9.24.2003

Whew! Just had some mabo ramen from the Chinese place across the street from my BOE. Good stuff, but a little spicy. Finding restaurants around here is an ordeal for me, I'm continually worried that I'll walk into someone's house when I open the door. Half of the time these places don't serve lunch, so I end up looking stupid anyway.

So, yesterday was a holiday (gotta love those!). All I managed to do was get some laundry done, and ate dinner with some friends. Only a couple of days until I get my alien registration card! Then I'll be able to set up internet, and get myself a phone! Sweet! Plus, I just got paid today, even though I don't have a bank card that I can use to access the money yet. It's turns out to be okay, as I can pull money from American accounts through ATMs here.

This last weekend, a lot of us got together and headed to Beppu, a famous onsen town on the eastern side of Kyuushuu. The ferry ride there only took a couple hours, it was a lot closer than I expected. We went to an amusement park in the hills, it was really foggy up in the mountains, but we had a lot of fun. After that we hit an onsen and relaxed with some nice sand baths, and of course, onsen baths. The ride back was where we had the most fun, as the typhoon that missed us kicked up huge winds around the ferry, so hanging around outside turned out to be pretty exciting.

Tonight's my welcome enkai at the board of ed, so I'm expecting to be kept fairly toasted with all of the sake that's going to be offered to me. Sake always gives me a headache the day after, so you probably won't hear much from me tomorrow. ;)

9.18.2003

Mentos. The freshmaker. My ass. Every single time I buy those things, they're always stale and hard. The only time I like them is when I take one from someone else who's bought them, then for some reason they always turn out to be tasty. It probably didn't help that I bought their new pink grapefruit flavor instead of strawberry like I thought.

Went cormorant fishing a couple of days ago, it was quite a lot of fun. We all piled onto this skiff and slowly headed down the river. Later the fishing boat comes to us with 4 leashed birds that swim ahead and dive down to catch fish out of the river. The birds are then pulled into the boat and forced to throw up their catches. Very interesting stuff. The cormorants remind of seals when underwater, they look very graceful.

So here I am in my Board of Education typing away. I don't start teaching until the 3rd of October, until then I'll be here doing nothing. At least I'll have a lot of time to prepare my first couple of lessons. Which I will then proceed to repeat to each class at each of my 14 schools, probably for the first couple of months.

When I think about it, I think I got a placement in Japan that is very well suited for me. Yawatahama is large enough that it has several other JETs, and a large enough population that are many other people to meet (and teach!). It has it's own rail stop, and is on the coast, so it can reach towns in Honshu and Kyuushu by ferry and train. I've heard from a lot of other JETs, and being truly inaka (in the country) seems like it would be a lifestyle with a lot less amenities. I'm especially glad that many of my compatriots have cars, so we can travel about and do things without having to live by the train schedules.

9.16.2003

Well, here I am writing from my office. No internet in here unfortunately, and I'm going to be spending the next couple of weeks here before I actually start teaching. There are some team teaching materials in my desk which appear to have come from last year's orientation. I'm glad they're here, since I didn't have an orientation to get these from! Looks like I'll actually be able to make a few lesson plans. I just introduced myself to everyone in the office, and passed out my supply of chocolate covered raisins and Hershey's kisses. I doubt this will last me through the 14 schools I'm going to, so I'm going to have to get some more gifts from somewhere. 14 schools = 14 principals and vice principals, so at least 28 more bigger gifts. Plus the English teachers at each school. Didn't quite plan for that.

I'm going out tonight with several other JETs to go cormorant fishing, where the fish are caught by trained hunting birds. The season ends soon, so today is the last chance for us to go. Hopefully I'll get some good photos of the action. Speaking of which, maybe some work on the website will get done too, since I've got 6 hours to burn here everyday. Assuming that I can find a place to upload from.

9.15.03

Well, it's been a fun few days. On Thursday I met many of the people in my Board of Education, signed a contract, and moved into my apartment. Since then I've blown about 80% of my cash just buying stuff for the apartment. Usually the successor inherits stuff from their predecessor, but in my case I had to move into a new apartment, so there are a lot of extra start up costs. I did get a bed and air conditioner though, plus a few housewarming gifts, which helped out a lot.

I've met two of the three other JETs in my town, David and Clare. Very nice people, they called up my work just to find out where I live so they could come and say hi to me. I went to the Sports Day at one of their junior high schools (Atago). This school is also going to be the base school for me in this town. After the Sports Day we had a celebration party at a Chinese restaurant, followed by karaoke. Everyone was so very personable, I think it's going to be a great school to work at.

By the way, I found out that I'm teaching at 14 different junior high schools in the area. Holy crap. It's going to a fun first couple of months just trying to remember how to get to each of these different places. I've got seven here in Yawatahama, six in the neighboring town Ozu, and one on an island just a ways off of Yawatahama port (how cool is that?!).

So apparently, I'm the only American ALT in Yawatahama. Weird since the JET program overall has an American majority. I did meet an American from the town south of us though, Will from Seattle. Good to know that there's someone around who can understand my ghetto slang. Being the only American should in town should be good for me though, more “internationalization” for me. Clare's from Scotland, and Dave's from somewhere around London. The first 30 minutes with Clare was fun, as I only caught about half of what she said. I'm getting better though. The third ALT, Natalie, is also from Scotland, so I'm sure I'm in for a fun time. After a year or so of this, I imagine I'll unintentionally develop a very nice British-Scottish accent.

9.11.03

I'm in JAPAN!!

Even though I'm here, I'm still having a hard time really realizing it. It feels like I'm just in some part of America where everyone's Japanese. None of the scared foreigness feeling that I was expecting. I'm sure I'll feel really out of place once I figure out where my apartment is and settle into it. The international flight yesterday was alright, though a bit boring. At least they have this remote control system where you can choose what movies you would like to watch. In the end I ended up watching Anger Management, Matrix Reloaded, and Bend It Like Beckham (twice). Bend It Like Beckham was funny, it gave this probably fictional image of what life must be like in Nikhil's family. Highly recommended. The problem with these really long flights, is that you end up having your regular day totally twisted and extended into a surreal 36 hour day. So even though I remember Nik dropping me off at the airport earlier on that day, with the time warp it feels like it happened three days ago.

I met a JET named Emma from New Zealand today who's in the same situation as me (a super latecomer) who is going out to Oita. Good luck to her, hopefully she'll have an easy time getting settled in. I assume I'll be meeting someone from my Board of Education today who will bring me from Matsuyama to where I'll be living in Yawatahama. From there hopefully I'll get some info on where my apartment is going to be, and the town in general.

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