Let the Training Commence (or in Engrish, "Let's Training!")

Typing this before 7:00 AM in my Okayama hotel room during training. I can’t believe I’m up this early, but at least the jetlag curse has been broken and I’ve gotten two good nights’ sleep in a row. Much better than waking up around 4:30 and not getting back to sleep…

If you go to Tokyo sometime, I definitely recommend Tokyo Skytree. On my only real day in Tokyo, I met up in the morning with a Japanese friend who came in from the neighboring city of Saitama to hang out there with me, since neither of us had been—it was opened to the public in May 2012, the month after I went home from study abroad (why?!). It was even more popular than I expected—the ticket sales began at 8, but when I got in line around 8:20~30, it was already around an 80-minute wait according to a sign. Thankfully my friend Kanaho, who had already gone through the line and gotten a ticket voucher, came and saved me. Meeting up without a cell phone can be really hard and stressful! How did people ever manage it? Anyway, the big crowds may have had to do with the fact that it was a long weekend (Friday was off)…which would later screw me over again.

            So, Skytree—the world’s tallest tower at 634 meters, but not the tallest structure because a building in Dubai has that title—has pretty much completely eclipsed Tokyo Tower in the observation tower department. It looked so small and sad from where we were standing in Skytree—and that was from the lower deck! We would’ve gone up to the higher one, but it was an extra 1000 yen, or over $10. They also have a glass section of the floor where you can walk out and look down at the ant-like people below—acrophobic people, beware!

            From there, we had enough time to visit Asakusa and the famous temple Sensouji. It was my fourth time there, navigating the throngs of people walking amongst the stalls on the way to the main pavilion. It’s basically the perfect place to get souvenirs before leaving Japan, while also getting fat off of street food like age-manju (little fluffy dough balls that are fried on the outside and stuffed with various fillings—I had ume, Japanese plum).

            Before getting on the shinkansen (bullet train) to Okayama that afternoon, I was going to see Harajuku with a friend but the friend canceled so I figured, ah what the heck, I’ll still go anyway…I was back at the hotel so I brought my suitcase and backpack in a quick taxi to Tokyo Station, thinking I’d leave my stuff in one of the many coin lockers and come back to hop a 4:30 train…but literally every large locker was full. The locker areas had cool little touchscreen maps showing where other locker sections were and what they had available, and every once in a while a small or medium would open up—I actually ran over to get a medium a couple times, but by the time I got there, people would already be buying it. Noooo! It was definitely because of that long weekend. I threw in the towel just after 2 (I had already been to Harajuku several times) and lined up at 2:20 for a 2:40 train.

Which reminds me… If the assigned seats are all gone, get there early, like at least 15 minutes early, or you might have to stand. Only the first 3 cars out of a maybe 12-car train are open seating. Good thing this was the first stop…a few people who got on at Nagoya, Kyoto or Osaka had to stand or sleepily crouch in the aisles. I got a nice window seat where I could catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji, the Kamogawa (Kamo River) and Kyoto Tower (I wanted to jump off in Kyoto!), and Himeji Castle engulfed by black scaffolding—sigh, when will that be finished?

An Interac head teacher from this area was waiting to meet me at the fountain outside the station, and brought me to the hotel, which was literally right across from the station, but the help was appreciated. I met the head of my branch and some other fresh faces, picked up my big ole 50.5 pound rolling duffel I’d shipped there, and headed off to my room, which is considerably bigger and nicer than the one I had in Tokyo.

People went off to find food fairly quickly, and we happily settled on the Japanese curry chain CoCo Ichibanya, which brings back memories from study abroad because one was right across from Doshisha’s campus. You can add so many mix-ins or toppings to your curry; it’s great. I had cheese and spinach in it because that was a legit thing on the menu and I like them both, so why not. Afterwards we found a place to do karaoke for an hour before crashing, and blasted such classics as “F***k You” (my go-to alto range fun song), and lots of ‘90s songs from folks like Britney and the Backstreet Boys. I felt alive again! I seriously wish there were more karaoke places in America—there’s only one similar place in Boston, a Korean one called Do Re Mi.

So far we’ve had two days of training—long and eventful days, but not too exhausting. I think I’ve learned all of the other 21 trainees’ names by now, but 3 more just showed up Tuesday afternoon (aw man, more names!). I have had more than one convenience store canned coffee a day though. The first day was mostly just policy stuff, objectives, rules, and piles of paperwork…I think I have a whole tree worth of paper with me right now. Yesterday (Tuesday) was more practical and dealt with life in schools and classrooms and stuff. We practiced our very first self-introductions to the class and were judged pretty harshly but it was to catch bad habits before they start. In the evening we also had a drug test and presentation on drunk driving and drugs in Japan (DON’T DO IT, your life will be over. They are adamant about anti-drug laws here, and the no drunk driving is kind of common sense).
          One cool thing that happened: some of us went to Japanese McDonald’s for lunch yesterday (more interesting options than back home!), and as we got in line some doll-like high school girls in short skirts (yes, these ones fit all the stereotypes) said “Hello” to us in English on their way out! We said hello back encouragingly and asked “how are you?” They said “I’m fine thank you” …well one said “I’m guddo” (good) but I think she wasn’t serious. As they left, one more said “I’m hungry!” Wait why are you leaving a restaurant hungry? Oh well, at least they’re using English! A lot of people here will be too shy to speak it, especially to random foreigners, but these seemed like the popular girls so I guess they were less inhibited.

"Tokyolo?" Er....Nope

This entry was started on the way to Tokyo Station from Narita Airport because I felt the need to passive-aggressively document the ridiculous and somewhat clueless group of 4 college kids in front of me on the train. First piece of gold: “Tokyolo!” (a strange bastardization of Tokyo and YOLO which I would only ever say ironically. I hope for their sakes they were saying it ironically, though something in my heart tells me they weren’t.)

Also, “Whoa, I totally didn’t realize this is a legit train” (referring to it being spacious forward-facing seats instead of subway-style … yeah kids, Japan takes things up a notch.) They were also congratulating themselves for even making it onto the train in the first place (partly due to a communication breakdown where they didn’t realize it was assigned seating). They also were relieved that everything had English written on it…but then realized that might be because it’s the airport. I hope those guys brought their phrasebooks, since they’ll have a hard time finding anyone who can speak fluent English to them…

Next piece of gold: they repeated Shibuya from the list of stops being announced, but said it like “Shi-BOO-yah!” on purpose. And then, “Can someone tell me what ‘buya’ means?” That makes the second time I rolled my eyes and thought kill me now.

Here, why don’t you just have a whole list of selections…

“I also wanna get a samurai sword.” (it’s called a katana)

“I want to bring back a nice pair of chopsticks to show off at a dinner party.”
          “I hope we get lots of Wifi so I can send lots of Snapchats.” (haha, good luck with finding free wifi in Japan!)

“I feel like we’re already Tokyo Drifting!” “Hashtag YOLO Tokyo Drift!”

Apparently they’re on some kind of organized trip, because they were talking about the itinerary and ditching certain tour stuff. That’s good for them because it seems like they don't know a lick of Japanese... But hey, they all ordered Asahi from the drink cart and predicted being hungover on the last day, so they'll probably just be drinking their whole trip away anyway.

Anyway, now back to our regularly scheduled programming. You have to strengthen your resolve before embarking on a 13-hour flight, that’s for sure. And preferably get minimal sleep the night before to force you to fall asleep there…which wasn’t a problem this time since my first flight was at 6 AM and I got about 4 hours of sleep. Also, I’m pretty sure Katy Perry’s “I’m Wide Awake” was written on or inspired by an international overnight flight because good lord, it is near impossible to get any quality shuteye, even after taking melatonin pills. I got less than 2 hours, I think, and the sad part is that’s as good as or better than my track record with flights to or from Japan so far (this is my 7^th). Maybe that’s an economy class thing?

A word to the wise: if you enjoy food, avoid taking Air Canada, unless you will eat almost anything. They seemed to think vegetarian and vegan were the same thing, since my bland meals lacked egg or dairy, but I guess that makes them healthier at least … and they also think that if you are vegetarian, then you have to have quinoa for both your main and side dish. Quinoa everything! I think I’m good on that for a while.

Other than that, both my flights were fine, with a good entertainment selection—I pretty much watched nonstop movies (Last Vegas, Anchorman, Captain Phillips, and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. I should have watched them in reverse order so the comedy of the first two would ease the tension from the others. By the way, this may offend you, but I didn’t actually find Anchorman that funny… sorry not sorry).

Time for sleep because those 2 hours just aren't cutting it.

Another Year: The Saga Continues

Hi again readers!

Yes, it's been a while. You thought I was done with this blog after study abroad, right? Hardly. Of course I was going back to Japan! I've decided to repurpose this blog from my study abroad days in Kyoto and use it to give updates on my year teaching English in Miyoshi.

Long story short, I went back to Tufts for senior year, graduated in 2013, and then got a job as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) with Interac -- kind of like JET, but a private company. After many months of anticipation, the time has come--I'm about to start my week of job training! It's in Okayama, the capital of Okayama Prefecture, and a surprisingly urban city given its rural surroundings. It starts on Monday March 24th, and we leave for our placements on Sunday March 30th. One of Japan's three most famous and beautiful gardens is there, so hopefully we won't be too busy to see that!

When that's done, I'll be all settled into Miyoshi, a city of just over 56,000 in Hiroshima Prefecture, just over an hour north of Hiroshima, the capital city (which, in contrast, has a little over 1 million, so almost the size of Kyoto). I don't know details about the apartment, but it's sure to be tiny, and I'll be helping teach elementary and middle school students. Here's some more info on the city.

And with that, it's time to sign off, since my layover in Toronto is almost up. I'm off to change huge wads of USD to yen so I don't have to worry about it there (it will come in quite handy -- Japan is very much a cash society), and then board the plane to Tokyo! I'm staying there overnight and exploring a bit before we have to be at the training hotel on Sunday night. A 3.5 hour ride on the shinkansen should give me some extra time to prepare my intro lesson.

See you on the other side.