In Japan!

So here it is, my first post from Japan. I arrived at Narita Airport in the middle of the afternoon. Walking into the place felt like walking into a sauna, the humidity and heat were intense. Then, we JETs were subjected to the never ending line. Seriously. It took us nearly two hours to get through Immigration. Not Customs, Immigration.

From there we picked up our baggage and went through customs which as actually relatively painless. Then, the helpful people in the JET t-shirts pointed us in the right direction which is good, because I’d never have found my way otherwise. I specialize in getting lost.

Eventually we were sent out to the buses that would take us to our hotel in Tokyo. Stepping outside in Japan for the first time I was struck by something. The wave of intense heat and humidity that is the bane of Japanese summers. Seriously, I though the airport was bad but this was like walking into a broiling hot, soaking wet towel. Thank god the bus had air conditioning.

The ride to the hotel didn’t take too long but I think that was mostly due to the fact every so often one of us would look at the other and say “Guess what? We’re in Japan!” This would then set the rest of us off. It was fun seeing all the different variations of the “I’m in Japan! Woohoo!” dance.

Our first night in Tokyo was ours to do what we liked with it. I wandered around and got lost for about a half hour (I wasn’t kidding about my superhuman ability to get lost). However, I did manage to feed myself along the way.

The next two days were filled with orientations and workshops. For the most part, these were unbelievably boring. People were actually sleeping through them. After the first few that were useless, I bailed. I mean come on, who’s going to sit through boring lectures about how you need to be polite and not hurl sharp objects at children’s head when you’re in Tokyo?

The answer is most people. Only a few of us slipped off to go exploring. Now when I say skipped I don’t mean I didn’t go to anything. I just didn’t go to the optional workshops where you had to choose them from a list, mainly due to the fact that none of them interested me.

So I went off into the city one afternoon so that I could find an Internet Café so that I could contact my family. I’m still not sure where I wandered off to. I know I ended up in both an above and under ground mall and I found a station somewhere along the way but I really don’t know where I was in Tokyo. It took me an hour to get back to the hotel. I’m not sure how I got back because I definitely came from a different direction, but I suppose it’s not really important.

When I got back to the hotel I found out we could get internet in our rooms. No, of course this didn’t make me feel like an idiot.

Two days later and I was on the train to Gifu, the capital of Gifu prefecture. It was fun watching Japan whiz by. I took a ridiculous amount of pictures as I have a tendency to do.

Once we arrived in Gifu it was another two days of orientation, this time they were a lot more fun, and then I was off to my new home in Ichinomiya, a village just outside of Takayama city,

I’ll describe my first few days in my new home in my next post. Until then, bye!