Advertisement
Published: August 1st 2006
Lights of Tokyo
It looks exactly how I imagined it would!We landed in Tokyo Friday night after 15 hours in transit and very little sleep. We were ushered off the planes and guided through the airport by a fence of people holding JET Programme signs. Just to make sure none of us strayed from the herd we were all labeled with blue stickers also saying that we were part of the JET Programme. The ride from the airport at Chibu into Shinjuku was just as impressive as I imagined it would be. Through the darkness Tokyo was one twinkling city with giant buildings, sculptures and one ferris wheel lighting up the horizon. There is some English here, which was reassuring. In an emergency, I would at least be able to locate the nearest shoe outlet. I also liked the billboard of a white guy pressed up against the city saying "Good-bye, my car" and nothing else. It kind of reminded me of Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation". Anything goes if you're a foreigner...
Any big plans to explore the city that had been formulated on the plane ride over were abandoned when we stepped into our hotel rooms and found the comforts of our beds. We have been placed
Lights of Tokyo
It looks exactly how I imagined it would! two or three JETs to a room and I believe we are occupying most of this huge hotel. There are 1,500 of us here from all over the world! And this is just the first intake.
Our first day was filled with seminars, speeches and food. The food here is delicious! We had rice with curry for lunch and then a huge buffet/banquet for dinner. Meal time has been a great way to get to know people. I have found that Americans tend to be a little cooler to start off with (and some of them really have reinforced any preconceptions we Canadians had about them), but everyone else has been fantastic. This evening many of us went out with our prefectural groups (groups of people that are going to the same region). They have all you can drink/eat resto-bars here which provided a great atmosphere for getting to know your prefectural buddies and getting drunk on the cheap. Much fun was had by all!
Today was our last full day in Tokyo. It was filled with more seminars, these ones less formal and more informative than the ones we had yesterday. The morning was spent getting tips
Lights of Tokyo
It looks exactly how I imagined it would! on teaching and preparing lesson plans and the afternoon spent attending workshops on everyday-life kind of things like driving in Japan, life as a female JET and Japanese etiquette. Our schedules have been jam-packed from about 8:30 am when we breakfast to about 8:30 pm when we finish with all the official receptions.
Tonight we were hosted at the Canadian embassy for snacks and speeches and a meet and greet with fellow Canadian JETs. Most of us are really cool and we finished off the night with an exploration of Harajuku, a neighbourhood favoured by Gwen Stefani (
I'd get me four Harajuku girls to Inspire me and they'd come to my rescue I'd dress them wicked, I'd give them names Love, Angel, Music, Baby Hurry up and come and save me
. Well, I didn't find the girls of Harajuku to be anything special but we did have some fantastic crepes! The one thing about Japan is that they have a huge selection for everything, so I tried aichi-maron-and-creme flavour. I thought it would be like marons glacees since it had maron in the name. In the end I'm not sure what it was actually made of but it was full of sugary goodness.
Tomorrow will be yet another full day as we travel to our prefectures and face the solid heat of the south. I am very excited to meet my
Tokyo Toilet
High-tech hygiene coworkers and see my house (to verify that it is indeed a tin box) and my town although I am a little apprehensive that the dress code is formal business attire. Ordinarily I love to dress up, but I'm not so sure about loving my suit in 38 degrees plus humidity. Tokyo (and our air-conditioned hotel) has been merciful the last couple of days; the heat of Kagoshima will be a cruel shock.
If I survive the heat, I will try to post another entry on the weekend when I have had time to collect my thoughts, re-hydrate and maybe cool down on the beach.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0206s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Scotto-san
non-member comment
Konnichiwa and how's it going, eh?
So the toilets are as awesome as Tae-Sensei described! Not sure what "boet" means, but the katakana "hite" = heat? I'd be a little nervous hitting these buttons at first, but you gotta try it :) I'm dying of jealousy now, I'll totally have to live vicariously through you guys!