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.