Arrival

All right! Made it to Tokyo in one piece. The flight over wasn't all that bad, save the whole being 13 hours too long bit. That, and the approximately 7452 mosquito bites I managed to accumulate all over my feet and hands shortly before the flight enjoyed keeping me busy most of the way over. I'm sure the people around me loved watching me frantically rubbing some sort of cream from a little tube all over my itchy feet...

But then we got to Tokyo and were ushered into the fun fun customs line. Apparently they want to make a good first impresion by having virtually no air conditioning in that part of the building (though I guess I haven't been in a customs line that isn't uncomfortably warm... and that was my fifth time through customs this summer, egads). After that whole bit we gathered up our luggage and were shooed out the door into an even more intense heat accompanied by rain, where some current JETs who I thoroughly felt sorry for had to stand around in that muggy weather to take some of our luggage away to be shipped and herd us all on to buses. But then after that we got to sit back on the beautifully air conditioned bus for the couple hour drive into the city.

Yay sightseeing! We drove by Tokyo Disneyland on the way, and the hotel there looked quite swank. We then drove by some more buildings, some of which I probably should have recognized but I was sort of not awake all the way by this point.

Then came the hotel, which was quite nice. Chandeliers and all that fancy stuff (including the fancy toilets). Also right next to this rather well-known building I was happy to recognize from my last trip here - the metropolitan government building. (Want to upload the pictures but alas, I'm too tired. My bad, I'll get onto this later, but when I post it later you'll know what I'm talking about at least.)

I got my first dump of documents and was then left to find some food for myself. I found a convenience store and got an onigiri, coffee Jell-o, and watermelon soda - healthy, I know, but man was I glad to have that Jell-o again. After taking a shower I then crashed for the night.

The next couple of days was full of pretty much nothing but sitting through seminar things (and breakfast that included things like salad and french fries). We had a phenomenal keynote speaker the first day who spoke about culture shock, providing many examples of what other JETs (both good ones and... ones that were perhaps not living up to their expectations) have done in the past when dealing with it.

I didn't really do a whole lot of WHOO PARTY-ing while I was here - big surprise for me, I know - but I enjoyed being able to shower after an entire day of info-dumping and sleeping for several hours. This last night I did go out for a walk around Shinjuku station (actually looking for the tonkatsu restaurant Dad and I went to 8 or 9 years ago. I remember the name, but alas, I didn't succeed in finding it). That was fun to look at all the big city Tokyo lights for awhile, though since I had to turn in all my checked luggage I didn't have room for any shoes other than my fancy heeled business ones. I think my mosquito-bitten feet may now have blisters too, so I can up the tally of gross bumps on my feet. Didn't help that I wandered all the way around that enormous station and then kind of got lost when trying to cut through it. Wasn't too hard to find my way back once I stepped out of the building again, but man my feet hurt. And again, I just kind of gave up and headed back to the conbini for a round of the latest shinhatsubai (new products). The Anko-cream dorayaki I had was phenomenal, though, like all other shinhatsubai, it will probably be replaced by new shinhatsubai in a week. Sigh.

So tomorrow I head off with the other Hokkaido JETs to go meet our supervisors and go to our new homes. Eep. Hope that all goes well, and that my luggage all comes along with me/was sent there safe and sound. Also, I don't know if said home has internet currently, so don't be upset if you don't see me for awhile, though regardless I'll probably try to make an effort to post something after I get there anyway.

Well, early morning tomorrow, so I'm off.

Here I come

Hey kids, there's a new teacher in town. And she doesn't yet know what she's doing.



Watch yourselves.