#7 First Week in Japan

Okay so this took a lot longer than I thought it would because learning all of my duties makes me crazy busy and I’ve just been way too tired to write up anything during the week and last weekend was also super busy with moving into my apartment and cleaning it like a mad person and I haven’t had internet either. So let me get you all caught up with my first week.

Let’s start with the first weekend.

So on Sunday (April 10) most of the people in my training group got together and went to Okayama Castle. We had to stop at the international center and ask for directions. (Aka I had to do it, cause I like planning and knowing where I am at all times.) I got a map and spoke with a person who could speak English and then we were off! We crossed through Okayama station to get to the super busy east side of it and took a street car (like the ones you see in San Francisco… er.. I think its San Francisco… maybe it’s another city in Cali…) to the end of what I am going to call Main Street. From there we walked through a park and spotted people camped out by the sakura trees celebrating Hanami, which is the cherry blossom viewing festival. (More on this later) It was sooo pretty! And the weather was absolutely perfect! From there we walked to the castle. It was huge and super cool! I constantly felt like I was looking at a photo in one of my history books but for once I was looking at the real thing!! I feel I will have many more moments like this over the next year.

Okayama Castle was really cool inside too. There were 5 levels to explore and each level had a bunch of really cool things in it. My favorite thing was being able to dress up like a Japanese feudal princess and take photos. (I can never miss a chance to dress up!) There were also places to watch people working on swords. They even let us hold some parts of it to feel the weight of it and hot warm it got when he would work on sanding a part of it to perfection. (I call it sanding but it may be called something else; it looking really similar to the sword and metal version of sanding, ha ha!) The top of the castle had such an amazing view of the city too!

After we left the castle, one of the people in the group wanted to see if there was the samurai’s graveyard near the castle grounds. She had seen a photo of it in the castle on one of the information panels and was curious about it. So we stopped by a stand on the grounds and tried asking the people there if they knew where it was. There was a LOT lost in translation and things started to get pretty funny. At one point, one of the girls who could speak Japanese a lot better than the rest of us went into the castle with one of the stand employees to show him the photo of the graveyard while the rest of us waited outside and chatted with the other employee who was a woman and the funniest person we have met to date! She did a lot of gesturing and made a lot of funny comments. She tried to give Ferrah  a hug (who has quite a fabulously curvy body) and ended up bouncing off of Ferrah’s chest instead. The woman had an ”OOOOHHH” moment and said that she had a lot of junk in the trunk and then fake patted her butt while saying the sounds for it (The Japanese onomatopoeia for whatever butt patting sounds like, she did that. LOL) Then the two that went into the castle came back and informed us that the graveyard was actually on the other side of the mountain and that it was like 45 minutes by car to get there. So those plans were scrapped. 

We left the castle grounds and I had ready signs that seemed to point to a garden and so took everyone in the direction that the arrows pointed, but after walking for a bit I realized that the gardens probably just meant the castle grounds. But it worked out for the better because we stumbled onto the BIG Hanami Festival!! A lot of us were hungry but we decided to just walk through the festival and not stop at any of the booths to get food because it was probably really expensive and really bad to eat. But our walk through the festival was pretty hilarious. All the kids kept yelling “Hello!” at us and the adults kept pointing at us like we had jumped out of a storybook or something. “Gaijin desu!” “Doko??” 

Once we had finally walked all the way through the festival the hunt for an open restaurant began, we finally found an “Italian” place to eat. I got a margarita pizza and it was surprisingly tasty! I finished the whole thing! (I have a hard time finishing the food on my plate, so I’m always really proud of myself when I manage to clean my plate)

The rest of the day consisted of walking back to the dorm and stealing internet and napping at odd hours. I was still really jet lagged.

Monday was also another day off. So I went to the train station with Alyetys… (I think that’s how her name is spelled. It’s really strange, so let’s just call her Alice.) And we walked around the train station shops. All of the stores were REALLY expensive but it was totally worth it to look around because everything was super adorable. I also tried on an outfit and I wanted it really badly but again, it was way too expensive, so I had to leave it. I tried on some shoes too and I found out that I fit the mostly normal size ranges! :D I really thought I would fall into the LL shoe size which can be really hard to find, but instead I fit into the L size which is a lot more common to find! So I was super happy about that discovery. But for the most part the day was full of window shopping. It wasn’t nearly as eventful as the previous day, but that is okay. We were all pretty tired and still jet lagging really hard.

Tuesday through Saturday: These days are kind of a blur for me because of all of the information I needed to absorb in such a short time and all of the lesson planning I had to do for my mock lessons. We had a really good training group though because everyone would go back and work on their lesson plans instead of going out and partying. It was a really good atmosphere to be in. I just remember that by Saturday I had started to feel ill because my body wasn’t really used to the food and I think it was overloaded on food high in MSG. (I have an allergy to msg and if I have too much of it I get ill.) Plus I think the stress of the week had taken its toll on me. By the end of the day though I was a lot better than I was in the morning, which was good because the training staff treated us to a DELICIOUS dinner and some drinks.

After dinner, the trainees got together and we went out to karaoke. The place we went to was HUGE it had like 5 floors and the rooms were pretty big considering we were a group of 10 people. The night started with a lot of Lady Gaga, and then once the girls had gotten all of the Gaga out of our systems, we moved onto other fantastic songs… Like songs by Queen. Ha ha! I think everyone is obligated to sing Bohemian Rhapsody at every karaoke event. 

So we were out only until about midnight with the karaoke and then we headed back to the dorm. We had to leave by 9 am the next day to go to our respective cities and meet our manager and coworkers. But before heading to bed I went to the common room to iron my suit for the next day because we had to wear a suit when meeting our manager to make a good first impression. A couple of the girls were already in the common room watching late night Japanese TV. The show they had found was really amusing and even more so in a tired state. For some reason a toilet unintentionally having a face was hilarious.

So overall it was a ridiculously stressful week, I’m pretty sure I lost some years off my youth due to this particular week, but there were a lot of good parts too and I think it was a really good start to being in Japan.

Next up: My first week at my school!

Also I have consistent internet now! So my posts should hopefully become more scheduled and the rest of my photos are on my flickr account!

# 6 The Road to Japan

Right now it’s 5:30 am Japan time. Hooray for jet lag! And because I can’t sleep, I’ll start writing this first “In Japan” post.

So the trip to Japan was overall pretty good. I woke up at 5 am EST to get ready to leave and pack up the last minute items in my bag. My Dad, Mom, Sister and I all managed to successfully get out the door by 6 am. We were all really tired and conversation was nearly non-existent. However my dad took the scenic route through Detroit to get onto the highway, so I have a nice memory of Detroit in the wee hours of the morning to cherish. We got to the airport around 6:40 am and while my dad parked the car, I went with my Mom and Sister to check my bags. One of them ended up being really overweight and it weighed in at 74 lbs. So I had to take out 4 lbs of stuff, otherwise I would have had to pay $450 instead of just $50 for the weight. (For international flights outside of USA territories, Canada and Europe all checked bags up to 50 lbs are free.) My second bag weighed in at 47 lbs. So I was clear on that. However there was no possible way I could have fit those 4 lbs into my smaller suitcase, so my family just took the items back home and they will hopefully send me those things.

Detroit to Seattle: The flight was actually pretty smooth taking into account that it was pouring outside in Detroit. I always really enjoy flying on Delta as I have never had any horrible flights experiences with them. The take off was a bit bumpy, but everything smoothed out once we cleared the clouds, and Seattle had some cloudy skies, but no precipitation. I also got very lucky on this flight because I ended up in a row where there were only two passengers for the 3 seats in the row. So it was me on the aisle, and a small woman, (whose name is escaping me right now but she was super friendly!) sitting in the window seat. The middle seat was left unoccupied and we both took the chance to stretch out our legs a little more than normal. The flight was about 5 hours long, and I was already exhausted after just that one flight. But there was a movie to watch (I think it’s called “How do you know?” or something. It’s a romantic comedy with Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson and another actor whose name I don’t know.) The movie was cute and very new. I watch a lot of films and I hadn’t seen this particular romantic comedy before. So that is what entertained me through most of the flight. The plane arrived early in Seattle and the airport wasn’t quite ready for us, so we ended up waiting about 10 minutes before they opened the door to let us out. But I got to meet one of Wisconsin’s State Senators during that time. He was having a conversation with a couple of the other passengers, but the first thought that ran through my head was “How about those Union Rights?” But I knew it was inappropriate to ask, or even tease about it and instead we played guessing games that a man named “Abraham Vinegar” kept posing. (He wanted the senator to guess his name and he kept using these strange ways of giving clues. I managed to guess his last name “Vinegar” which is why I’m able to remember this at all.)

The layover in Seattle was also pleasant. I managed to get off the plane fairly quickly and bathroom needs and lunch were both attended to. I phoned home to let my family know that I got through the first leg of the trip just fine. I also ended up meeting up with other future NETs with Amity! I had ended up sitting down right behind them because there was a lot of military guys strewn around the airport and so there wasn’t a ton of open seating available, so I had sat down by other civilian-type people and funny enough, those people were also flying out for Amity! This definitely made this part of the trip a LOT better for me as now I didn’t have to go through everything alone. 

There were Army guys all over the terminal!

My Lunch.

A really neat overhead light.

He's got the right idea...

Seattle to Osaka:  Again, I got very lucky and I had an aisle seat with two empty seats next to me. So I took great advantage of those seats and stretched out for a long flight. I didn’t really get much sleep, but the sleep I did get was greatly valued. They also showed a bunch of films that I really liked! They showed “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”, “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1”, And “Grown Ups”. Unfortunately I slept through “Grown Ups” and the majority of Harry Potter, but sleep was much more important at the time. The food on the plane also wasn’t that bad. I was pretty surprised about that. There was shrimp cocktail and a salad and I got the beef meal which had some peas and vegetables that look like tiny corn on the cob (I have no clue what they’re called). There was also a really tasty brownie! It was the first time I’ve ever had an on-flight meal and I really wasn’t expecting very much, but I was pleasantly surprised! This was also the largest plane I’ve ever been on. I’m really used to riding on sardine cans with only one aisle and very few seating, but this plane had two aisles and a LOT of seating. And what’s funny is that people kept saying how small they thought the plane was. I really started thinking that the huge planes with several aisles were just a myth, but I guess I’ve been hopping on the wrong flights all these years!

Big screen TV!

I had TONS of space!

The screen would show where we were and the stats along with the movies!

Once getting off the plane and again attending to restroom needs, I found myself going through customs, which went very smoothly and I only kind of got lost once. The people were very nice and the man who was checking my papers told me that he wish he was a student again. It was cute. After that baggage was collected, and I was so relieved that nothing got lost! That is such a big fear of mine and I always find that I concentrate super hard on seeing my bags again at my final destination. Thankfully carts were provided for public use which meant I could actually carry all of my bags through the baggage check and out of the airport to have the forwarded to my school! This is where we met with our Training Staff! They were all so friendly and helpful and didn’t mind in the least that we were a bit slap happy after that flight.

We all left the airport as one super-loud gaijin (foreigner) group and hopped on a train. I really had no idea where we were going, only that we were moving very fast and that I had 3 tickets that I shouldn’t lose. I still kind of felt like I was watching Japan go by on a movie screen still and not that I was finally actually in Japan! In a way it still hasn’t registered, but having to speak Japanese everywhere I go and not recognizing half the change in my pocket to buy groceries with has been helping a lot.

Hey look! It's Japan!

On the train. The conductor bowed before leaving too!

I look soooooo tired...

So after the train, we hopped on to the shikansen! The fabled fastest train in the world! And I totally fell asleep on it! I woke up just in time though because everyone was standing again to get off the train when I woke up. I know they wouldn’t have left me behind but it was definitely an “oops” moment. From there we were shown to our dorm and shown some spots to buy things, like the convenience store and some vague directions to the international center and the grocery store! (I found it eventually though.)

So the whole group of new NETs dropped off their things, said thank you and goodnight to the Training Staff and went in search of internet… Which we found an internet café in a smoky Manga hut on the 4^th floor of a hole in the wall-entrance. Those of us that could, sent out e-mails to our family to let them know that we were okay and safe. The place was sooo warm and smoky though that I could feel myself getting dizzy, so I laid down while everyone finished up. Then we left, got some snacks at the convenience store and then went on a hunt for curry. (One of the other NETs who had been to Japan previously really wanted curry and so we ended up at a curry place. Unfortunately I couldn’t eat much of it because I still felt a little ill after the flight.

Pork Curry. It was a littly spicy for me. Not good for an upset stomach.

Fellow trainees!

Curry Poster!

Me, still looking exhausted with new friends!

Then we returned to the dorm and I passed out…

My weekend in Japan in next! But I just really wanted to get this up before I forgot what happened and while I still could steal internet… (shh! Don’t tell! Ha ha!)

#5 Preparing for Japan: No Time Left!

“Extraordinary things only happen to extraordinary people” –Reepicheep, Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

#4 Preparing for Japan: Final Stretch

7 days…

Oh my gosh! I am so nervous! I haven’t even started packing anything up yet!

#3.5 Disaster in Japan

What happened in Japan was very unexpected and tragic. I have received a lot of questions regarding my employment over there. I waited a few days so that my company had a chance to figure everything out as they had higher priorities to take care of first. I got the e-mail from Amity this morning updating me on everything going on.

So here are your updates: All of the Amity staff and teachers in the affected area are safe and accounted for. Ten schools were affected by the disaster and the staff and teachers have moved to neighboring schools until further notice, and in the meantime those ten schools will be assessed for damages and checked to see how safe the structure is. The teachers won’t return until the schools are repaired and reopened.

So we can breathe a sigh of relief for that.

In regards to my departure: Nothing has changed and I am still set to leave on April 8^th EST. My branch school was unaffected by the disaster so I can still go to Japan just as planned. Kurashiki is pretty far south of Tokyo, whereas the disaster affected the east coast that is north of Tokyo.  Much like when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, everyone in Michigan still went about their day since Michigan was unaffected. So, what happened in Miyagi and Sendai didn’t really affect Okayama and Kurashiki.

So all is well on my end and I hope this post has put you all at ease. Please continue to send your thoughts and generosity to Japan.

#3 Preparing for Japan: Paperwork

This topic is probably the most touched on in people’s questions outside of asking when I am leaving. So I figured that a post on my basic paperwork would be appropriate. However, certain details of some my paperwork I cannot share online with the world. My employer wouldn’t be too keen to keep me around if they found out I was publishing all of their company secrets online to the world. So certain details will just be left out and if you have a particular question, feel free to ask about it and I’ll let you know if I’m allowed to say anything. Cause I might legitimately forget to touch on some things in this entry so I welcome any questions you might have. But all of the information I will talk about is already published on Amity’s website. I’ll just be repeating it here for your convenience if you choose not to check out the website (which has a link under my “Links” category on the right hand side bar.)

So, the paperwork; there is a lot of paperwork. It all started with the application process. I was required to write an essay with the topic being “Why I want to teach English to children in Japan” in at least 500 words; which was a simple enough topic, but I had a really hard time writing it partly due to writer’s block and partly because I wanted it to be absolutely perfect; concise but personal and informative. There was also an application to fill out and of course my resume and references were needed as well. All of this was done online.

For the group interview I needed hard copies of all the things I did online plus any letters of recommendation and copies of my lesson plan along with any props for my lesson. I was also given an extra copy of the contract stipulations and benefits along with more information about the company.

Some of the stipulations and benefits include: (copied right from the Amity site)

                1 year contract. The contract is renewable upon agreement by both the teacher and Amity. The length of a contract renewal is negotiable.

                Working hours are 40 hours/week. The working time is a five-day, forty- hour week from Tuesday to Saturday.

                Housing: A furnished, rent-subsidized, single-occupant apartment is provided. The key money and deposits are paid by Amity.

                All Amity teachers are enrolled into the Japanese Social Insurance System. This system provides teachers with comprehensive health insurance, which includes coverage of pre-existing conditions, optical care, and dental care. Teachers will also be provided with a pension insurance plan.

There are more stipulations (15 in total on the website) but I just wanted to give the ones that I got the most questions about. So after I was offered the job (of which I obviously accepted) I was sent a packet that included my contract to sign and paperwork to get my visa started and the company policy book. (Sorry, no details about that!) I was also provided a book called “Culture Smart! JAPAN: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture.” It’s an amusing little book but it is also helpful. Along with the book there was a travel magazine.

A few weeks later I was sent a processing fee receipt (The fee was $200) along with the address to my branch school and directions about how I should go about looking for a flight. There were specifications I needed to adhere to so that I would arrive in Japan at an appropriate time. They also listed a very helpful travel agent that sometimes could find some super amazing rates. Normally what I do is that I go to Bing.com and click on their travel tab and just put in the information and it’ll search all of the major airlines. I have gotten a lot of really amazing flights that way.  So when I looked up a 1-way ticket leaving from Detroit it was about $1200-$1500. When I went through the travel agent they found a flight plan for around $930. Needless to say I was going with the travel agent. Along with the flight instructions I was sent my visa application and directions for how to get my visa and where my nearest consulate was. I had to wait for a Certificate of Eligibility (COE) from Japan to arrive before I could apply for the visa. The COE helps you get the visa, and in order to enter Japan you need both the visa and the COE. So I brought my visa paperwork and my passport to the consulate in the Renaissance Center in Detroit. After about a week it was ready to pick up. I did not have to pay a fee for the visa, I think that may have been covered by the $200 fee I had to pay before.

All the rest of the paperwork sent to me was via e-mail. And what I received was a guidelines book (different from the company policy book) which gives you just about all of the information you’re going to need to prepare for Japan all the way down to how to pack your suitcase. It was very helpful. I was also sent these adorable newsletters every week about language brush-ups and culture tips. I got a letter from the main office with information about where to meet at the airport and what to bring to my first training along with a map.

Most recently I was sent a Departure Checklist which I reviewed with my recruiter over the phone so that nothing was misunderstood or missed and all questions could be answered.

I’m still receiving more paperwork as I have a month left before I leave, but it will involve study materials because I have to complete online quizzes before I leave and probably more newsletters. And so far that is all the paperwork! For not telling you much about the details there was still a lot to tell you!

If I suddenly get a ridiculous amount of paperwork in this last month I may make a “Part 2” to this post to keep you all updated the best that I can. What I have told you is information that is provided on the Amity site plus anything else that I figure any person would have to go through in order to obtain a visa and go work in Japan. If you have questions feel free to ask!

#2 Preparing for Japan: Wardrobe

So I figure some of you are wondering about what kinds of things a person is going to need to pack for Japan. I figured that this would make a pretty interesting entry because I’ve kind of had to start from scratch. Post college, my wardrobe consisted of jeans and t-shirts and a couple of black pants that had been destroyed from working in the school cafeterias, maybe a couple of nice sweaters here or there, but overall; not much.  It definitely wasn’t enough for a job that required “business professional” wear every day.

So herein is my wardrobe overhaul…

In November I bought two skirt suits for my interview; a brown one and a black one. They were on sale at Sears for a really good price. I can’t remember what I spent on them, I do remember the jackets being about $50 each and then everything else being around $15 or $20. Overall it was a good buy and I had 2 suits for my interview.

Just recently I purchased 2 more pant suits,

3 pairs of trousers, 3 short sleeve blouses, 4 long sleeve blouses, 3 cardigans, 1 sweater, a few dresses (one of which is the specifically designated “company party” dress) The shoes I got were 1 pair of black conservative heels, on pair of flats, and a pair of indoor shoes. It worked out really well because all of the winter clothes were on clearance and the spring season clothes were on discount because the holiday rush is over as well. So I got a lot of my wardrobe on major discounts. But I bet you’re still wondering “How much did all of this cost?” And my answer is:  Way more that I am comfortable admitting online. While I did save a lot of money, I still spent a lot as well. But it is your basic post-college-new-career wardrobe overhaul.

All the suits I bought.

Blouses, all 7 of them

3 cardigans, 1 sweater

2 casual dresses and the company party dress on the right.

3 pairs of extra pants to mix and match with the suits.

I found this wonderfully frilly prize at Marshall's. It was too cute to leave there.

3 pairs of shoes. A bit hard to see because of all the black.

Things are a little wrinkly right now since they've been sitting in a bag since I purchased them. There was one more dress I purchased, but it was too wrinkly to post a photo of it. But this is what it looks like on the Kohl's website: Adorable pick-up dress

This is not the entire wardrobe that I will be bringing to Japan. This is just all of the new stuff. I'll be bringing a lot of my older clothes as well because I can't break out of my love for t-shirts and hoodies. I just hope everything fits into my 4 suitcases!

Lessons learned from intensive shopping:
1. Try on all the pieces of your suit even if it is the same size but in a different color! It may not always fit the same.
2. Sears has amazing deals on suits. 3 of my 4 suits came from Sears.
3. Always check Coach for ridiculous deals at the outlet mall. ;) I found a passport holder for 70% off.