I spent the bus ride to the hotel enjoying every last bit of disbelief of finally physically being in Japan. Than that disbelief got put on hold as soon as we got close to the hotel, the "English Bubble" was so tangible...
The Keio Plaza, where we stayed, is located in Shinjuku and was really nice and comfortable. There were two JETs per rooms, and I happened to room with one of my "neighbors" on the Tokyo plane. During the first night I took time to settle in, exchanged the rest of my cash (which in the end wasn't necessary), then went to explore the area around the hotel. Shinjuku is pretty lively, but all I could think of at that point was food, so soon I found this place that served katsudon among other delicious dishes. Though we were provided maps of the near-by area of the hotel, I don't think it was much help when I was trying to get back... but my sense of direction came to the rescue, and I ended getting back pretty quickly.
The next day saw the beginning of our 2-day Tokyo Orientation, which was interesting and fun most of the time, though there were a couple of seminars that were more of a miss than a hit. (Yes, "Technology in the Classroom," I'm talking about you.)
Though we were basically free after 5PM to do as we wished, I spent the time adjusting to the time difference instead of exploring the city, so I can't much say about that... I just feel two evenings are not enough to get any kind of feel for the city, so I didn't even try.
We met up around 9AM on Wednesday to leave for Fukuyama. All Hiroshima Prefecture JETs left together and flew to Hiroshima Airport, where we were greeted by our supervisor and fellow JETs. The 5 of us new Fukuyama JETs ended up taking a small bus to our city, where the first thing we did was to take pictures for our Alien Registration Cards, after which each of us was finally brought to our new apartments. (My apartment will get its own post in a couple of days...) That night we had a welcome dinner, which was expensive (￥4000) but delicious.
The next couple of days were spent with acquiring various paperwork, like bank account, cell phone, utilities, and of course the alien registration card. In the end, there was a bit of confusion about name order (last name first, all capital letters!!!), but eventually everything got settled by Monday. We spent Saturday with shopping, and I spent Sunday with cleaning up and organizing the apartment.
As for the work, all Fukuyama JETs (9 new JETs from group A+B, and 7 older JETs) are based in the Board of Education, and once school starts up, we will be dividing our time between our schools and the BOE. All of us I believe are (going to be) working at junior high schools and elementary/primary schools. Currently we (new JETs) spend our time catching up on all the reading material we got from the Orientation, planning our self-introductions to our various classes (that we still don't know anything specific about), doing lesson plans, studying Japanese, and generally hanging out. All the JETs are really nice and pretty cool, so it's a fun crowd.
The Keio Plaza, where we stayed, is located in Shinjuku and was really nice and comfortable. There were two JETs per rooms, and I happened to room with one of my "neighbors" on the Tokyo plane. During the first night I took time to settle in, exchanged the rest of my cash (which in the end wasn't necessary), then went to explore the area around the hotel. Shinjuku is pretty lively, but all I could think of at that point was food, so soon I found this place that served katsudon among other delicious dishes. Though we were provided maps of the near-by area of the hotel, I don't think it was much help when I was trying to get back... but my sense of direction came to the rescue, and I ended getting back pretty quickly.
The next day saw the beginning of our 2-day Tokyo Orientation, which was interesting and fun most of the time, though there were a couple of seminars that were more of a miss than a hit. (Yes, "Technology in the Classroom," I'm talking about you.)
Though we were basically free after 5PM to do as we wished, I spent the time adjusting to the time difference instead of exploring the city, so I can't much say about that... I just feel two evenings are not enough to get any kind of feel for the city, so I didn't even try.
We met up around 9AM on Wednesday to leave for Fukuyama. All Hiroshima Prefecture JETs left together and flew to Hiroshima Airport, where we were greeted by our supervisor and fellow JETs. The 5 of us new Fukuyama JETs ended up taking a small bus to our city, where the first thing we did was to take pictures for our Alien Registration Cards, after which each of us was finally brought to our new apartments. (My apartment will get its own post in a couple of days...) That night we had a welcome dinner, which was expensive (￥4000) but delicious.
The next couple of days were spent with acquiring various paperwork, like bank account, cell phone, utilities, and of course the alien registration card. In the end, there was a bit of confusion about name order (last name first, all capital letters!!!), but eventually everything got settled by Monday. We spent Saturday with shopping, and I spent Sunday with cleaning up and organizing the apartment.
As for the work, all Fukuyama JETs (9 new JETs from group A+B, and 7 older JETs) are based in the Board of Education, and once school starts up, we will be dividing our time between our schools and the BOE. All of us I believe are (going to be) working at junior high schools and elementary/primary schools. Currently we (new JETs) spend our time catching up on all the reading material we got from the Orientation, planning our self-introductions to our various classes (that we still don't know anything specific about), doing lesson plans, studying Japanese, and generally hanging out. All the JETs are really nice and pretty cool, so it's a fun crowd.
Nothing else really comes to mind, so if you have any questions please post them and I'll answer as soon as I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment