Landing Safely
So here I am. Finally, I have my own blog. Although, I'm not quite sure what to write. I suppose I'll start from the very first day. I arrived in Japan on Tuesday, September 11th. My flight was long and boring, but I tried to make the best of it. I slept a lot, which was something somewhat unfamiliar to me in the days before my flight! It was a hassle to find my way around three strange airports, Atlanta, Tokyo (Narita) and Fukuoka. Eventually, I made it into Fukuoka airport with everything I had to survive for the next year, at least. When I got there, Akiko and Yoko, two women who work in the school office, met me at the gate. It was good to see smiling faces, people who were looking for me. We went to have sushi at a small bar in the airport and then began our trek across the island of Kyushu. It took about two hours to get to Nakatsu, my new town. When I got here it was already quite late, but we stopped by the school where I would be working. I had no idea what to expect and looking back, I saw everything differently that very first night. I met the owner of Keio Academy, who is also Yoko's husband. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. On the way to my apartment, we stopped by 7-11 to pick up some basic groceries and food for the next day. When I got to the apartment, Holland and Amy were waiting to greet me, and it was a relief to finally be home.
Work began the very next day. I got a ride to work and was introduced, in a very formal way, to the entire staff. Akiko took me for a short ride through Nakatsu. We went to the bank to exchange money and to City Hall to apply for my alien card. Very few people speak English and it was quite frustrating to want to communicate and be completely unable to. Since then, I have come to appreciate my "English" speaking friends very much. We all treat each other as a small family, looking after one another and keeping each other company. I am very lucky to have met these wonderful people.
I came to find out that I would be replacing Amy, as an English Kindergarten teacher at Keio. Amy was planning to return to her home in Vancouver in about ten days, and so I had a good opportunity to observe her classroom and meet the kids who are in my classes. She had spent the past year here, and from what I understood, absolutely loved it. In addition to EK, I am also teaching several other classes with students of different ages. My daily schedule is fairly easy to understand, and at the same time, difficult to adjust to, given my background and experience. My morning Kindergarten class comes to school from 10am until 2pm. In that time, I teach them three lessons, phonics, reading and an active lesson which could include anything from playground games to arts and crafts or cooking. There are six students in this class, mostly all second year students at Keio. They have a decent background of English, but there is still so much to teach. We have the opportunity to eat lunch with the class, which provides some free time for English conversation. I have a fairly strict curriculum to follow, but there is a bit of room to expand with my own ideas. After that, I have a long break from 2:00-3:50. My afternoon Kindergarten class is five first-year students, and they stay for only one hour a day. This class focuses more on the basics, ABCs and numbers. But I still manage to fit everything into the one hour slot each day. After that, I have one more class, a group of third year boys. On Tuesday nights, I meet with another class of older students, about 8-10 years old. Overall, I work 9:30-6:30 everyday except Tuesday, I am at work until 7:00.
My apartment is a decent size and very well priced for this area. I am in the corner apartment of the second floor of this building. There are basically four rooms, or areas. Each room is roughly the same size, approximately 12ft. x 12ft. The entranceway also includes the toilet room and another shower room. If you go straight through the entranceway, you are in the bedroom. If you walk towards the right, you enter the kitchen, and through the kitchen is the living room. All the rooms are connected by the traditional Japanese screen sliding doors. I have glass sliding doors in the bedroom and living room to the back balcony. My back balcony faces a rice paddy and a street which brings you to Keio Academy. I was given a bicycle to get to and from work and around town. It only takes about five minutes to bike to work, and probably ten or fifteen to walk. It takes about 10 minutes to bike to central Nakatsu, or the train station. The bike really comes in handy for errands and exploring the area. Holland lives in the apartment directly below me, but he is the only other Keio teacher in our complex. Other teachers live nearby, but in different directions.
Nakatsu is an ancient town, well known for it's castle. (Just a little background: The daimyo Kuroda Yoshitaka, who governed this region in 1587, began building Nakatsu Castle (Nakatsu-jo). It was completed by the daimyo Hosokawa Tadaoki, who subsequently came to govern this region. The entire castle was destroyed by fire in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. The present five-tiered donjon was rebuilt in 1964.) The streets are narrow and windy, sometimes it could be impossible for two cars to fit. Almost every street has gutters, about two feet wide and three feet in depth running alongside. I am guessing that they are meant to drain the area and also provide water for the rice paddies, which can be seen on about every block. The antiquity is apparent in every direction, but I am especially fascinated by the roofs of the buildings. In many ways, it's everything I would have imagined Japan to be and more. Nakatsu isn't a large city, but it is very spread out. When you leave the central city, the rural nature of the area is apparent, mountains, streams, and beautiful nature, very much unlike the downtown area.
Daily life, outside of school isn't terribly exciting. I enjoy the quiet time to think, read and watch tv (even though I can't understand it!) The weekends are great fun, even though I've only seen a couple of them so far, we try to make the most of out every day and night. I am actually quite glad to be preoccupied by school during the week, as it keeps my brain busy all day long and the weeks go fast. Nights are usually spent alone, or with some friends, enjoying dinner and a good conversation at home. It's nice to be surrounded by people from all different places in the world and America. There's never a lack of topic in conversation.
I think I will have to end for now, and begin to brainstorm all the topics to talk about in my upcoming journals, including the first trip to the supermarket, the mejiron, the mutant bugs and creatures I've come across and more travel around Nakatsu and Kyushu.
Work began the very next day. I got a ride to work and was introduced, in a very formal way, to the entire staff. Akiko took me for a short ride through Nakatsu. We went to the bank to exchange money and to City Hall to apply for my alien card. Very few people speak English and it was quite frustrating to want to communicate and be completely unable to. Since then, I have come to appreciate my "English" speaking friends very much. We all treat each other as a small family, looking after one another and keeping each other company. I am very lucky to have met these wonderful people.
I came to find out that I would be replacing Amy, as an English Kindergarten teacher at Keio. Amy was planning to return to her home in Vancouver in about ten days, and so I had a good opportunity to observe her classroom and meet the kids who are in my classes. She had spent the past year here, and from what I understood, absolutely loved it. In addition to EK, I am also teaching several other classes with students of different ages. My daily schedule is fairly easy to understand, and at the same time, difficult to adjust to, given my background and experience. My morning Kindergarten class comes to school from 10am until 2pm. In that time, I teach them three lessons, phonics, reading and an active lesson which could include anything from playground games to arts and crafts or cooking. There are six students in this class, mostly all second year students at Keio. They have a decent background of English, but there is still so much to teach. We have the opportunity to eat lunch with the class, which provides some free time for English conversation. I have a fairly strict curriculum to follow, but there is a bit of room to expand with my own ideas. After that, I have a long break from 2:00-3:50. My afternoon Kindergarten class is five first-year students, and they stay for only one hour a day. This class focuses more on the basics, ABCs and numbers. But I still manage to fit everything into the one hour slot each day. After that, I have one more class, a group of third year boys. On Tuesday nights, I meet with another class of older students, about 8-10 years old. Overall, I work 9:30-6:30 everyday except Tuesday, I am at work until 7:00.
My apartment is a decent size and very well priced for this area. I am in the corner apartment of the second floor of this building. There are basically four rooms, or areas. Each room is roughly the same size, approximately 12ft. x 12ft. The entranceway also includes the toilet room and another shower room. If you go straight through the entranceway, you are in the bedroom. If you walk towards the right, you enter the kitchen, and through the kitchen is the living room. All the rooms are connected by the traditional Japanese screen sliding doors. I have glass sliding doors in the bedroom and living room to the back balcony. My back balcony faces a rice paddy and a street which brings you to Keio Academy. I was given a bicycle to get to and from work and around town. It only takes about five minutes to bike to work, and probably ten or fifteen to walk. It takes about 10 minutes to bike to central Nakatsu, or the train station. The bike really comes in handy for errands and exploring the area. Holland lives in the apartment directly below me, but he is the only other Keio teacher in our complex. Other teachers live nearby, but in different directions.
Nakatsu is an ancient town, well known for it's castle. (Just a little background: The daimyo Kuroda Yoshitaka, who governed this region in 1587, began building Nakatsu Castle (Nakatsu-jo). It was completed by the daimyo Hosokawa Tadaoki, who subsequently came to govern this region. The entire castle was destroyed by fire in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. The present five-tiered donjon was rebuilt in 1964.) The streets are narrow and windy, sometimes it could be impossible for two cars to fit. Almost every street has gutters, about two feet wide and three feet in depth running alongside. I am guessing that they are meant to drain the area and also provide water for the rice paddies, which can be seen on about every block. The antiquity is apparent in every direction, but I am especially fascinated by the roofs of the buildings. In many ways, it's everything I would have imagined Japan to be and more. Nakatsu isn't a large city, but it is very spread out. When you leave the central city, the rural nature of the area is apparent, mountains, streams, and beautiful nature, very much unlike the downtown area.
Daily life, outside of school isn't terribly exciting. I enjoy the quiet time to think, read and watch tv (even though I can't understand it!) The weekends are great fun, even though I've only seen a couple of them so far, we try to make the most of out every day and night. I am actually quite glad to be preoccupied by school during the week, as it keeps my brain busy all day long and the weeks go fast. Nights are usually spent alone, or with some friends, enjoying dinner and a good conversation at home. It's nice to be surrounded by people from all different places in the world and America. There's never a lack of topic in conversation.
I think I will have to end for now, and begin to brainstorm all the topics to talk about in my upcoming journals, including the first trip to the supermarket, the mejiron, the mutant bugs and creatures I've come across and more travel around Nakatsu and Kyushu.