Tokyo Orientation, Day Two (pictures!)
So, I unfortunately did not sleep well last night. I woke up about 4:30 and could not get back to sleep. So, five hours last night.
I ran into a TOA who posts on the ITIL boards, which was interesting. I kind of recognized her, so I asked her if she was who I thought she was, and she was. So, I hung out in the hospitality room and talked with nher while waiting for my roommate to wake up.
There was a little free time after breakfast, and the first meeting was at 10 am. We had meetings until 12, at which point we got an hour for lunch, which was entirely vegan and pretty strange. It was beans that were made to taste like meat. Plus a bunch of sides. It totally killed my stomach. Well, that, the jet lag, the nerves or perhaps some combo of the three. After lunch, I went to the AJET info fair and got a bunch of fre garbage, then went to the AJET publication room and bought two books on being a vegetarian in Japan and one about useful kanji.
Then there were more meetings from 1-3:20. At that point, I ran to get some medicine for my stomach from CLAIR. I had to take it with food, so I went to two of the three optional AJET meetings first. I attended one on being a vegetarian and one on cooking and food in Japan. The vegetarian one was helpful, the other not so much. I went and took the medicine at this point with a granola bar. It nearly made me vomit. But, my stomach felt better for about an hour after taking it, perhaps because I felt so awful when I first took it.
Next, we had a welcome reception from 6:30-8 pm. All the vegetable dishes were in what appeared to be fish broth, so I had a little bit of toasted French bread with tomatoes and cilantro and some fruit. So now I'm starving. But I am just going to go to sleep after this so I'll just eat breakfast tomorrow am.
After the reception, I went out with my roommate, my next door-mate (also a Kyoto JET) and a guy Kyoto JET. We walked around Shinjuku a bit taking pictures.
In other news, Japanese toilets are quite complex. There's two basic types: Western and Japanese. Japanese ones frighten me a little, and I still haven't worked up the courage to try them. I'll put a pic under the cut. The Western ones they have hav many features, such as heated seats, bidet, some other type of spray, you can adjust the water pressure used to flush, you can play music or noise so people can't hear you going to the bathroom, you can trigger a pleasant smell, etc. Have no fear - I have pics of this, too!
OK, so here's a view of one of the toilets in the hotel:
And here is a closeup on the buttons you can press. Left to right: Stop, one type of spray (oshiri), another type (yawaraka), bidet, and warm the seat. Below is the water pressure adjustment:
This is a Japanese style toilet. You squat over them:
Me, Bridget and some other girl JETs all hanging out in the bathroom after taking pictures of toilets:
This is up on the top floor of the hotel:
A lot of Japanese restaurants have plastic food models in the window so you can see what your fod looks like prior to ordering:
This is a karaoke building. It says Karaoke-kan. I wonder if the whole building is for karaoke?
My roommate Chelsea, Liz (fellow Kyoto JET), me and John, another Kyoto JET. I skillfully asked someone to take a picture in Japanese for us:
A lot of small eateries seemed to be decorated like this. This one is a yakitori stand:
Different places in Japan have different manhole covers:
This is seriously the shortest car I've ever seen:
I ran into a TOA who posts on the ITIL boards, which was interesting. I kind of recognized her, so I asked her if she was who I thought she was, and she was. So, I hung out in the hospitality room and talked with nher while waiting for my roommate to wake up.
There was a little free time after breakfast, and the first meeting was at 10 am. We had meetings until 12, at which point we got an hour for lunch, which was entirely vegan and pretty strange. It was beans that were made to taste like meat. Plus a bunch of sides. It totally killed my stomach. Well, that, the jet lag, the nerves or perhaps some combo of the three. After lunch, I went to the AJET info fair and got a bunch of fre garbage, then went to the AJET publication room and bought two books on being a vegetarian in Japan and one about useful kanji.
Then there were more meetings from 1-3:20. At that point, I ran to get some medicine for my stomach from CLAIR. I had to take it with food, so I went to two of the three optional AJET meetings first. I attended one on being a vegetarian and one on cooking and food in Japan. The vegetarian one was helpful, the other not so much. I went and took the medicine at this point with a granola bar. It nearly made me vomit. But, my stomach felt better for about an hour after taking it, perhaps because I felt so awful when I first took it.
Next, we had a welcome reception from 6:30-8 pm. All the vegetable dishes were in what appeared to be fish broth, so I had a little bit of toasted French bread with tomatoes and cilantro and some fruit. So now I'm starving. But I am just going to go to sleep after this so I'll just eat breakfast tomorrow am.
After the reception, I went out with my roommate, my next door-mate (also a Kyoto JET) and a guy Kyoto JET. We walked around Shinjuku a bit taking pictures.
In other news, Japanese toilets are quite complex. There's two basic types: Western and Japanese. Japanese ones frighten me a little, and I still haven't worked up the courage to try them. I'll put a pic under the cut. The Western ones they have hav many features, such as heated seats, bidet, some other type of spray, you can adjust the water pressure used to flush, you can play music or noise so people can't hear you going to the bathroom, you can trigger a pleasant smell, etc. Have no fear - I have pics of this, too!
OK, so here's a view of one of the toilets in the hotel:
And here is a closeup on the buttons you can press. Left to right: Stop, one type of spray (oshiri), another type (yawaraka), bidet, and warm the seat. Below is the water pressure adjustment:
This is a Japanese style toilet. You squat over them:
Me, Bridget and some other girl JETs all hanging out in the bathroom after taking pictures of toilets:
This is up on the top floor of the hotel:
A lot of Japanese restaurants have plastic food models in the window so you can see what your fod looks like prior to ordering:
This is a karaoke building. It says Karaoke-kan. I wonder if the whole building is for karaoke?
My roommate Chelsea, Liz (fellow Kyoto JET), me and John, another Kyoto JET. I skillfully asked someone to take a picture in Japanese for us:
A lot of small eateries seemed to be decorated like this. This one is a yakitori stand:
Different places in Japan have different manhole covers:
This is seriously the shortest car I've ever seen: