Orientation

Today marked the first day of JET orientation at our hotel in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. I barely slept at all on the 13 hour flight over here, but somehow, I’m not tired, and I only got a restless 9 hours sleep last night. Jet lag seem averted though, and orientation has consumed most of my day.

Above: Shinjuku at night

Like most large gatherings or meetings in Japan, today started with an opening ceremony. I didn’t really pay attention though, because the speeches were boring, and I was very uncomfortable sitting still on a hotel chair for 3 hours in my suit. Following the opening speeches, we ate a lunch of curry rice, and then went back into the meeting area to listen to more speeches. Around 3:00 or so, we were supposed to break out into workshops, but the first set didn’t appear particularly interesting, so I instead went to the nearby post office to cash my postal money orders in for yen.

This seemingly simple task became an hour long ordeal as I waited in a seating area with a numbered ticket for a half hour, and then it took the postal workers another half hour to figure out what to do with my slips of paper that were entirely in English. Eventually though, everything worked out, and I got an amazing exchange rate (about 15 more yen to the dollar than my bank gave). For those of you who don’t know, the Japanese postal system doubles as a bank, and provides tax filing and insurance services as well.

By time this was all done, though, I had missed all 3 breakout sessions for the day, and now sit in my hotel room updating this blog. Tonight, after a welcome reception and dinner, I plan to go out and sing karaoke with other Americans and the 5 Irishmen who will be joining me in Shimane prefecture. Hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting and informative…

Anticipation

So it’s currently 1:13am.  I am sitting awake in my Atlanta hotel room, because if I don’t sleep until I get on my 9am flight, I’m hoping that I can avoid jet lag.  Today’s been hectic.  I waited until the last minute to pack everything I needed, and still spent a fortune shipping over all my text books.  Today at predeparture orientation (my first of 3 orientations) I learned that American Air doesn’t have the same luggage restrictions as Delta, and since I got shafted and stuck on the American Air flight instead of the Delta flight,  my baggage can by no means exceed 70lbs per bag, or the airline will not take it.  No fees, no negotiation, they simply refuse to strain their backs lifting anything over 70lbs.  On the bright side however, their overweight (anything over 50lbs) fees are 1/3 as much as Delta’s so hopefully I’ll save some money there.

I’ve spent all week uploading music to iTunes from every cd I could get my hands on, in order to stay entertained at the airports and on the flight (after my nap).  I also bought “Watchmen” on BluRay, because my awesome new laptop is cool like that and can play high tech things like BluRay discs in 1080i high def.  More importantly though, Jenn made me a cd to listen to (and a 365 page hand-made calendar that took her a week to put together). 

At this point, my stomach’s hungry and my eyes are heavy, but if I eat anything now, I’ll pass out.  I just want to get to Ama (not really looking forward to the hassle of Tokyo) already and settle in to my new home.  I’ll post pics of it once I’m all moved in.

1st Post

So this is my first ever attempt at a blog, it'll get better as time goes on. I'm hoping over the coming year I'll be able to share all my cool Japan experiences with my friends and family.