From Tokyo Orientation to Yamaguchi

So I’m in Japan! After 2 nights in Chicago, and a 13 hour flight to Tokyo, and 3 nights in Tokyo I’m finally at my new home in Ube, Yamaguchi.

Chicago was a lot of fun the first night. I got in a night early and met up with 2 friends from college. Liz met up with me and we went to Lincoln Park together. My friend Josh lives there and he took me out to dinner and the 3 of us walked around Lincoln Park. It’s a nice area. After that night in Chicago I don’t think I’d mind living there if I ever got a job there. Although, I did tell him to let me know how winter goes…

Anyway, orientation in Chicago was somewhat boring, but informative. The flight over was pretty long… but we all survived : )

Once we got to Tokyo we had to go through immigration where they now take your fingerprints and take your picture… they didn’t do that the last time I was here (2002 and 2003), so that was kind of weird. Then we got our bags and went through customs. After leaving customs we walked through the doors and there were a lot of JET people pointing us in the right direction. After sending on our big suitcases we got on a bus and drove about 2 hours to our hotel in Shinjuku. Let me just say that this hotel was very nice. We stayed at the Keiyo Plaza Hotel. We got there Sunday evening. I was pretty tired and headed out to find a place to eat with one of my roommates at the hotel.

Monday and Tuesday were full of seminars. They were literally all day long. From 9am until 5pm or 6pm. I didn’t see much of Tokyo during the day, but Tokyo night life is a lot of fun! Most people hit up the Karaoke place called Big Echo and then headed to the bars. All in all, orientation was pretty informative. We got a lot of information and books. The US embassy gave the Americans books on the US Economy, Government, Geography, etc. We all got a book entitled “Earthquake Emergency Procedures”… I think I’ll read it because I have no idea what you’re supposed to do if there were an earthquake.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Wednesday morning everybody headed to wherever their new homes are. Some people took buses, trains, planes, or the bullet train. In my case, I flew to Ube City. There were 14 people total going to Yamaguchi from Orientation Group A. We had a good mix of people – American, English, Australian, and South African. The other girl who is actually living in my city comes in a few days with Orientation Group B. It was a 50 min bus ride from the hotel to Haneda Airport and a 1hr 40min plane ride from Tokyo to Ube. We arrived a little after noon. My supervisor and the head of the English department were waiting for me at the airport and we had lunch at the airport before driving for about 20-30 min to my base school. I met the principal, was shown my desk in the teacher’s room, and met some other teachers who I can’t remember their names… I can barely remember my supervisor’s name. I do a lot better with names if I see them written down. Anyway, I have a computer and internet at my desk at my base school, so that’s nice.

Around 2pm my supervisor and some other English teachers took me over to my apartment. My apartment is nice. It’s also very Japanese – but what else would you expect?! It has 3 rooms. I have plenty of space. I don’t have much furniture – but that’s typical for Japan. The room I sleep in has tatami mats (if you know anything about Japanese rooms, it’s a 6 tatami mat room). In there is a closet and then I have a futon mat that I pull out of the closet to sleep on – so yes, that means I sleep on the floor. I’ll try it for awhile, but I might have to give in and purchase some sort of bed/couch. It’d also be nice to have that to just hang out on because in the other room there’s only a tv and a coffee table – which, again, is typical for Japan. Off that room is a small balcony where I hang my clothes to dry. There’s also I decently sized kitchen which includes my tiny 2 person table (with chairs!). Then there’s a room with a toilet and a room with a shower. So that’s basically my apartment. There’s a small Shinto shrine across the street from me.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

After setting some stuff up in the apartment, my supervisor and an office boy took me over to a place where they submitted some tax papers. Then we headed over to city hall where I applied for foreigner registration. After that we stopped back at my apartment and my supervisor showed me where the train station was, places to eat, and 2 supermarkets. I’m close to 2 big supermarkets and the train station. Then I bought some food for dinner and breakfast the next day. My supervisor bought me beer and put it in my fridge, ha. After returning to my apartment around 5:30pm-ish, he headed home and I just unpacked the rest of the night and did laundry. Nothing special, but that’s fine because I was pretty tired.

That’s all I’ve got for now. My supervisor is picking me up this morning at 8:15am and we’re going to head over to school I think. He said they’re fixing my bike, so that’s why I don’t have it yet. Also, I don’t even know how to get to school yet even if I wanted to, ha. I think we’re going to the bank today. I also told him I wanted to get a cell phone and set up internet in my apartment, so maybe we’ll do that too.