We arrived at the Keio Plaza, maybe the nicest hotel I ever stayed at in my life, and were ushered in and given our schedules for the next few days, etc. Then off to my room which I shared with two other fine young lads who departed from Seattle with me but heading to other areas of Japan. After heading to a near restaurant I returned home and crashed on my hotel bed to recover from jet lag and prepare for my 2 days of orientation.
View of Shinjuku, Tokyo from Keio Plaza.
The next two days were full of activities, speeches and lectures in attempt to prepare us, some 1000 JETs, for our new lives in Japan. My days started at around 7AM and ended somewhere around 8 or 9PM. Overall I found some of the lectures useless but at this point I didn't want to do too much since I was pretty wiped out from traveling from Bozeman to Seattle to Tokyo. If I had to do it again I would have skipped a couple lectures and explored Tokyo or took a nap. It was great talking to some of the other people who were JETs though, learning where they were from and where they were going.
On the 29th it was time to leave and head to Shiga prefecture, my new home as a JET. After another bus ride, bullet train, city train, and long walk we made it to the prefectural building where we would meet our supervisors at our Boards of Education for each of our towns/cities. After some awkward introductions I hopped in a van and headed to Hino, a small town of about 23,000 in Southeastern Shiga. Thankfully a Japanese Teacher of English came along because my Board of Education supervisors didn't speak English and my Japanese isn't the greatest.
Once in Hino I was brought to the Junior High School where I would mainly be teaching at to meet some of the teachers and principle. Then rushed to the Town Hall to meet some more people and give another awkward self introduction in Japanese. After a few more things that I can't clearly recall I was brought to my apartment where I could "rest" for an hour before I had to go to a "party" with some local officials including the mayor. By this point I just wanted to go to bed and try to organize my life that I packed into my two suitcases. Thankfully I had a chance to meet my predecessor and ask some questions though.
My non-Japanese looking Apartment Building.
After that I returned to my apartment, unpacked some clothes for the next day and went to sleep. The next day I had to take care of a bunch of other things such as bank accounts, a cell phone and foreign registration. I was lucky enough to have the assistance of another Japanese teacher of English, which was great!
Friday mainly consisted of my going back to the capital of my prefecture, Otsu, and figuring out the train systems for another orientation. Afterwards it was off to Kyoto for some drinks and karaoke with a few other JETs and then the weekend.
The following week was rather confusing. Went to school my first day having no clue what I was suppose to do, so I mainly sat at my desk and used the internet. The next day I was told to go to a museum where I listened to some lectures that I didn't understand (stuff about plankton in Japanese and whatnot). Wednesday was my first taste of "psudo-teaching" helping some of my students prepare for a speech contest, helping them with pronunciation and whatnot and then a 2 hour train ride to watch an amazing firework show in Nagahama city. Thursday and Friday were more like Monday except that a few more teachers were there and so felt like I had a bit more direction; I was able to figure out a few things how the school worked.
Friday night I went to watch another firework show in Otsu (the capital of Shiga) which may have actually been the best fireworks I have seen in my life. One word to describe it, Epic, even more epic than the 2 hours and $20 it took to get there by train.
Crowds and Fireworks in Otsu.
There has been so many things I have done within these past few weeks that it seems surreal. So many things I don't understand! Mixed with the confusion, tiredness, nervousness and excitement is a feeling of contentment. It has taken me 5 years of University to get to this point, a year long application process, $1000 interview and a little courage. I have so much more to learn and much wisdom to gain, and through my experiences in life and learning I may find my place or continue to wander in wonder of what comes next!
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