Pictures from Tokyo Orientation

First pictures are up! Here are a few shots from Tokyo Orientation, August 3-6. We didn't have much time to see the city, since we were in meetings all day and we were all very jet-legged. We got out a little at night and walked around Shinjuku near the hotel, but that was about it. 

Tokyo Orientation

Enjoy!

Tokyo Orientation

Arrived in Tokyo. Everyone was talking about how long the flight was, but I was asleep the entire time, so I hardly noticed. I took a pill and passed out, so somehow I managed to avoid doing absolutely anything to pass the time, like reading, or listening to music, or watching one of the three movies they showed (yes, three, and I slept through them all).

Orientation is like a well-oiled machine. Around 1000 JETs arrived in my group on Sunday, from all over the world (but mostly the US). Current JETs and people from CLAIR (the body that runs JET) met us at the airport and led us to the buses that took us to the hotel in Shinjuku in Tokyo. The Keio Plaza Hotel is really nice. It's a big business center, and JET totally took over the place. They even put up notices by the elevator apologizing to the guests for the congestion in the elevators (caused by so many JETs trying to get to the same places all at once). 

The view from my window is of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, which is very exciting. <Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building> Something really cool: the mirror in the bathroom is heated on the part over the sink, so when you get out of the shower and the mirror is all fogged up, that part is not. 

I'm extremely jet-lagged, and it doesn't help that we had to spend the entire day sitting through meetings with very little interruption. I woke up at 5:00 this morning, had breakfast at 7, meetings started at 9 and went all day (with a break for lunch), and at 6:30 there was a welcome reception with some heads of the different ministries involved in JET. At 8:30 my prefectural group are all going out for drinks together. I'm going to go because I want to meet more of the people in my prefecture, but honestly all I want to do is go to sleep, I am so completely exhausted. It's a 13 hour time difference from Boston, so at around 2, 3 pm today, when It was around 1 or 2 am back home, I started to feel like I was about to fall asleep. They say it takes a day for every hour or time difference until you're back on a normal schedule.

Contact Information

My parents insisted I take down my address and phone number, so I'll post them on my Facebook page instead. If you're not on Facebook, email me and I'll send you my contact information.

One day and counting...

The Mess...

I am leaving in less than 48 hours, and I am not even close to ready. I've spent every day this week running around making sure I have everything I need, and I am losing my mind. As it turns out, moving to Japan is a very complicated process. First, there is the 50 lb weight limit for my two suitcases. Then there is the fact that I have no idea how I'm going to fit everything into two suitcases. That's problem number one.

Problem number two: Shipping things to Japan is REALLY expensive. Which means it would be cheaper to just bring a third suitcase and pay the fee. But that means I have to lug three suitcases around. Eek.

Problem number three: I have to pack a small carry-on suitcase for four days in Tokyo during orientation, before I leave for my prefecture. Which means I have to plan in advance what I'm going to need, and also what satisfies the TSA requirements, ie no razor blades in the carry on. A week without a razor blade in the summer; girls, you do the math. 

Problem number four: I'm having a nervous breakdown! This may shock some of you, but I do not handle stress very well. I have completely passed the point of rational, functional thought, and have moved into a true and honest breakdown. I simply can't stand living in a giant suitcase for another second! I have been living with boxes all around me since the beginning of June, when I began packing up my apartment in St. Louis to move home, and the mess has finally reached critical mass (see above). Somehow I have to fit all of that in a suitcase.

I have literally had to force myself to remember why I am doing all this, because there have been times in the last four days when I seriously thought, "I must be out of my mind to be doing this. This is such a hassle, I should have stayed in St. Louis, I had a life and an apartment and friends there, and the fact that I have an Art History degree doesn't by default make me unemployable." I have to muster up a serious amount faith that this adventure into which I am running almost completely blind is going to be amazing. I never heard from my predecessor, so I don't know anything about the school, two days ago they changed my apartment so I don't know exactly where or how furnished my apartment is; I really know next to nothing. This is a huge leap of faith. I know rationally that it's going to work out, and it's going to be amazing, but my emotions are ruling right now, and they're telling me there's no way I'm ever going to get myself and my stuff over there. Ever. 

School Assignment

Sorry the posts are coming in so slowly, I promise I'll have more to write once I get to Japan. 

I got my school posting. I am going to be teaching at Yamasaki Minami Junior High School in Yamasaki-cho, Shiso-shi, Hyogo-ken. I did a little sleuthing (stalking, really) online, and found these pictures from a former JET who worked at the school:

http://wakarahen.com/schoolsthumbsminami.htm

If it is the same place, it looks really nice and I'm totally excited to get there and meet all the kids. Everything I've heard makes me think it's going to be a blast. 

One thing has been troubling me, though. For those of you at Wash U, you know how annoying it is when people say "oh, how do you like Seattle?" or some variation of that. Well, I've had a couple people now say "so you're moving to China, right?" Like they heard I was going to Japan, registered "Asia," and then repeat it later as China. Maybe I'm being oversensitive, but it bugs me that the two countries seem interchangeable to some people. I had a guy try to hit on me at a party once by saying "you're going to Japan? Cool, I went there once. Hong Kong is awesome." At the risk of sounding self-important, I guess this is why they created a program like JET in the first place--to help increase awareness of Japanese culture abroad and do away with Western conceptions of "the Asian cultural identity."

Day Trip to Nashville

Friday I drove to Nashville and back to attend a pre-departure JET Q&A session at the Japanese consulate. And yes, that is a ridiculous amount of driving for one day. I left at 8 am, arrived just in time for the meeting at 2, then turned around, hopped back in the car and drove right back to St. Louis, arriving around 11 pm. The long drive gave me plenty of time to ponder such important questions as "how many times can one person listen to the same CD before losing her mind?" and "how fast do you have to be going for a bug to splatter on your windshield?" Ten hours alone with your thoughts produces some strange results.

The Nashville meeting was not necessarily worth the drive, but frankly, I had nothing better to do with my Friday, and it did provide me with some useful information. For example, here are some interesting things I learned about life in Japan:

1) It is brutally hot

2) It is brutally cold

3) Neither of these conditions is ever rectified by climate control, despite its being readily available

4) They have an amazing recycling rate. You can't just put things in "the garbage." They must be sorted, and if you do it wrong, as happened to one former JET, your neighbors might remove your trash from the bin and drop it on your doorstep (they're always watching...)

5) Clothes dryers are merely ornaments for your wall

6) No matter how prepared you think you are, you will never have enough slippers

7) Drunk driving is a huge no-no in Japan. Anything above 0.0 and you WILL be arrested. Same goes for drugs. There is a strict no tolerance policy. 

8) You have a good chance of asphyxiating yourself with a kerosene heater

9) No one has heard of Shiso. I'm not sure it really exists...

10) You will be asked repeatedly if you know how to use chopsticks, and met with surprise when you say yes

11) The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is a stupid movie. I don't know what that has to do with life in Japan, but I thought it was an important point to make.

12) Omiyage (giving presents) is an important part of Japanese culture. I went to Union Station on Saturday and bought a ton of kitschy St. Louis stuff to give to students, teachers, neighbors, supervisors, etc., ranging from pencils that say Missouri to snow globes to picture books of St. Louis. I made a comment to my friend Emily that I would have to do the same thing for Boston, and the cashier said "you know, we have a store there too, in Faneuil Hall." "Selling St. Louis stuff?" I joked. He gave me a disbelieving look. "No... selling Boston stuff." I think Emily thought I was serious too. Why can't people tell when I'm joking? Do I look that stupid? (Don't answer that...)

13) According to the JET handbook, for American women, Japan is a dating wasteland. Japanese men are too intimidated by stereotypes of American women to pursue them, and American men are busy chasing Japanese girls. 

I am sure more lists like this will occur as I learn about life in Japan first-hand. 

Going to the consulate got me really excited to get going, to get to Japan and start the next phase in my life. Meeting some of the other JETs made the whole thing seem more tangible. Over time away from JET related things, I find my excitement level slipping, and I start thinking "why the hell am I doing this? Am I insane? Why would I want to pick up and move halfway around the world? There's no way I can do this." But then I go to a meeting, or an info session, and they start talking about the program, and I get so excited, and I remember why I'm doing this, because it looks like so much fun, and it's going to be such an amazing experience. I know it's going to be a tough start--I've lived abroad before--but I'm super excited to tackle the challenge. 

Placement Information!

I finally got my placement! I'll be living in Shiso City, Hyogo Prefecture. Apparently it's a small city of about 42,000. The city was formed in 2005 by the merger of four smaller towns, Chikusa, Haga, Ichinomiya and Yamasaki. It's on the Kansai plain northwest of Kobe and west of Kyoto. There doesn't seem to be too much information about it online though. I still don't know exactly where I'll be living, or what age group I'll be teaching. But at least I have a slightly better sense of where I'll be!

     

Shiso City official page: http://www.city.shiso.lg.jp/