In Search of Sunrise

Greetings from Japan! It has been a long time in coming, but the website is finally up. I am sorry that it is a little late, but I have been traveling for a very long time now. Please allow me to document my life for the past week.

I left for Los Angeles on July 29, 2006, for the first in a very long series of orientations, which were quite disorienting. (I’m so clever, aren’t I?) Anyway, after the orientation, I spent the night at the LAX Marriott Hotel. I slept very little and so when I left for the airport the next day I was horribly tired. The plane ride wasn’t much better either; even though it was a ten hour flight, I did not sleep very much at all. I did, however, see a very good movie: “V for Vendetta.” When it first came out in the theatres, I thought it looked stupid and so never saw it, but since I was on the plane and did not have anything better to do, I watched it and loved it. Now, I want my own copy. We landed at about 5:30 pm at Narita Airport. After going through customs, we boarded buses at around 7 pm. We arrived in Tokyo at about 9:30 pm. I ate dinner with a friend I met back in LA named, Arlen and her roommates. It’s quite amusing that the first place that I ate at was a Sizzler. I ate some chicken, but not much else since I was having “intestinal problems” – probably a slight case of food poisoning, which even now is still quite persistent, though the whole thing could easily be stress related.

The orientation was from July 30 through August 2. I lost a day traveling through time and I do feel it.

On the second day of orientation, I went out that night and walked around Shinjuku. I bought some razors so I could finally shave my legs and some tacky silver nail polish. 810 yen. Tokyo is definitely a unique place; it is wall-to-wall skyscrapers. We have tall buildings in America, but nothing like Tokyo; it just goes on for miles! There are lots of flashing lights too.

Oh yes, I suppose I should also mention the “squatty potties.” I don’t understand why, after the Japanese adopted the Western flush toilet, they invented flush squatty potties. I mean, sitting is a lot easier than squatting, right? Thankfully, I have a normal toilet in my apartment. The BOE has one normal toilet too, though they also have two squatty potties. Craziness. As for the “normal” toilets, they actually have settings for a little flush and a BIG flush. It’s very funny.

Moving on, my roommate and I got along, but we weren’t necessarily friendly with one another. She also snored occasionally.

On the last day of orientation, all those going to Kumamoto ken boarded the buses to Haneda Airport. The flight was about an hour and a half. The Amakusa supervisor, Keishi Idenaga, and our gun rep, Wai, picked up all of the Amakusa JETs. We ate lunch in Kumamoto shi.

Afterwards, we all drove to the Amakusa shi BOE and that was the last that I saw of all of the other Amakusa JETs. Hopefully I will see some of them later. If I do manage to acquire a means of transportation, I would like to visit them.

When I finally arrived in Kawaura, my supervisor took me to my apartment and introduced me to Shimokawa san. Let me tell you about Shimokawa san. There are very few people here who speak English and it is so incredibly wonderful to have an English speaker so close by, in the event that I need some help, or set my house on fire, which may very well happen. In any case, she made me a frozen peach desert.

Last night I also went to my very first onsen: I decided to go all out, or rather, all off, I suppose. Shimokawa san saw me naked, but it was likewise for her. I was very happy that nobody stared at me, but from a distance I do have the appearance of a Japanese, so being half and half works to some benefit for me.

The morning, which is today, I had my first traditional Japanese breakfast. I ate miso soup with sea vegetables. I was very happy to discover that I could eat the seaweed; it didn’t taste as horrible as I was afraid it would. Shimokawa san also made a sunny side up egg over bacon, rice, and apple yogurt. It was all very delicious. Then, I walked to work today; the heat was not as oppressive as I was afraid it would be. I’d say that the board of education is less than five minutes away, so it is very convenient.

I arrived at the BOE and met all of the people who were basically in charge of my welfare and well-being. Tanizaki san and Nonaka san are especially kind to me. The two of them helped turn on my gas and internet connection for me. During which, I realized that I really need to perfect my Japanese; going months on end without using it have really done wonders to make communication ridiculously difficult.

However, I am glad that Kumamoto ben isn’t all that difficult to pick up. In fact in some ways, it is a little easier. Mostly: Instead of the standard, atsui, the people in Kumamoto say, atsuka. Since the past tense is atsukatta, doesn’t Kumamoto ben make a little more sense? Sure, Japanese has all of that history behind it, but ~ka makes more sense than, ~i.

I guess I should also mention what “working” here in the BOE is like. Um, at the Kawaura BOE simply looking busy, or rather just being at work is sufficient. Nobody here looks like they are actually working in the traditional sense. In fact, my supervisor looked as though he was taking a little catnap earlier.

It’s almost 1 pm (9 am WST), and I cannot wait until 4 pm. That means I can go home and finally unpack! It seems silly, but I have been living out of my suitcase for what seems like ages; I would like to settle down and see what is around town. It would be nice to get some sort of transportation – that is something that I am going to have to spend some time considering. I am thinking of going for either a kei car or a little scooter. There are some benefits to each.

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