(Catch up post 1/3) The beginning.
Once again, catch up posts! It's now been two weeks since I last posted, and the two posts I have made since arriving in Japan weren't very good :S These posts may or may not get rather lengthy...and they will probably have a fair amount of photos. Just warning you! ^_^
This is where I used to live ;_; ...except not really. It IS where I used to go to school though! And I could technically see this from where I used to live!
So the beginning of August found me leaving home, and packing my life up for this time an undetermined amount of time in Japan. Once again with two check-ins, a roller carry-on and a purse, I was off.
The flight over was okay. We nearly missed our connecting flight because of mysterious problems with our plane in D.C. that made us two hours late. Upon reaching Minneapolis, we literally had to sprint to the other gate to make our next flight. We made it, albeit we were sweaty and breathing hard and it was kinda gross XD That and it looked kinda of weird to have a whole group of about 40 people sprinting at once.
Then the 12 hour flight to Tokyo. I had a window seat (nice!) and I was sitting to a really nice Korean lady from Busan who turned out to be an English teacher, so we talked off and on about very random things. Northwest sucks because they don't have the little entertainment thing like ANA. GRAR. Lunch was okay and dinner was disgusting.
After arriving in Tokyo, we all walked through customs feeling rather clueless and abandoned...but the second we walked out, there were TONS of JETs waiting for us who shuffled us from the airport lobby until the parking lot and onto the bus. It was like some crazy military operation thing. (Btw, did you guys know that you could take those luggage carts onto the escalators, and then if you let go of the handles on the way up/down the brakes will automatically kick in and the cart won't go rolling down? It was super neat)
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Fast forward to Tokyo Orientation. Two days of rather pointless things. It's the same info recycled over and over and over again. Supposedly they do it on purpose to try and drill it into our heads. I wound up making friends with the CIR for Chiba City, who is Canadian and male and I am rather jealous that he is in the city but we'll get to that later. In any case, he's super metro, likes saying snarky things, and is a Lipton milk tea fiend like me!! We get along quite nicely.
Two days later, we were stuffed onto buses, etc. according to prefecture (so Chiba JETs got herded onto a bus headed for Chiba City. You should've seen the Hokkaido JETs though. They were a freaking ARMY! About 90 of them and there were god knows how many more at the Group A orientation the week before). Our PA/Prefectural Advisor (think peer mentors from high school? XD), Ben, talked at us the whole way while most of us slept.
At Chiba City, we had a random introductory ceremony or something, and in less than 15 minutes we were paired up with our Contracting Organizations and then with no time to say goodbye to our friends (at least we were warned in advance), we were off to our placements.
My supervisor (let me clear it up now that "supervisors" aren't really bosses - they just kinda look after the JETs, and they usually tend to be the lowest on the ladder) and the kacho hosa (second down from the kacho) came to pick me up. I was tired, and I was super tense the whoooole time.
Later on that week I found out that everyone was kinda worried about me because I looked like I was walking on nails, and that I was wearing a black suit even tho it was blazing hot. It was blazing hot, and I was sweating the entire time :D
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Lots has went down since then. I stayed at my supervisor's parents' house (she's married and doesn't live there anymore, but she slept there when I was there), I've been working for over three weeks now and have pretty much gotten settled in, and people are finally starting to talk to me. But I think rants about work need to be saved for another time, because it's pretty much all that I have here, and it's gonna get LONG. XD
Before I close this entry, let me just post some pictures of my town that I took one of the many days that my supervisor was dragging me all over town to see stuff/people. That way this doesn't turn into a totally boring entry :DDD
From the top of an observation deck thing. I live somewhere around the left side, before the huge green rice fields. :D My work is only about 15 minutes away walking.
Also from the observation deck. The Pacific Oceaaaaan! And that island in the middle has decidedly been named "Snail Island" (or that's how my supervisor always calls it around me and the other JET in my town), even though that's definitely not what it's actually called :o
Another picture of the ocean. I reaaaaaaally like the way the coast curves off to the right.
Anyway...to be continued in another post! That I hopefully write tonight!!! o_o;
This is where I used to live ;_; ...except not really. It IS where I used to go to school though! And I could technically see this from where I used to live!
So the beginning of August found me leaving home, and packing my life up for this time an undetermined amount of time in Japan. Once again with two check-ins, a roller carry-on and a purse, I was off.
The flight over was okay. We nearly missed our connecting flight because of mysterious problems with our plane in D.C. that made us two hours late. Upon reaching Minneapolis, we literally had to sprint to the other gate to make our next flight. We made it, albeit we were sweaty and breathing hard and it was kinda gross XD That and it looked kinda of weird to have a whole group of about 40 people sprinting at once.
Then the 12 hour flight to Tokyo. I had a window seat (nice!) and I was sitting to a really nice Korean lady from Busan who turned out to be an English teacher, so we talked off and on about very random things. Northwest sucks because they don't have the little entertainment thing like ANA. GRAR. Lunch was okay and dinner was disgusting.
After arriving in Tokyo, we all walked through customs feeling rather clueless and abandoned...but the second we walked out, there were TONS of JETs waiting for us who shuffled us from the airport lobby until the parking lot and onto the bus. It was like some crazy military operation thing. (Btw, did you guys know that you could take those luggage carts onto the escalators, and then if you let go of the handles on the way up/down the brakes will automatically kick in and the cart won't go rolling down? It was super neat)
------------------------
Fast forward to Tokyo Orientation. Two days of rather pointless things. It's the same info recycled over and over and over again. Supposedly they do it on purpose to try and drill it into our heads. I wound up making friends with the CIR for Chiba City, who is Canadian and male and I am rather jealous that he is in the city but we'll get to that later. In any case, he's super metro, likes saying snarky things, and is a Lipton milk tea fiend like me!! We get along quite nicely.
Two days later, we were stuffed onto buses, etc. according to prefecture (so Chiba JETs got herded onto a bus headed for Chiba City. You should've seen the Hokkaido JETs though. They were a freaking ARMY! About 90 of them and there were god knows how many more at the Group A orientation the week before). Our PA/Prefectural Advisor (think peer mentors from high school? XD), Ben, talked at us the whole way while most of us slept.
At Chiba City, we had a random introductory ceremony or something, and in less than 15 minutes we were paired up with our Contracting Organizations and then with no time to say goodbye to our friends (at least we were warned in advance), we were off to our placements.
My supervisor (let me clear it up now that "supervisors" aren't really bosses - they just kinda look after the JETs, and they usually tend to be the lowest on the ladder) and the kacho hosa (second down from the kacho) came to pick me up. I was tired, and I was super tense the whoooole time.
Later on that week I found out that everyone was kinda worried about me because I looked like I was walking on nails, and that I was wearing a black suit even tho it was blazing hot. It was blazing hot, and I was sweating the entire time :D
---------------------------
Lots has went down since then. I stayed at my supervisor's parents' house (she's married and doesn't live there anymore, but she slept there when I was there), I've been working for over three weeks now and have pretty much gotten settled in, and people are finally starting to talk to me. But I think rants about work need to be saved for another time, because it's pretty much all that I have here, and it's gonna get LONG. XD
Before I close this entry, let me just post some pictures of my town that I took one of the many days that my supervisor was dragging me all over town to see stuff/people. That way this doesn't turn into a totally boring entry :DDD
From the top of an observation deck thing. I live somewhere around the left side, before the huge green rice fields. :D My work is only about 15 minutes away walking.
Also from the observation deck. The Pacific Oceaaaaan! And that island in the middle has decidedly been named "Snail Island" (or that's how my supervisor always calls it around me and the other JET in my town), even though that's definitely not what it's actually called :o
Another picture of the ocean. I reaaaaaaally like the way the coast curves off to the right.
Anyway...to be continued in another post! That I hopefully write tonight!!! o_o;