a lot smaller. I ordered my dish by pointing at a picture. The thing I got was kind of like ramen with ground beef (I think) and some sort of spice that was REAALLY spicy. I choked trying to swallow the soup every spoonful. I couldn't tell if it was just supposed to be that spicy, or if the Japanese were playing a joke on the poor gaijin (foreigner).

I've met a lot of really nice people, and everyone likes to talk talk talk talk talk. The people on the JET Program here really are the cream of the crop tho- all college educated, all adventurous, all highly-motivated. Most of the people I've spoken to are already world travelers. Or have even lived abroad for a couple of years or more. Most are very extroverted, thus the talk talk talk. My voice was actually kind of hoarse yesterday from all the talking I've done. I've written down several e-mails and signed up for a tatami travel site (cost 1000 yen) that will put my address on a database for other JETs looking for a place to stay while traveling. My 1000 yen also gives me access to the site so if I ever need a place to stay anywhere in Japan where there are JETs, I can do so. Already I think a guy named Daniel is coming down to Kambara in November to stay at my place for the green tea festival. I don't know anything about it, so I guess he's going to show me around.

Tonight's our last night in Tokyo. Tomorrow morning I have to be downstairs at 9:o0 for a bus ride to Shizuoka Prefecture. It's about a 3 1/2 hour bus ride from here, 2 1/2 hours by train or 1 - 1 1/2 by shinkansen (bullet train). Then in the afternoon we'll have our kencho ceremony then head off to our individual schools. Tomorrow night I should be sleeping in my new apartment! I'm super pumped to meet my principal and JTEs and neighbors. I will finally be seeing the people I'll be spending the vast majority of my time with over the next year (or 2 or 3 or 5...sorry mom).

I decided yesterday that I cannot just stay here a year. There's no way. This is too great an opportunity to just have a surface experience. After a year I think I will just start to feel like I'm getting settled. I'm also super pumped to learn Japanese. I really do want to learn it- my goal is to be functionally fluent by the end of 2 years. I went to a workshop today that gave me a lot of strategies to aid in learning Japanese while living in Japan. I haven't watched any tv yet, but I guess a lot of television stations/shows have Japanese subtitles to accompany the Japanese spoken word. Not totally sure why that is, but it sure is helpful for recognizing kanji.

Well, guess that's about all I have to say right now- I've been having trouble with my computer freezing when I try and upload pictures on here, so I won't try since I just typed this really long blog. Hopefully I can soon set up a photo account on some other website so you can all see more snapshots of my life here.

Luther

Arrival

I made it to Tokyo! The flight was pretty long, as I was prepared for. Austin (the go to guy for the Chicago Consulate) saw us off with “gambatte! (good luck) Enjoy your 14 hours of Catwoman!” There were actually a few different movies playing on our personalized screens, and I ended up watching the second Bourne movie twice. I probably would have slept more, but I didn’t realize that our headrests could bend out until 30 min. before we began our descent. The airline food included 2 small pieces of sushi which tasted like airline sushi probably would taste if I had any kind of a palette for sushi.

The Keio Hotel where we’re staying for orientation is very nice. The transitions between the airport to bus to Hotel to paper pick up to room went well smoothly despite taking 4 hours. Several groups of ALTs and CIRs from all over the globe landed at the same time so there were really long lines. I have already met people from all over the US, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and England. There are also a few fluent in Japanese French here who don’t speak any English!

Last night I checked out the hospitality room set up for the JETs. There is an ironing room which I used this morning. (I had no idea what the hell I was doing – just kind of rubbed the iron around until my suit was sort of smooth.) They also had a few computers set up where we could go on the internet or make a free international skype call. I called my parents at 6:30am Central Standard Time. It was 8:30pm the same day here. It is quite weird to think that sitting here right now typing this it is 9:30am Monday while it is Sunday evening in Minnesota. The sun is obviously up, but it is cloudy and humid – at least it’s not 95 like the forecast predicted a few days ago.

Also last night I tagged along with some people who had been to Japan before to a kaiten zushi or rotating sushi bar. We sat around this little track that rotated little dishes of sushi. Each plate was color coded based on the price of the item. I ended up taking 4 blue plates which each cost 140 yen. At 120 yen to the dollar, it was still under 5 bucks. I really had no idea what I was doing, but the girl next to me taught me to say “sumimasen, shake onegaishimasu” which means, “excuse me, salmon please.” I also asked for some wasabi which literally kicked my butt and started making me cry. I brought nasal decongestant with me to Japan, but I think I’ll just buy a thing of wasabi instead.

Despite all the pages and pages of information we have received over the past 8 months, there are still so many things I cannot be prepared for. One point of interest was receiving all coins as change after paying with a 1000 yen bill (just under $10). Apparently a $10 bill is the smallest paper money used here. I am going to have to purchase a little purse! Or lady’s wallet…

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Packing

Packing was a fear. I avoided it for days using the excuse that my room wasn't big enough for laying everything out. When the day came around for us to actually get in the car and drive to Chicago for pre-departure orientation, I had yet to start putting things in bags. Well, most of my stuff was in the livingroom, so it wasn't going to take that long, right? I could still get everything ready before noon for sure. So there we went, pulling out of the driveway right into rainy rush hour traffic.

It didn't help that I had 30# of omiyage (gifts) for my principal, other Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs), neighbors and whoever else may come along the way. That's a separate category of fear. I packed and repacked a few times with rounds of cuts as individual pairs of pants or t-shirts got cut from the team and landed in the "ship it" pile. After the final roster was posted I still had 1 bag that weighed 70 lbs. and the other weighed in at a *light* 60 lbs. Not to mention the carry-on I had stuffed full and the extra college "carry-on" on my waist. (I wonder how much flab I'll lose in Japan? I'm actually looking forward to my 30 min. bikeride to school for that reason ;-)

So yes, the fear was growing that the airlines wouldn't let my luggage get on the plane, and the Japanese were just going to have to settle for my birthday suit rather than the 3-piece. Which would probably be much more comfortable given all the warnings I've received about the humidity! Once at the hotel in Chicago I waited and watched as other new ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) rolled their luggage in. I tried to eyeball the weight and dimensions based on how much their parents were struggling (needing to factor in age, athletic condition, etc.) and instantly determined that I had waaaaay too much. I should have seen the warning sign bound in the wheels of my 70 lb bag which were now bowing perpendicular to each other.

Luckily I have a very patient and helpful father who got on the phone and called several Japanese shipping services to figure out how we could ship all my extra stuff right here from Chicago today. After many transfers from people who only knew 1 sentance in English (being "I don't speak English, I transfer you") my dad got through to someone who said they would ship 2 boxes of my stuff overnight for only $160. Those boxes are going to arrive at my high school in Kambara before I do! I wonder how long I could hold my pee inside a cardboard box...

As you can see we weighed my newly reduced bags on the scale in the fitness room at the hotel and found them nicely under the 50# weight limit each. This helped calm some of my nerves, and kept the armpits to a simple damp. What really helped me though was the pre-departure orientation this afternoon. Our short 4 hours or so were filled by several reassuring and light-hearted people who gave me much encouragement and got me pretty genki-ed up.

It opened up with a presentation by Chicago Police Officer Mark Vaccaro who gave us a handout with a chalked outline of a body on it accompanied by the statement, "Any day you don't wake up in chalk is a good day." It went uphill from there. One of the sections of the handout included a space to write "My New Life Resolutions." I wrote 1. Join a community club 2. Always eat what I am offered (this could be a dangerous one) and 3. Ace my correspondance Japanese language lesson exams. Another notable point from the presenters (presentors? Please, if you do post, feel free to correct my English- I need to learn this language before I begin to teach!) was the Japanese man who went over our instructions for getting our luggage onto the shuttle and into the airport. Of many interesting sentences my favorite was "Package never had a foot" - I can only assume this meant that it didn't have feet and couldn't take itself to the truck! He was hilarious and pumped his fists when we applauded him.

The dinner was quite interesting as well. We were served fancy catering type food (cantelope wrapped in thinly sliced ham) which might as well have been Japanese food for all the mid-west, scandinavian, homestyle cooking I'm used to. I got to know a few other people who are going to be teaching in my same prefecture as well as a lady who taught at Ihara High School in 2003-2004.

This evening we met up with Jess Koehler and had dinner for the second time today at the same restaurant we went to lunch for. Hey, it was good and Chicago is confusing. Well, that pretty much brings you up to this moment as I'm typing it, so I'll spare you the play by play of my life in the present and say goodnight for now and I'll be posting again from the other side of the world!


Luther