Today is August 9th, 2011. I’m in Japan. At the time of writing this, I don’t have internet. I don’t have a cell phone. I’m technically not yet working either. I’m channeling Emily Dickinson, instead: reading and reading and playing video games. Ok, so she probably didn’t do much of that last one but that’s because she was born when she did. Being a good hikikomori (look it up), she would’ve totally been all about the harvest moons and the WoW and what not. *ahem* Despite the tone the first few sentences of this passage may seem to carry, I’m not begrudging, in any way, my decision to come be a teaching assistant in Japan. Even my current situation I am trying to make the most of. I have already finished Half-Life 2 Episode 1 and am about halfway (or more) through inFamous, put several hours into Mass Effect and restarted Magicka. And that’s only on the gaming front. Though, to be honest, I’m only halfway through Lewis’ Mere Christianity. (I do so enjoy his writing)
I’ll backtrack a little bit and then meet again at the present, so as to update you, my friends, a bit more; give you a better picture of how and why we got here. Actually, the ‘why’ should be clear at this point so I’ll mostly skip it. So then, let’s go back to the beginning of the month. On july 30st, after a sleepless night of busy packing – of course, I had done oh so little packing up until the day I was flying – my dear (now ex-) roommate Mike and his lovely girlfriend Jing drove me to the airport for our goodbyes and my departure. As a note, I’d like to defend myself of the judgments I’m going to be rude enough to presume you had by saying I didn’t just leave packing to the last day out of laziness and procrastination. To be sure, there’s probably a time in which I could’ve done more towards it than the last day, but I would be lying if I said I had that many free moments in the 2 weeks prior to my leaving the US. Those last two weeks, I’ve been saying for a while, were the busiest I remember having. Ever. Well, at least so far. Even holidays at TP don’t quite compare, and that’s saying a lot! Of course, it wasn’t all work. I was busy meeting with people over meals and preparing all sorts of things for my leaving, not the least of which was doing things like selling my desktop computer, laptop and car – only the first of which was, thankfully, a painless and quick process. I must also say, I don’t regret all that in the least. I don’t really know how I could’ve done it any differently.
Continuing, my sleep deprivation ended up being quite the blessing. Sleep does not come easily to me when riding a plane but that 10 hour flight was made much shorter thanks to how horrendously tired I was after settling in with a nice pillow and a reclined seat. While we didn’t have the kind of seats that recline into a full bed, they did recline more than your average plane seats and made for just enough comfort for me to sleep several hours, if my memory serves me. The flight was largely uneventful and the food wasn’t stellar but it was well enough to suffice. We did eventually land in Japan and so began my feeling of bewilderment… and jetlag. At this point another feeling began to grow in me. It only got worse during Tokyo Orientation too. Snapping back, we get off the plane, go through customs, get our suitcases, cart them over to the busses (at this point I’m skipping a particular little hiccup which eventually came to nothing so I’m deeming it a moot point ;), gave them to the nice people that would ship them over to our future place of residence, got on the busses, got to Tokyo from the airport, checked in and finally got to rest up for a few minutes at the hotel room.
On the way to the hotel I noticed two things worth mentioning. One is that the climate was uncharacteristically cool for the area, something we can all be grateful for, especially the fellow JETs that were helping lead us where we had to go who had to stand outside all day. The other is that it was during this trip to Tokyo that I first began to have flashbacks of home when I looked out the window. Despite driving on the left side of the road, most of the greenery, and even some of the architecture, was strangely reminiscent of Puerto Rico. This is a perception that has since not died down but been reinforced the more of rural Japan that I see. Certainly, this is probably part of the culture shock phase they told us about during orientation where you’re still wearing your rose colored glasses and while everything is new, everything is somehow also wonderful, great, and very familiar to wherever you’re from. That said, the feeling I mentioned earlier that began once we landed in Japan and went on to be amplified and accentuated by the orientation is this: what have I gotten myself into?! ***Spoiler alert*** This feeling has, in fact, died down quite a bit so there is no need for alarm. Also, the only times I’ve so far felt homesick at all have come as a result of my having difficulty communicating and so are only reflections of my not wanting to work hard to do something that was quite natural and simple previously but I should’ve seen it coming and it’s really not that bad, when all is said and done. After all, this IS an adventure, and what good is adventure without a little danger and adversity?
Onward we go into orientation! At this point in our story it is July 31st and it’s actually not even the first day of orientation. However, since it is the first of only 4 days in Tokyo I’m just calling that whole ordeal/ride/madness orientation. Sunday night, my roommates (one of them the guy I sat next to on the plane) and I went out to get something to eat. We didn’t stray too far from the hotel since we didn’t want to get lost and were truly famished. After walking around the blocks nearby and eyeing the options we settled on a little ramen shop. It was quite delicious, or so our empty stomachs lead us to believe, and then I had Starbucks in Tokyo. Hell yes! That was one of my first starry-eyed moments in Japan so far. You can imagine why. Second day! Orientation went from 8:30 in the morning till about 8 o’clock at night. Maybe 6? In any case, I won’t bore you with the details. The long and short of it was it was serious information overload. Also, they gave us French fries during breakfast. Obviously, that night we went karaoke-ing! It was great fun. Actually, it was a freaking blast, hahaha! Could you really expect any less from me? Third day! Pretty much the same as the day before except this time a bunch of us from the 島根県(Shimane)* troupe went to have dinner together… and then we went karaoke-ing! During dinner was the first time I was part of a nomi-houdai. To those unfamiliar with the term, think buffet but of drinks instead of food. Yeah, there were people who were drunk before karaoke, where they had more drinks. And after karaoke, where they had more drinks. I’ll withhold their names but let’s just say, they weren’t the happiest campers Wednesday morning when we’re all flying out to Shimane to meet our new superiors. And with that, “adieu Tokyo” I thought as we flew away from the pretty lights and the bustling streets of the chilliest big city I’ve yet been to.
August 3rd we left Tokyo and the 8 of us new Shimane JETs flew to our new homes. That day, unlike the ever-so-kind, cool-ish weather of the day we arrived in Tokyo it was awfully humid and quite hot. At the airport all of our respective supervisors, most with sempai (senior) JETs came to greet us. They were all very nice and from the airport my we went to a ridiculously good Italian place in 出雲(Izumo, the city we flew into). Yes, yes, I know, why eat Italian when you’re in Japan? Why not, I say! And it really was quite good. The portions were actually not get-fat-and-feel-squeamish-when-you’re-done sized, believe it or not. From there we went to 大田(Ohda), my new home away from home… and directly to city hall where I met some of the bosses of the Board of Education! Thankfully, I wasn’t taken to meet the Mayor, as I heard some other JETs had been. After doing some paperwork, my supervisor stayed behind and I went with the two other JETs to get me some groceries at a supermarket. Don’t be fooled, friends. Ohda is a small town but it is not without its luxuries. Namely that supermarket that’s really more like a Target/Wal-mart than anything. And then they dropped me off at my new apartment! A little about the new place: it’s bigger than I thought it would be, fully furnished and I even have a great TV, YAY! The following day we did some more errands like opening a bank account but that night (it was either Thursday night or Friday night) the two JETs from before plus a third and a friend of theirs took me to a fireworks festival on the bay. Let me just say, Disney’s friggin imagineers have to come see this show. Not only did it last about a half hour, they had fireworks I’d never seen before. Cat fireworks, mushroom fireworks, 5-phase fireworks, by Jove it was stunning. Also, the food was ummmmmehhhhhhhh! (that’s Japanese for my-taste-buds-are-exploding-in-ecstasy, btw) One of the culinary fixin’s was a “French dog”, I kid you not. Dunno why they called corn dogs French dogs but hey, we call fried potato sticks French fries so there you have it. Incidentally, they did have French fries but they called it furaido poteto (fried potato, yup).
And since that day there’s been the odd human contact but for the most part I’ve hung out at home playing video games, reading, showering. Even exploring the town a little bit, by which I mean I walked around the block and then came home coz I was sweating too damn much. But hey, at least I scored a killer chocolate croissant and an awesome lemon soda on the way! HEALTH! And today, I even went to my base school and met the principal and the English teachers I’ll be working with. They were all rather nice, of course. So here we are, back at August 9th. However it will likely be a few days, maybe even weeks, before I am able to post this up on my blog since I won’t have internet for a while. Also, believe it or not, but I did leave a lot out of this retelling of the last few weeks but I’m sure you’ll agree this post is already quite long. In our next installment, I’ll probably talk about such titillating topics as: driving in Japan! Taking a train! Shimane orientation! More Karaoke! That speech I have to write and do for my welcoming ceremony at school! Food, food, and more food! Until the next one …which may or may not happen again before I have internet! XD
*Shimane is the prefecture I’m in, think a “state” within Japan… or just wiki it jeez! ;P
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