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Published: August 26th 2006
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Getting off the plane in Tottori was like being thrown into a sauna...my goodness it was so hot! My Japanese Teachers of English (hereafter referred to as JTEs) picked me up at the airport because my supervisor at the Tottori-shi (shi=city) Board of Education (BOE), Takahashi-sensei, was supposedly out of town. My JTEs are really nice. One of them, Inoue-sensei, couldn't stay because she had a meeting. The other one, Mari Ishimoto, was the one who drove me around for the rest of the day. After leaving the airport, she showed me how to get to Koto Chugakko (jr. high school, I will most likely be shortening it to Chu from now on) which is the school where she works and where I would be working. It is not too far from Koyama station which is only one stop away from Tottori-shi.
I met some of the teachers when we went to Koto that day. I think I met the kyoto-sensei (vice principal) too and I had to use what little Japanese I knew to introduce myself. One of the first surprising things to me was that we had to take off our shoes when we go inside the school.
There are little boxes right next to the entry way where you stash your outside shoes and then you wear different shoes inside. I just went in socks because I didn't even get one of those guest slippers they have on the side. Hey, how was I supposed to know right? I was FOA (fresh off the airplane).
Next we picked up my one other suitcase at the Tottori-shi BOE office and we weren't wearing dress clothes so we felt kind of bad, but oh well. I literally only brought one large suitcase and one smaller one plus my backpack and garment bag with my suits in them to Japan...how I'm surviving? I do laundry a lot and I'm waiting anxiously for my mom to send me more clothes. Anyway, we went to my apartment next. It's really close to the Tottori station (eki) which is great for me because I have to take the train and the bus to work. It's a pretty good space, definitely big enough for me. It has all the essentials: tv, fridge, dresser, dining table, microwave, heater, vacuum, futon (mattress on the floor that I sleep on), pillow. The only thing is that's
pretty much all that was here. Since then one of my friends was kind enough to give me an extra kotatsu (a table that can be heated in the winter) and clothes rack they had. Slowly I'll get more stuff, I already am collecting various kitchen items.
Mari then took me to lunch at a sushi place in the eki. It was really good!!! The only bad thing was that I tried natto for the first time. It was so gross! Basically it's fermented soybeans...and yeah I did not like it but I ate it cause I'm a trooper. We hit up the supermarket, Jusco, next. I go there all the time now because it's the closest supermarket to me. Got some essentials like the right kind of trash bags and food for at least a couple days.
She also showed me more essentials in my apartment like how to turn on the air conditioner and the settings for it, etc. and how to turn on the gas so I can have hot water and use the range. She was such a big help! And she gave me her phone number in case I needed anything. First couple days here were pretty slow, mostly I spent my time walking around and trying to familiarize myself with my surroundings. The 2nd day I was here another one of the JTEs from Koto-chu came over and she showed me how to take the bus and where the hospital is. We tried to go to the Tottori Castle ruins but there were men at work over there so we couldn't go. She was really nice too, but her English was not as good as Ishimoto-sensei's.
Other important things we did right away were meet with our supervisor and he helped us get a bank account, apply for our alien registration card, and get a cell phone. I love my keitai because it's just so cool! You can watch tv on it, listen to the radio, take photos, everything. I mostly use it for texting because a lot of us here got the unlimited texting as part of our plan. Minutes are expensive, we only get 150 minutes a month on our plan and that is not much at all! Very different from how things work back home.
Most of the early days in Tottori were pretty boring actually because we didn't have to go to school yet so we just kind of hung out. I went to Jusco a lot and bought stuff at the 100 yen store which is my favorite store because 100 yen = a dollar! I've bought so much stuff there it's not even funny.
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Jaime
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Hello
May, got your email. will keep track of your daily adventures. let us know if you need anything. take care.