Posts from the Past: Fukui Orientation.

Tokyo orientation is for all new JETs and its focus is to help you be a better teacher of English. Fukui orientation is more focused on all of us newbies who are in Fukui prefecture (or Fukui-Ken) Fukui orientation is more focused on daily life in Fukui-ken, and what our job description is. There were talks about heath and safety, and how to behave in a Japanese office. There was a lengthy talk by a police officer on how to drive in Japan.

A quick aside: America didn't sign some treaty, that most of the developed world did, as a result, our International Drivers License will only last one year. Then we have to have a practiced driving test here in Japan to get a proper Japanese license. The word on the street is that no matter how good a driver you are you have to take the test 3 times. While countries like the UK, who signed the treaty, have to do something simple like fill out some paperwork to get their licesnse. I'll talk more about our driving adventures in another post.

One of the more stressful things at Fukui Orientation was introducing ourselves in Japanese to the higher ups in Fukui Education. A fellow incoming JET, Fiona, volunteered to give a speech the behalf of all the new Jets, which was pretty brave. By all accounts she did a great job. I say by all accounts because my Japanese skills prevent me from giving an accurate analyses.

The next thing we did was meet with our supervisors. The supervisors were all sitting in assigned seats, while we lined up, in order, outside of the room. Then we walked in greeted by warm applause. Then more speeches. Then our supervisors had the unlucky task of helping us move our stuff home. We brought a lot of stuff with us including this 35lbs iMac. We had to do a whole bunch of stuff like get our Gaijin Card (kinda like a green card) set up a bank account, pay our real estate agent for our apartment, and get cell phones. A few of these things were closed by the time we got to t he Fu, so there was a bit of delay on getting things, but we got it all. Peaches and I are lucky to have great supervisors who have been really instrumental in helping us get everything set up here in Japan.

Here are some kids praticing choir in the park.
In order for anything electrical to turn on in the hotel room, you had to put the key chain in this box. Apparently this is par for the course here in Japan.
An awesome delivery scooter.
The man hole covers in Japan are great!

Tokyo Orentation. So long ago.

I'm going make some posts in chronological order starting from our departure in Chicago.

We had to fly over Alaska, and I saw glaciers for the first time.




We had to put these stickers on our shirts to let the people in the airport know we are in the jet program. This was only necessary because Naritia (the Airport just outside of Tokyo) is huge. It was proably half a mile till we got to the buses that were going to take us to our Hotel. Every 20 feet or so, there was someone from the Jet Program telling us which turn to make. One Japanese guy had a sign with Jet Program and an arrow written on it. As each person passed him he said "This means you."


We stayed in the Keio Plaza Hotel which was pretty swank. There were about 1000 Jets at Tokyo Orientation. It was three days of forms and packets. We could have brought an entire suitcase just for the forms that we got from Tokyo. The American Consulate in particular gave us quite a few books that outline the history of US geography, economic policy, and history. In other words, books that are pretty much uesless to somone teaching junior high kids english.


Keio Plaza is in Shinjuku which is a neighborhood in Tokyo. We were in walking distance of a bunch of stores, bars, karaoke, and resturants. Unfortunatly, we didn't get a chance to do a whole lot because we were a little bit jet lagged. We did get a chance to meet up with most of the new Jets from Fukui at a bar called Heaven and Hell. It was pretty industrial with rebar all over the place that divided the bar into a serries of cages. Someone mentioned to me that I should go to the bathroom.



The top picture is the urinal in the men's bathroom. After I started using the urinal it began to sing to me in Japanese. Then, while singing, the camera at the top started flashing like it was taking pictures.

The second picture comes from the womens bathroom, courtesy of Peaches. Apparently this giant head, faced you while you were sitting down. For some people the head started talking and it moved towards your knees until it almost touched you.



The bathrooms in the hotel were much nicer. It took me a while to find the flusher for the toilette which is that silver knob on the counter. You could get a heated seat and bidet action from that little pannel on the side of the seat.



Even the clouds look Japanese here.

Peaches connects the Izumi household to the inernet!

I know all of you out there are reading the title of my post and thinking... hmm Peaches connecting computers and being all technical and stuff... I dunno. Well it's true! I filled out the forms for Yahoo BB bout a week and a half ago (although I always pay bills and handel all correspondences/ paperwork) and waited and waited to hear some news. Today when I got home from school there was a delivery failure notice in our doorbox because they deliver the modem to your house. So I called my school and had my wonderful vice-principle who speaks great English call and reschedule them to come today or on Monday morning. The carrier guy was back here in 10 minutes. Talk about excellent service.

Right now, Rob's at and English summer camp making sandwiches for dinner or something like that. The details were a little sketchy on the cell phone because talking is EXPENSIVE in Japan. I just decided to unwrap the box and open all the lil baggies and twist ties. Having accomplished this goal I set out to connect everything. and booo bam 10 minutes later here I sit typing this post. If only I'd paid more attention in the "how to attach photos lesson" we had awhile ago I could post some photos... boo. so look out for more stories and photos later. Ohhh, maybe they'll be of Mt. Fuji because we're going to hike it tomorrow and Sunday.

Getting stuff done

In Japan the country of super fast internet connections we seem to have none. boo. I think within the next week or two we should be connected to the internet again in our home. which is really nice by the way - 2 rooms for sleeping or watching tv/ looking at a computer with no internet, a kitchen that's pretty big(it has a table with 4 chairs), and a separate entry way where you leave your shoes with 3 little doors off it. One goes to the toilet room, one goes to the shower/bathtub room, and one goes into the main apartment.

Tomorrow we're going with Rob's supervisor to get cell phones and our bank account. Everything is direct deposit or direct withdraw here. There's no checks to speak of. My school owns the phone line in our apartment so they need to get it switched to my name and turn it on. But some person has to call and do this, I think my principal?? This all seems rather complicated to me and no one really wants to explain it in English (I guess because it is sooo complicated). It will be really nice to communicate with other people in Japan and America too - phone cards are pretty cheap on the internet if anyone's looking to call over. Oh yeah so since we have no phones we have to set up in advance the times we'll meet with our supervisors and what days we'll show up to work which is a hassel most Japanese people are horrified at.
BYE!

Internet cafes make the world go round.

I have a ba-zillion pictures to post from Tokyo orientation and all of the crazy things I have done here in Japan. The bad news is that my land line isn't set up yet and so I can't get my crazy fast internet until that is done. I'm in a really nice internet cafe called Cyberfreaks. --which has all you can drink melon soda and calpis-- It has been a wild ride here in Japan its hard to believe that I left on the 23rd of July. I'm getting a cell phone on friday. The one with the television and 2 megapixel camera seems pretty popular with the other Jets here, so I might get that one.

The only bad thing in Japan so far is that every time I get a donut I seem to pick the ones with curry on the inside. Not a lot to complain about here.