Himeji and Kobe Orentation

This past Sunday I ventured out of Shiso to Himeji, the closest city. It's about an hour away by bus, and the location of the nearest movie theater. Himeji is famous for its Castle, although I didn't go see it on this trip. My friends Lara, Lana and I hung out and shopped in Himeji for the afternoon and saw a movie before catching the bus back to Shiso. By the way, movies are INSANELY expensive in Japan. My ticket was $18. And that was in a small city, I wonder what it costs in Tokyo. But it's ok because most of my other living expenses are fairly low. My rent is dirt cheap to begin with (something like 320/month for an entire house), and that is further subsidized by the Board of Education, so I end up paying about 150/month for what is essentially a two bedroom house. Pretty sweet deal, no?

Wednesday the Board of Education drove us to Kobe for the Hyogo JETs prefectural orientation. It was a 3 hour drive, and I felt it was kind of pointless to go that far for what they ended up telling. The few pieces of useful information they did give us could have been included in the info packets they gave us in Tokyo, and in fact would have been more helpful then than two weeks later. Oh well. It's not like I had so much work to do that I couldn't spare a day. Since it's summer vacation, there's not a lot for me to do at school. I'm actually there right now, so you can see how busy I am. But once school starts I'm going to be busy I'm sure. I'm using this time to brainstorm things for classes and such.