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…