Hello my dear fans 👋 It has not quite been a week yet but I thought I would inform you of my arrival in Japan and my city, Shimanto City
So, I left for the airport on the night of Aug 2nd and departed the morning of the 3rd out of Anchorage, Alaska. I traveled with the 5 other new JETs and we were even able to stay briefly in the mayor's room at the Anchorage airport while waiting for our flight! We arrived in Seattle and had a 5-hour layover. I ate some food and played Pokemon Go and the time passed. The next flight to Tokyo was 10 hours and I slept for the first few hours, then watched movies, and then did some word search and Sudoku. We arrived and ran into other JETs going through immigration. Immigration only had one hiccup which was who had the machine for making our residence cards but after a couple of tries, we found it. Going through customs was just as easy and then we went to send some of our luggage to our cities. After, we took a charter bus to our hotel. Our hotel was very nice, with nice rooms and lovely convention rooms.
After arriving at the hotel, I got my esim, got changed, and went to dinner. Dinner was a very delicious Gyuukatsu, or beef katsu. Lastly, I came back to my hotel room and went to sleep.
Orientation day one had many informative presentations about our new life and job. The day started with a welcoming ceremony and continued with more presentations before lunch about the good ol' "Don't be a criminal" and "How to survive natural disasters" speeches. In the afternoon, there were more presentations about our job and then in the evening, there was a welcoming dinner reception. The food was very delicious and the 900 of us JETs there were divided into rooms according to our region so it was fun to meet people also going to where you were headed. Day one for me started at 6:30am and ended at 8pm, so it was a long but productive day. But, luckily I had planned out a sleeping schedule for the flights over and got a good night's sleep after arriving so I had no problem with jet lag.
Orientation day two had more hands-on practice teaching lessons for us to get familiar with what would be expected of us and our last meeting of the day was with our prefectures. Our prefectures gave us information on when we would be leaving the next morning, which was 6:45am 😖, and other basic information.
I really enjoyed the Tokyo orientation because every 30 seconds I was meeting someone new from somewhere around the world, each with different aspirations and reasons for doing the program and different prior experiences. Even the conversations that only lasted a few minutes and I may never see that person again were so interesting and I loved hearing everyone's story.
Wednesday, the 7th, I and the one other new assistant language teacher (ALT) JET (my partner as I call her) departed with the rest of the Kochi prefecture JETs to the airport to fly to Kochi City. We arrive at the airport, easily go through security, and go to the gate. The boarding process consisted of riding a bus to the plane and boarding it there. The flight was short and sweet and about four sudoku games later, we arrived. I was so excited to meet the people from the town and when we deboarded and went to baggage claim, there were so many people with signs waiting for everyone outside! It was so cute to see everyone's signs and how excited they all were to meet us, that definitely calmed some of my nerves. I met people from my prefecture and they made me the cutest sign with a moose!
We all then started the drive from Kochi City to Shimanto City. We stopped for lunch at a nearby beach town and it was delicious! The whole drive and lunch we all talked and got to know each other and the area and everyone was so sweet! We luckily had a retired English teacher with us who could translate any we needed.
We arrived at the Board of Education (BOE) office in city hall which is our contracting organization and gave our greetings and received a welcome from all of our new coworkers. It was a little nerve-wracking but again, everyone was so nice and was even cracking some jokes. My partner and I then went with our supervisor to fill out some paperwork and such and then headed to our apartments. Some of our coworkers helped us move our suitcases that were temporarily stored at the BOE which was nice. Then after dropping off our luggage and checking that everything was working in our apartment, we went shopping with our supervisor and translator. We bought some necessities (I forgot soap) and some basic food (I'm already out) and then went back to our apartment to eat dinner, unpack, or whatever else we wanted to do. I forgot to buy dinner at the store so ate some of my planned breakfast for dinner and then just went to bed (I'm still unpacking😂).
The next day was my first day of work. I walked to work with an ALT who has been here for a year and then got set up at my desk/table. I started working on my self-introduction presentation and then discussed with the other ALTs about the job, the town, and more basic information to know. There are seven ALTs in the city I work in, including myself, and I met 3 of them at work while the other two are off right now. In the afternoon, I (we) went to go pick up my Hanko, personal stamp, and then headed to the bank. We opened a bank account which took some time but then headed to the real estate office to officially purchase my apartment 😁! I was very proud of myself because I was able to understand most everything the realtor was saying and was able to have fun side conversations as well. After returning to the BOE and finishing up the work day I walked home with the other two ALTs who live in my apartment building.
BUT! We were stopped in our tracks but the loud alarm coming from all of our phones! I knew what that meant even before we checked. Earthquake Early Warning! An earthquake was coming! So we waited, and waited, and waited, but nothing really came 😂 However, a 7.1Mw did strike on the fault line a little south of me but luckily the severity did not hit my area. However however! There is something in my area of Japan (really the lower half of the eastern coast of Japan) called the "Nankai" great earthquake that occurs every 100 years or so and could be a 9Mw earthquake. Well, the last one was in the 1940s so we are soon due for it. The 7.1Mw on the coast instigated an investigation to determine if the probability of the Nankai increased. It did.
So, I spent the evening listening to emergency alerts, preparing my emergency kit, and learning my evacuation locations as I have only just arrived you know! I was a little spooked because of some leftover trauma from the 2018 Alaska earthquake, but I was able to prepare and calm myself and go to sleep. Even though, the probability of the Nankai increased, the chances are still small so it is no reason to panic or worry.
The next day continued as usual, but the Japan Meterological Agency (JMA) said that we should be vigilant and cautious for the next week just in case. What a welcome!😅
I look forward to the weekend as I have a couple of plans already and I have Monday off because of a national holiday so I get plenty of time to rest and settle into my apartment. Until next time 👋
P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures but lots of reading
Comments
Post a Comment