Arrival

I am happy to say that I made it safely to Japan. I left Sunday morning August 16th from the Salt Lake City Airport. We touched down in Seattle and then continued to the Narita airport. The flight was ten hours long - but not too miserable. Luckily there were a lot of movies playing that I wanted to watch including Star Treck, XMen Origins, Monsters VS Aliens, and then I watched the live action Dragonball movie just because I was curious.

I made it through customs without any problem and exchanged $600 in Travelers checks for about 58,000 Yen. I then met up with an Interac employee who was waiting for me. We waited for five other ALTs (Assistant Language Teacher) to arrive. All together, twenty five new ALTs arrived that day for training. I was surprised at the diversity - there were people from the USA, England, Scottland, New Zealand, and many other places.

We took the skyline train around 7:00 PM and got into Tokyo around 8:00. We're all staying at the Asakusa Central Hotel, which is about five minutes from the Asakusa Shrine. By the time I got my room, I had been awake for about 25 hours. I was exhausted! After eating something, I crashed - and woke up around 4:30 the next morning.


After trying to fall back asleep and failing miserably, I took this time to sort through all my luggage observe people on the streets, and go for a walk. I wandered to the Asakusa shrine and discovered a whole network of shrines in that area. The Japanese often have shrines that you can pray to for certain things. There were shrines you could pray to for fertility, a good marriage, health, studying, and other things. Unfortunately all of the signs were in Kanji, the most difficult writing system in Japan - so I couldn't read what all of them were for. But I decided to go to the main temple, wash my hands in the sacred water, toss some yen into the shrine donation grate (I don't know what they're called, just that you toss yen in) and prayed for a good time in Japan.

After that, I wandered some of the streets - which were packed full of little shops that were still closed. I went back to the hotel about eight.

At 8:30, all of the ALTs gathered together to go to our first day of training. We took the trains, and hit the end of rush hour so it was a little cozy. We were led to our training room where we got a lot of packets and things.

Our trainer is a fun, energetic, and loving man from South Africa. He's been teaching English for quite a few years now and is absolutely wonderful at it. He seems a little crazy sometimes, but then the children he teaches love it. He makes teaching seem so easy, but I wonder if I'll be able to put myself out there and be willing to be ridiculous sometimes.

Training went to 5:30, with an hour lunch break in between. I wandered the streets and just picked up an onigiri (a rice ball that usually has something tasty in the middle) and some egg noodles with chicken. When training was done, I was tired! We all headed back to the hotel and went to get something to eat. Me and two other guys went to the back streets and found a small Udon shop where I got ebi tempura soba - shrimp caked in batter which is then fried and put on top of a bowl of buckwheat noodles in a broth. It was the first cooked meal since I've gotten to Japan, and it tasted like heaven!

I then went to a 100 Yen store - which is like a dollar store. They sell everything from food, office supplies, dishes, to rain coats. I love them. I didn't buy very much because I'm still living in a hotel and I'd have to carry it all to my new apartment on Friday. I also went to a Grocery store where I got some food for breakfast and such - and some Azuki Bean Popsicles. They're actually quite tasty.

Wednesday morning I woke up at 6:30. Dinked around in my hotel until 8:30 when a bunch of us headed to the training building. There was no one to lead us this time - and of the twenty people who left at the same time I did, I was the only one who didn't get lost on the way. So was I alone for ten minutes waiting for everyone else to show up.

I got my work phone, which I love. It's a SoftBank PANTONE, which is cool because the screen cycles through different colors and has the swatch number labeled on it. As a graphic designer, I think it's amazing.

I was also taken to my school, Roka Jr. High School, to meet with the English teachers there. They were very nice and it seems like I'm going to be just assisting and not really teaching the lessons. I think it will be nice at first, just so I can get used to things - but maybe as time goes on I will be able to be more involved in planning and everything.

The school is very nice, with a lot of huge trees and some bamboo around it. It's very quite as there are no big streets by it. Everyone either rides their bikes or walks to get places in that area. The building is rather old, but in good shape. I'm looking forward to working in it with the teachers and students. I'll be starting next Wednesday.

Getting to my school took a lot of time and a lot of walking - I barely made it back to the hotel where I crashed around 8:00. I wanted to go out and see things, but I still have a lot of sleep to catch up on. Hopefully I'll get the chance to see all the shops when they're still open before I move to my apartment. I don't know when I'll get the chance to come back to this part of Tokyo once I've moved.