Jumping ahead a Bit…
These last 11 days since arriving have been quite hectic so in this post I’m just going to give a quick summary of everything of note. That way I can be all caught up and not have a blog backlog in the back of my mind to add to all this new stimuli. If you’re interested in certain bits and want to know more you can contact me and I’d be glad to share the details.
Orientation was a pretty bizarre experience, being jetlagged and sitting in a chair for close to 8 hours. I found myself forgetting I was even in Japan halfway through the first day because it just seemed like a really long school assembly or something, being almost entirely in English and with mostly western looking people. And oh my goodness the elevators. This unbelievably fancy hotel, for some unfathomable reason, had no stairs and just six elevators for 36 floors of rooms. That compounded with a group of hundreds of JETs made for staggering elevator lines post orientation. I attempted to wait out the lines by going to conbini and walking around but even after 45 minutes of that they hadn’t let up.
Unfortunately, my roommate had to leave that morning and miss orientation because a typhoon was heading for his region, so every JET participant going there had to leave early instead of risk being delayed in Tokyo indefinitely. After orientation I met with my friend, a high school exchange student from Tokyo, who I had forgotten to tell I was even coming to Japan so he was (very understandably) shocked at the news when I remembered to tell him on the bus in to Tokyo. We went out around Shibuya and we caught up at his usual after work hangouts; my being there was something he was pretty amused with.
Day two of orientation was more of the same, and I went out afterwards with the remaining people of the group from our first night. I was planning to go to a baseball game but it was sold out, so I still need to do that at some point! I did wear my Ohtani jersey and got a couple comments on it throughout the night and a very clean fist bump from a local which was enthusiastically described by one of my JET mates as a perfect cultural exchange. So, I guess I’m already doing my job well.
The next morning the JETs heading for my prefecture left the hotel at 6AM (aahhhhh), and we got on a quick one hour flight from Haneda airport to Komatsu airport in Ishikawa prefecture. From there the day was another whirlwind and I got my first exposure to Japanese bureaucracy, signing papers and making bank trips and introducing myself to entire rooms of new people, all while jetlagged, sleep deprived, and maybe a bit hungover. An interesting tidbit about signing things in Japan: an actual signature is not what they really use, what they have is a personalized stamp that you stamp papers with, and I did plenty of that all day. I did also write a lot. Mostly my address. And name. In Japanese. Over and over. I’ll reiterate, I had to do this in JAPANESE, using all three “alphabets”, which I can read decently well but have NEVER WRITTEN IN BEFORE. It took a while. At least this was all done on my first day as compared to Italy, where I’m still not sure if I’ve done all the paperwork 5 years after leaving.
One thing Italy does do better than Japan is the garbage system, surprisingly. Italy and Japan both have similarly fussy and overly detailed categories of garbage that need to be sorted, but at least in Italy they provide you with the bins you need to separate your trash. In two weeks this has already become my least favorite part of Japan. It even beats out the heat and humidity, which is truly awful. I’ve tried walking around town during the day and am instantly gross and sticky with sweat. I can’t wait for fall.
However, thanks to the heat I’ve been able to watch a lot of the koushien baseball tournament on TV in my apartment. Koushien is the country’s annual high school baseball tournament where the best teams from each prefecture compete for the national championship. I’m pretty sure it is the most watched sporting event in the country, and I can see why. It’s amateur, high school baseball, but there are moments of brilliance from the players and the stakes are so high with a march madness style one-game-at-a-time bracket. For a lot of these players, these will be their final games with their high school, and final games period, so loss is often met with tears. Throughout the games, the schools’ respective bands and cheering sections can be heard and seen, and it really is fun to watch.
Since then I’ve been desk-warming at the Board of Education, and I never imagined doing almost nothing for 8 hours could be so tiring, but I also just finished my first day of Ishikawa specific orientation, which has been a bit more insightful and specific, and I’ve managed to meet some other JETs in the region and get in contact with them. We have another half day of orientation tomorrow and then the plan is to hit the town! Next week I’ll finally be heading to my schools and meeting with the teachers I’ll be working with for at least the next year. I’ll update soon with any new developments.
The town mascots!
Frogs on the vending machine outside my apartment complex!