Arrival in Aomori/Towada

Our flight to Aomori was on time (apparently this is very rare!) and AH (the other Towada JET, from Thunder Bay) and I were met by AB, a fifth year JET in Towada and Hosa, the sub-section chief of our office. After a scenic drive through the mountains, we arrived in Towada in time for a nice soba lunch at the restaurant across the street from our office.

Then AB showed us where everyone lived—him and his wife, J (the high school ALT), AH and me. He took us grocery shopping at the stores nearest our respective houses then left us to settle in.

Not too long after AB left, I got a call from S-sensei asking if I could come to the eikawa (adult English conversation class) that night. I hadn’t been feeling too tired for most of the day, but by that point things were starting to catch up with me, so I pleaded fatigue and stayed home.

Random pictures from the flight:

Tokyo Orientation - Day 3

Our final day of orientation was also spent in seminars/workshops. I was pretty wiped after the first two afternoon workshops, so I decided to take a nap before our prefectural meeting. BAD idea. I set the alarm properly, but I turned it off without hitting the snooze button and told myself “just 10 more minutes.” You can probably guess that I ended up being late (15 minutes!) for my prefectural meeting. I was the only one late, and with the Japanese emphasis on punctuality, it reflected very poorly on me. ^^;;

There was a Canadian embassy event that night, but since my roommate was still packing (we had to ship our luggage from Tokyo to our cities ahead of time because there wouldn’t be enough space on the plane otherwise), we skipped it and went out for dinner on our own. We went down the street to a ramen place and then hit the konbini (convenience store) to buy breakfast for the next morning. (We could’ve had the hotel-provided breakfast, but that was at 6:30am, and we preferred to sleep in.)

Then we walked randomly around Shinjuku—unfortunately we went in the wrong direction and all we saw was construction and office/residential buildings—until about 10pm. (I was pretty amused by the huge glowing and moving crab, though!) When we got back to the hotel, we saw RT and a bunch of other JETs (old and new) hanging around some stairs (“the stoop”) across the street from the hotel. So we joined them and hung out and chatted until around 1:30am. Thus ended our Tokyo orientation.













Pretty much all of the orientation was spent in the company of English speakers, and so even though Tokyo was fun and interesting, it also felt a bit unreal.

Random photos of our accomodations:

Tokyo Orientation - Day 2

After an "interesting" breakfast (steamed vegetables?) at the hotel, it was pretty much just introductions and presentations until lunch. We met the other people going to our prefecture, and sat through a fairly long, formal opening ceremony for the orientation. Apparently this was practice for many various long Japanese ceremonies/meetings. ^^;;

We then had lunch on the 43rd floor of the hotel, where we were treated to a great view of Tokyo:













After that, it was onto still more presentations! There was a keynote speaker as well as a panel presentation from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).

The keynote speaker (or one of the panel presenters?) had an amusing anecdote about English education in Japan. He talked about how one teacher brought some students to America. While there, one student's appendix ruptured and they had to take him to the hospital for emergency service. When the doctor asked the student how he was feeling, the student immediately replied: "I'm fine. And how are you?" :P The speaker's point, of course, was that he hoped we would at the very least teach students to answer the question "how are you?" honestly instead of by rote.

Anyway, the MEXT speakers were actually all pretty entertaining, but it was still hard to just sit in a darkened room, listening for hours. After that there was an AJET information fair and various AJET presentations about different aspects of living in Japan.

I went to the sessions on financial management and cooking, but skipped the third session to take a nap.

There was a JET welcome reception for dinner, but neither C nor I were particularly hungry, so we just nibbled on fruit and desserts.































After that, there was a Shinjuku tour for Toronto JETs organized by the Japan Visitors Association. Unfortunately it pretty much just a sanitized version (no sex toy shop!) of the tour of Kabuki-cho we got from RT the night before, but they did take us to Yodobashi Camera, a huge electronics store, so at least C was able to buy a power bar which would accept 3-prong plugs.

We ended the tour at another (but different) izakaya where we had nomi-hodai and tabe-hodai--all-you-can-drink and all-you-can-eat for 2 hours. Of course it wasn't really worth it for me (I sipped some beer and had lots of water), but I was there for the company anyway, so it was okay.

Then it was back to the hotel to prepare for the next day. Before going to bed we went down to the hospitality centre to iron our clothes for the following day. I ended up ironing a lot of clothes because I couldn't decide what I wanted to wear, but oh well.

Tokyo Orientation - Day 1

We arrived in Narita pretty close to on time. I was also impressed by the efficiency of the airport staff. From landing to clearing customs, it only took about one hour! Most impressively, they took all the luggage with the JET tags and put them on the floor, so I didn't have to try grabbing my nearly 32kg bag(s) off the conveyor belt!

Once we cleared customs, we were led by members of the Association for Japan Exchange and Teaching (AJET) through the airport to the buses that would take us to the Keio Plaza Hotel.

Oh, and I had my first experience with the high-tech toilets in Japan in Narita:


I didn't try the flushing sound or any of the functions there, but I did test them out later on, in the hotel. My roommate loves the bidet &etc. but my opinion of them is more 50/50 (good/weird). I didn't take a picture of it, but I also found a toilet in the lobby of the hotel that had a drying function!! Maybe if they all had drying functions I would like the bidet/spray more...

Anyway, our first three-four days were spent in Tokyo with new JETs from many different countries: Canada, America, England, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, etc. We were placed in rooms according to gender and prefecture, so I ended up with C, my friend from the Toronto pre-orientation.

After getting our bags and settling into our hotel rooms, we decided to go out for a quick dinner. We stopped by the hospitality centre (staffed 24hr by volunteer JETs) to check email and ask for a restaurant recommendation. It just so happened that one of the guys there, RT, was just finishing his shift, so he kindly offered to take us around.

We had conveyor belt sushi and it was pretty darn good. It wasn't so much in the taste but the price! At the Toronto pre-departure orientation we had conveyor belt sushi for lunch one day, but the only things on the cheap plates were things like edamame or tamago sushi. Anything with fish was more expensive. In Shinjuku, though, pretty much anything I wanted--unagi!!-- came on the cheap plates!

After that we walked around Kabuki-cho, the club/red light district in Shinjuku. We also randomly picked up some other new Canadian JETs (from Vancouver) on the way. RT pointed out the host/hostess clubs and other odd/interesting things. He also took us into a small shop for sex toys, and that was weird/awkward in the extreme for me, but rather interesting nonetheless. ^^;;

Once we got tired of walking, we went to a newish izakaya (Japanese pub) and had some drinks (sake for everyone else, Cola and water for me). This was when we learned that you need to ask about table charges/sitting fees before going in an izakaya or bar. The fee there wasn't too bad: ¥300. We also learned that you should ask if it's necessary to buy food or not. After our first round of drinks, the waiter came by and mentioned that we needed to order food because the till system was set up so that you had to enter a food order for each drink order. @_@

C and I were pretty pooped, so after the food and a second round of drinks--during which I was coaxed into trying some sake, which actually wasn't too bad--we went back to the hotel. On our way back there were something like 10 fire trucks in and around one intersection. It was kind of cool, but we didn't see smoke billowing out of a building or anything. (Too bad?)

Random picture: Tokyo Tower as seen from the bus (hence the funny colours):