Garbage, Gas, and the Other 100 Things I’ve Had to Learn While Being Here

Sorry about the lack of updates. Settling in here has taken more time than I thought. That and I always seem to be doing something.

As I write this I’m sitting in the staff room of Miya Junior High School while the rest of the teachers are in a meeting. The meeting is held entirely in Japanese so the Vice Principal told me to just stay here. You might think that I should be doing some kind of work rather than writing a blog entry. And I agree with you.

However, I have nothing to do. No work. No responsibility. I got my first pay check and I honestly got paid for sitting around, reading novels off my computer, and making the odd lesson plan.

No I don’t spend all day reading but it keeps me occupied. I can only make so many lesson plans in a day. Add in the fact that I still haven’t been in a classroom, exploring the school doesn’t count, and you can see why I’m hesitant to make too many lesson plans. For all I know I’m going to have to scrap the lot of them. Or they’re going to blow up in my face.

Thankfully school starts at the end of the week so I’ll finally have something to do. So now that you know what my work life is like, I’ll start describing my home life.

First off, I love my apartment! Honestly it’s perfect. Well almost perfect. It having air conditioning would have made it perfect. As it is I have a fan. As is one single electric fan. The weather has been in the high thirties, almost forties for a large portion of my time here so far. And that’s the temperature when you don’t count the humidity. And it is humid! I have never sweat so much in my life. Luckily, I have a bathtub in my apartment. Cold baths are awesome!

Since I’ve been here, I’ve come to appreciate how awesome Jen, my predecessor, is. She left me instructions on how to do pretty much everything. Which is good. Because I’d have never figured out the garbage otherwise.

Yes, garbage is in no way the same as it is in Canada. Oh no. You have to sort it. And this isn’t just recycling sorting. The categories are Burnable, Non-Burnable, Plastic, PET (AKA plastic drink bottles), Metal, Glass, Paper, and Milk Cartons. Each day a different thing is picked up. So you have this massive complicated calendar of pick-ups you have to remember.

Sorting this stuff is stressful enough. What makes it worse is that if you don’t sort it right they bring it back. That’s right. Like a child, if you screw it up they bring it back and make you fix it. Now being more or less told by the garbage people you’re an idiot is bad enough, but what’s the worst is that sometimes, especially if you have old, retired neighbours, they will go through your garbage to see if you’ve sorted it right. Oh my yes. Random old people will can be judging you based on your garbage sorting skills. And they can, and often will, bring your garbage back to you if you haven’t done it properly. Now I’m lucky as this hasn’t happened to me. Yet.

Another unexpected difference I found was when I went and got gas for my car for the first time. With Japanese gas pumps you have to pay before you pump. No matter how you intend to pay. And you have to choose between a set number of litres going into your car, a set amount of money, or pumping the car until it’s full. Thankfully, one of the super nice gas attendants walked me through the process. That and the pump has an English button.

One thing that I’ve finally gotten at least slightly comfortable with is driving. Given that the first time I got in the car, I was driving it off the lot, I nearly got hit by a truck, I didn’t have the most confidence for a while (I looked the wrong way when trying to get into the left hand lane. I was at least trying to get into the lane on the correct side of the road). I know I’ve gotten more comfortable because I’ve started yelling at other drivers again. From my car of course. With the windows rolled up. In English. So I have no worries about getting into trouble. Unless of course the cops pull me over.

Yeah that’s another thing that was stressed to us over and over again in our orientations. Do Not Break the Law! Not just because we’re supposed to be representing our countries and all that jazz but because you will get caught. There is very little crime in Japan and because of that, the police are really really bored. Seriously. They sometimes pull foreigners over so that they have something to do. God help you if you don’t have your Gaijin card. The Gaijin card, which is what we ALTs call the Alien Registration card, has your address and place of employment on it and is pretty much your life here. I still haven’t gotten mine in the mail yet. None of us new JETs have. I lie in fear of getting pulled over.

Mind you, Japan being so safe and all has its advantages. People will totally leave their cars running while they go into the combini (convenience store). And no one takes them! When I left my wallet at the 100 yen store, basically the Japanese equivalence to a dollar store in Canada, it was turned almost immediately in to the cashiers. When I finally came back for it, yes I am an idiot, all my money was there and the cashiers were very nice about it. Though I’m pretty sure they were laughing at the stupid foreigner.

Here’s another fun thing that frustrates us JETs to no end. The ATMs here have hours. Yes, after a certain time they are closed. My banks ATM in Miya closes at like 3pm on Saturdays and 6pm on weekdays. The ones in Takayama stay open until 9pm. Now this might suck more if things actually stayed open late but everything shuts down about 6pm every night in Takayama. Miya tends to close a bit earlier than that. The only things that stay open later are bars, karaoke places, combinis, and arcades. Oh and the bowling alley too.

Well that’s about all for now. I’ll do another post once I’ve actually started teaching. Bye!