The Adventure Begins

I have now been in Japan for over a week. One on hand, it feels as though I have been here forever, but on the other hand, I feel too illiterate to have been here any longer. However, learning Japanese gives me something to fill my free time, (as does facebook, and wandering around the school but that's a different story)

After arriving in Tokyo on July 29, finding out that my luggage was lost by Air Canada, attending the pre-departure conference for JETs, going to a railway/haunted/prison themed restaurant, reclaiming my luggage on Tuesday afternoon, and then taking the shikansen (bullet train) to Yashiro on Wednesday, I am now at my final destination of Kamikawa-cho, in the middle of the Hyogo prefecture, near Himeji, sort of near Kobe, south of Tokyo and north of Hiroshima.

I am now settled in my apartment—a very nice one at that. I have a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, (complete with western style toilet, much appreciated after using a squat on the moving train,) tatami mat room, and living room/room with a couch. I have just finished giving my omyagi (gifts) to my neighbours, that my supervisor helped me pick out (Yea laundry soap! Maybe I’ll understand it better later…). I have met just about every person who works for the city and has an office job, introducing myself in barely understandable Japanese, and my superintendent has boasted of my drinking capabilities: something that previous ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) have lacked apparently.

Kamikawa-cho has a population of about 13,000 and is surrounded on all sides by unbelievably steep mountains/hills covered, for the most part, in trees. Otherwise, there are occasion clear cuttings and graveyards that dot the hills. The streets are amazingly narrow, what we would consider one way, but Japanese drivers a) drive smaller cars and b) have a system of sorts figured out as to avoid collisions. I’m thinking about getting a car, but have to overcome my fears first I think. (oh, and they drive on the left side of the road… excellent)

This past Saturday I went to summer festival and wore a summer kimono/yukata. This meant that my supervisor came to my house and dressed me. As her English is limited and my Japanese even worse, it was a fairly entertaining process, and it somehow involved a hand towel.. The summer festival was great—lots of fireworks, roasted squid on a stick, taiko (Japanese drumming), and other good stuff. I am off to another summer festival in a neighbouring town on Thursday, which will be nice as other JETs will be there.

The weather here is hot and humid, all the time. A bit of an adjustment to Ontario—but the fall is in sight. Japan is amazingly different from Canada in a lot of ways. Monkeys, lizards in my stairwell, steep steep mountains surrounding me, rice fields aplenty--- but some things stay the same (comb-overs, slow old people drivers, the appreciation of a good drink…)

I haven’t started teaching yet as the schools have a “summer vaction” time now—but the teachers still come in and do work and I practice writing Japanese and surf the internet. Come September I shall be busy though, and hopefully have some sort of handle on Japanese. everyday I get better, so I can't get worse.