Sorry for the long delay, I have no reliable internet access in Fukuoka, and won't until the August 25th at least. I've also been insanely busy, arriving home too dead tired each night to shuck off work clothes and seek out an internet cafe. But I have taken some pretty awesome pictures.
08/01/06 - During the orientation, JET had female Junior High students handing out flyers and informational packets. It was more than a little scary to see the 22+ male JETs hitting on these 13 year olds. There were more lectures about things we should know, such as games to suggest for team teaching, how not to piss off your neighbors, how to act as an American under contract, and how to operate as a female alone in Japan. The last one I particularly enjoyed, and is the one I'm going to go into in detail now.
Firstly it was enjoyable because it was given by a boistrous young english woman who reminded me of Bridget Jones and an American lady who had sarcasm down to an art. They talked about how the Japanese students will be curious about your body shape, no matter what it is, and your private life. Japanese women have no breasts, they told us, so Japanese girls will have the unending urge to poke, prod, squeeze, weigh, wiggle and cuddle up to your breasts. If it's too close to comfort, the teachers can shoo them away, but some physical contact is normal and expected. And if you are seen with any men at any time, it will be assumed they are your boyfriend and that you are hot and heavy with them. We all had a laugh when the issue of condoms came up, because it was disclosed that they really are smaller in Japan. And what's odd is that birth control is not widely in use in Japan, but abortion is not only legal, it's encouraged as an industry. You'll have high schoolers who've had 3 - 4 abortions already by age 17. Frankly, I saw a box of condoms in a 100 yen store and the image on the box was enough to frighten me away from them alone. Who the hell would buy condoms that are advertised by a big smiling condom cat with pointy teeth open and waiting? But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After this jolly lecture, we had our Prefectural meeting, which meant the big wigs of our Prefecture came out to tell us not to be baka gaisijin (stupid foreigner), not to piss off our neighbors and to remember that we're under contract (sound familiar?). I cornered my prefectural advisor, a standoffish young man named Ken, and would not let him leave until he told me the vital statistics of where I was going. As I'm sure some of you heard me lament before, I had been unable to successfully get that information from my predecessor, and at this point was still unsure of 1) what city I was in, 2) what my address was, 3) how much the rent was, and 4) if I was classified as a junior or senior high ALT. The issue of the lost luggage was also addressed here, with me being told I had to ship the pieces that had arrived the night before outside my door due to weight restrictions on the plane.
Big general lecture hall with something like 1200 JETS in it. Sugoii!
View from the prefectural meeting on floor 43. Welcome to urban Tokyo?
More floor 43 viewing. And sky!
I returned to my room and made plans to visit a pachinko parlor with my room mate Nicole, but was unsuccessful in doing so because I had to repack both suitcases and carryons to have a change of clothes for 3 days while my luggage was off being shipped. I ended up going out with a girl named Kristen and company, who I had sat next to for one of the lectures. We had ramen, dumplings, visited odd stores, scared small children, and caused problems(not really) at an arcade.
Kristen standing outside of SLOT, a pachinko parlor we declined to enter due to the fact that all of us mistook the sign for SLUT at first as the top of the "O" blinks off periodically.
Oh tokyo
Classic downstreet view of our stomping grounds
Sapporo beer, dumplings, and chopsticks in the hands of Kristin. Kampai!
Club Sega, where all the really cool little gross old men go to play pachinko with only boxers and wifebeaters on. But they had some fun games, like the Beatmania Taiko drum game, and at least 20 claw machines, which I am an immense fan of.
Japan is obsessed with Lilo and Stitch, and also the Aristocats. Pirate Stitch, YARRR.
I am not supposed to be photographing the arcade, so this dude caught me and tried to shoo me out. So naturally I took a picture of him as he did it, which earned me a further shooing away.
08/02/06 - The next day, poor Nicole had to leave for her prefecture at 5:45 a.m., so she left me a note with her email and a little stuffed hamster present to say goodbye. I took pictures of the room I was in, further cuteness from the land of 10,000 catgirls.
Dangertoilet
A toilet with a huge warning label, and ominous control buttons to the side.
BEWARE! Usage may cause...grave a** injury? Detailed warning label of Danger-Toilet!
Surprise!
Various options for squirting/splashing that most Americans would be surprised at. I was. They make for much unhappiness.
I got up around 7 to shower and eat breakfast before heading off to my own prefecture. We took a Greyhound-style bus to Hanaka airport, during which we passed by many landmarks that you will now see pictures of. Sorry for the fog. I don't control the weather, but someday I will. You'll see.
Tokyo tower from afar, in the fog. It's really big and impressive otherwise. Like big candy striped Eiffel tower. It kicks the Eiffel tower's arse, frankly.
Misc. architecture we passed that I thought was nifty. Everything slopes.
One of Tokyo's many industrial waterways.
This is the Tokyo Bridge. It looks a lot like the San Franscico bridge, and it's very well-maintained.
This was a shot of the Bay of Tokyo that does it NO justice. It's so pretty and reflective normally.
This is a random Bus shot of driving on the Tokyo Bridge.
Another random architecture that was cool.
There are various amusement parks on the edge of Tokyo's bay, and this massive ferris wheel was in one of them.
The bus ride was made pleasant by the fact that I sat next to another Jazz musician and had a great conversation about harmonics, music projects and getting together and jam sometime in Fukuoka. The plane ride was equally as enjoyable as I was sitting next to a french Canadian who was equally as pleased to have someone to chat away in French with. At the end of the plane ride, apparantly our pilots decided to get a bit cocky and banked left very sharply, tilting the plane wings to 45 degree angles. This gave us an award winning view of the city and surrounding area, but I was too busy trying not to throw up to operate my camera in time to capture anything. Thanks for the view JAL (Japanese Air Line), but next time WARN US WHEN YOU SET OUT TO DO AERIAL ACROBATICS WITH A MULTIPLE TON PASSENGER PLANE!!! Blark.
My supervisor Takakura-san, my predecessor Tina, and a lady named Joyce were all waiting for me when I left the arrival gate. I felt the meeting was a little awkward at first, as though none of us were what the other expected. But Joyce proved to be the most talkative. The three took me to Kencho, the prefectural office to be introduced to my coworkers and do a little speech about who I was and what I was doing in Japan. I was thoroughly gleeful and embarassed, the result being that I could not stop smiling like an idiot which went off well as I got told I was Kawaii (so cute!) by my coworkers, who all happened to be middle-aged men. O_O;;
Then it was off to my apartment, which is in a lively section of Fukuoka city called Nishijin. My apartment is bigger than expected, with oodles of storage space, but the doorways are 5'9", which means that Kevin is going to be hitting his head on them regularly. The floors are covered in tatami mats, which smell faintly like alfalfa grass, giving the whole place a slightly musty rabbit-cage scent, minus the vile rabbit tinkle smell of course. There is no shower, just an odd cube tub that you have to use as a bath, and a teeny tiny bathroom stall smaller than your average high school locker. Tina also left me a very odd assortment of stuff, including two very large UltraMan stuffed dolls, a fan that's actually a heater, and two shelves of books. And a stove that had never been used, as she didn't cook. o_O. She also left me an air conditioner, oh joy of joys! I don't have a bed, but I sleep on a stack of three futons under the air conditioner like the little happy little cold-air piggy I am.
My apartment is a 15 minute walk away from a large shopping district that ranges from little old ladies selling veggies on the street from carts to huge grocery stores that are packed with Japanese housewives. I even saw a little old man selling baskets of tiny sleepy puppies (as pets not food). Takakura-san, Joyce and Tina all went with me to get my inkei (name stamp) made, it is a little stick of wood with my last name carved into the bottom in hiragana, the main language script of Japan. After that Takakura-san went off and Joyce and Tina took me to a Ramen place, where I had some of the best REAL Ramen ever and it makes that cup-o-noodle crap we have in the U.S. taste like twice-vomited garbage comparatively. It was Hokkaido buttercorn Ramen, which means it had fried corn in it, and yummy veggies and noodles and mmmmmm.Then it was time for shopping at a 100 yen store, which is the greatest invention of Japanese society in my opinion. It's like a dollar store with everything you could ever need, and quality merchandise for that matter. This is where I saw the scary cat-with-teeth condom box. I bought 36 items of housewares and hamster-related items, as there were a proliferation of items with hamsters printed on them. Squee.
Then I went to the grocery store, bought some heinously expensive fruit (did you know that a bundle of grapes can be $15!? I didn't, but I'm eating one of my $5 apples as I type this), some juice, and some microwaveable dumplings and went home. Joyce turned out to live across the street from me! We went out for Indian food afterwards.
