Arrival in Kanazawa

Tokyo Orientation finished in a blur (sort of literally) with a fantastic night out in Tokyo with the other JETs (Japan Exchange and Teaching (that's the program I'm in)) going to my prefecture, Ishikawa.


We went out to a restaurant where we got a full course of a ton of food and all we could drink for 2,500 yen per person. That's about $25, and that's one of the most fantastic deals I've ever heard of. Japan does this very frequently, apparently, as we found when some of us tried to go to another bar afterwards. We couldn't find a place that would let us just buy one drink, they all were offering package deals. We wandered around the Shinjuku district for a while, which was sort of like bouncing around in a pinball machine. I took a few pictures, but they're woefully inadequate in terms of communicating what an overwhelming experience downtown Tokyo is.

Most of the food was more authentic, but that's definitely a french fry.

This place is nuts. And I was just in Vegas.

The people in my prefecture are all fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to hanging out with them for the next year. However, as you will soon read, my experience went from the collective to the lone rather quickly.

With Wednesday morning came a 6:30 wakeup call so we could leave the hotel by 7:30. The flight to Ishikawa was only an hour, but it took a fair amount of time to marshall us and get to the airport, where we boarded a 777. If that doesn't mean anything to you, a 777 is an enormous plane, and in my experience is for long international flights. However, someone pointed out that this was probably a commuter flight, and they just needed the seating room, not the range...sure enough, every one of the 500 seats was filled at 10 AM on a Wednesday. If you haven't heard, there are a lot of people in Japan.

That's exactly what it looks like...it's a POKEMON 747! Sadly, this was not our plane.

The way the program works is you are under a local supervisor and work closely with at least one Japanese teacher of English. The first day is crazy because you have to meet your supervisor, apply for an Alien Registration Card, set up a bank account, theoretically pay for your apartment, and shop for supplies. My day was unique, though, because they messed up something with my apartment and I have to stay in a hotel for a week. So all the first steps were the same for me, except no apartment.

But check out my "hanko"!


Instead of signatures, they use personal seals in Japan. This is my name, translated into Katakana, one of the Japanese alphabets (there are three). In Katakana it actually reads "Koo-raie-ton" because it was made for me before I introduced myself with the proper pronunciation of my name. Still pretty awesome.


Also, my official contract notice:


There are three other JETs in my department at the Kanazawa Board of Education, and 20 JETs in the city total, so I should have plenty of company. The other three left with their teachers, while I was driven to a hotel and left on my own until 1:30 Friday, when I will be taken to get my "keitai" (cell phone). It's a pretty small room, and my head is 5 inches from the ceiling when I'm in the shower, but it works just fine. Everything is very gadget-y, including the fact that you have to leave the end of your room key into a little slot to make the power work. That means you can't be a wasteful American and leave everything on when you leave. I'm pretty sure that I am actually in The Future, not just in Japan.

It also took me forever to figure out how to work the remote-controlled air conditioner, which was imperative because it's SO HOT HERE. Muggy, too. If you've spent more than five minutes with me in even moderately warm weather you know how much I sweat, so there's been some adjusting...

I promptly fell asleep for 11 hours, 7 PM to 6 AM.

Today I wandered around the city and got lost a bit, explored what I could, then worked on my Japanese. I'll stop blathering and just post some pictures of my new home. Cell phone tomorrow, which apparently takes literally three hours. Unreal.

Gate to the Kanazawa Rail Station

Huge statue in Kenrokuen Garden, the Central Park of Kanazawa and one of its main attractions.

Weird lookin' bug...

After getting totally lost for a while, I made it back to the Asanogawa River

This I will take a moment to blather about. That little blue sign is the first thing I have ever been able to read and understand in Japanese. I know some spoken Japanese, but I have only just started to learn Hiragana, one of the alphabets. I'm not exactly sure of the protocol of when to use each alphabet yet, but this says "oishii mizu", or "delicious water". I just happened to look over while studying in this cafe and saw that, and it was one of the most exciting moments I've had yet in Japan...

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Kampai!

Hey everyone, welcome to my Japan blog. Some of you may have followed my Europe blog, and all I can say is that if you're on your SECOND Creighton travel blog...well, your psychosis is charming and appreciated, but also somewhat disconcerting.

This blog will be somewhat different, as 1) I'll post less frequently because I'm living here, not just traveling through and 2) it's secret.

They told me in the handbook that we shouldn't blog lest we offend those we work with, but it'd take a lot more than that to keep me from my blogging. So this is now a really cool invitation-only party.

I'm writing from the second night of my three day Tokyo orientation. We're in a fantastic hotel in downtown Tokyo (pictures soon). I haven't been able to go out and explore the city because they don't really give you time to do that. I'll have to take a separate trip at some point to really see what TOKYO is. However, I can definitely tell it's Japan from the super high tech toilets we have. You can warm the seat and can adjust the water pressure for the "Spray" and "Bidet" options. Being the headstrong young man I am, I tried out all the available options, and I can say that the "Spray" button produced one of the most alarming sensations of my life.

View from my hotel room at dusk.

The flight over wasn't bad, just watched four movies, slept a bit, tried to keep my legs from cramping up. Once in Tokyo the huge JET Programme staff took over, ferrying more than 800 of us from the airport to the hotel via bus. The ride in was pretty impressive, with triple-decker highways winding right between skyscrapers.

The main hall for the keynote speech. This is maybe 2/3 of the group, the rest were behind me.

Today was filled with ceremonies, speeches, and seminars. I'm a little OD'd on Power point presentations. I'm meeting a ton of people, but I'm not sure I'll see any of them again except for those in my prefecture, Ishikawa. Wednesday morning we disperse to our "Contracting Organizations" to begin the real work. I'm headed here, to work at two junior high schools. Just about a perfect set up, overall.

More (much, much more) soon.

The view at night.

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