My first days in Hokkaido

First of all, I apologize for the late post. I've been occupied the last couple of days. This post was supposed to be for the 29th and 30th of July. I saw the pokemon plane!! It's blue with pokemon, in particular Pikachu, painted all over it. Supposedly, inside is decked out with pokemon stuff. We thought that we were supposed to ride it, but we didn't....*sad face* ah well. Before I continue on, here are pictures of the said plane just to show you I'm not making it up! Only Japan...




























The plane was pretty cool as it showed us on the overhead screens, from the plane's perspective, us taking off, flying over Hokkaido, and landing. That was unique. You got to see all the fields that we flew over because the camera was located on the belly of the plane.

When we landed, at about 2pm, everyone then dispersed and met up with their contracting organization. My predecessor was there as well. It was helpful but a little weird at the same time. My boss is Nakamura-san who is a super nice man and kind of reminds me of my dad. My supervisor is the BEST EVER!!!!! I love this woman to death!!! She's soooooo wonderfully weird!!! You know how in Japanese dramas there's usually a clumsy bumbling woman? Yes, that's her! And when she laughs or finds anything interesting or what I think is interesting she laughs like this: fufufu. No joke! She really laughs like that!!! Or I think it's a laugh...lol XD I don't know, I just love this lady. She's only 24, I think. So we became good friends on the first day. I couldn't ask for a better supervisor than her/she?. (my english has become quite poor lately and I haven't even started teaching.) So it was a 3 hour car ride from Chitose airport to my little town of Kenbuchi. On the way it was kind of awkward silence because I was tired and so were they. Even my pred didn't talk very much. Sooo yeah. But he did tell me this: We'll first go through Sapporo, then another city, and then after that, it gets sad. lol Greenery everywhere. SOOOO GREEEN!!!! I felt...healthy. =P Kenbuchi also was a lot bigger than I originally imagined. Not bad.

Anyways, we finally got to Kenbuchi and once I got there I got to my apartment, which is much nicer than i thought it would be. Although, it was still pretty dirty because I'm the first female JET to come to this place apparently. It's all been guys before me. Sooo you can imagine the state of this place when I came in. The kitchen was the worst though. I didn't clean anything yet because I just arrived and my BOE (Board of Education) wanted to take me out to eat for my first enkai. We went to eat GenghisKhan, which is lamb yakiniku. Heheh, lamb is the staple here. There are barely any cows here, just mainly sheep. Fat little sheep ready for you to eat. And it's fresh! When you go to a restaurant they'll have sheep grazing outside...so when they need more meat...>D

So the enkai was pretty nice and loaded with beer. I went out with some of my BOE members, and I swear it's like a Japanese drama!! I've got loads of characters in my BOE. First there is my supervisor as I have already described her, then my immediate boss whose story is very sad because, over beer, his friend and he were telling me about it: His wife and daughters look down on him even though he works so hard and is the sweetest man ever. It's like those sad dramas where they really are wonderful people, but they're family doesn't think so. Then there is the one perverted middle-aged man, Nakaue-san, whose kinda weird but in an entertaining way, you know like those men in dramas or animes who go: Kaori-chan~, with a lilt at the end? It's hard to describe it, but he's like the funny man of the group. And he keeps making me drink more! Beer here is hard to resist. I only like Sapporo beer and they mainly have Asahi beer here, but out of respect I'll drink it. And then he keeps refilling it. Maybe I should leave the glass half full all the time. Then there is Satomi who is a laid back but super nice girl and plays along with Nakaue-san. lol And then there is a guy, whose the same age as I am, whose name is Eda, but everyone told me to just call him Edamame.....LOL It's soo cute! Or Wakame-boy as Nakaue-san so calls him. It's hard to communicate effectively in Japanese with all of them as my Japanese isn't exactly the most fluent, so there are some times where it's silent, but never really awkward. I don't know, maybe that day I was just dead tired, so I didn't really respond to much of anything. Anyways, after that I rode my bike back home. And passed out. lol Good start of the week. Oh, and did anybody already know this? That, as business people talk, instead of saying arigatou gozaimasu when they keep refilling your glass of beer, you say sumimasen? It was a little difficult for me to comprehend that, but understandable at the same time. I don't know. *.*

Second day, July 30th 2009, my supervisor took me out to the next city in the town office's car. This is where my love for this woman increases. Oh, her name's Suzuki by the way, but I just call her Su. She doesn't really know how to drive because she has a bike and just rides that or the train. So she told me that and said it might be a little scary for me because it is for her. lol Parking was disasterous for her as she could never park within the lines, she made huge wide turns that went into oncoming traffic, she was never sure where she was going, and she accidentally turned her windsheild wipers on without knowing how to turn them off, in which case, I had to help her turn them off as she was driving...lol She's SO great. +D She originally wanted to take me to eat at a little place on top of a hill where the curry is supposedly amazing. AND they have little FAT sheep grazing on the side. Fresh, fresh. Heheh. But, alas, it was closed. So we went to a place called "The Box on a Hill" in which it was a little cottage on top of the hill that served hamburg steaks. It was good and offerred a nice view of the city. She then drove me around town to buy stuff for my apt. Their Home Amenity Center or HOMAC has EVERYTHING!! I'm not joking!! It's ike Home Depot and Target combined!! I just bought all my crap there. And also visited the 100 yen shop and the supermarket. Thank god for the supermarket here, because the one in Kenbuchi is almost non-existent and expensive. But, yes, I spent about $100 or more that day.

Then on our way home she drove me to the lake-side resort "Sakura-oka". Damn that place is green like you would never imagine. Words can't describe how ridiculously beautifully green this place is. Never in my life have I seen anything so green before! The hills are just covered in trees and the sides of the roads are all fields of green. It was crazy! I seriously felt like I was in some kind of nature wonderland. GREEEEEEEEENNNNN!!! I can't stress enough how crazy green it is here. Seriously, I feel healthy. lol

So this is the end of this long post. I will post more tomorrow about the last couple of days. Pictures will be posted soon. Just gotta be patient. Well, you're more than likely just to see a bunch green covered nature life, cuz that's basically my town. So love you all, and thanks for reading this one. Peace out.

Late Post: Tokyo Orientation and first day in Hokkaido

Hey all! This is a late post about the Tokyo JET orientations in the Keio Shinjuku Hotel in Shinjuku, but it was so crazy busy and hectic during those days it was difficult to go online to post or update much. Oh the hotel is where they filmed Lost in Translation! And for those of us who got lost in Shinjuku all the time last year on EAP, it's right across from the government buildings if you remember them. lol So the orientation was on July 27-29th and we arrived in Japan on the 26th. So we had a night to just chill, although it wasn't too much chilling because everyone was dead tired from the plane flight. Oh, btw, I will never take American Airlines again. Service was terrible and you had to pay for the alcohol!! Emily, Jennifer, and I went to eat Indian food. My roommate is a wonderful gal, Shana, who is from Rancho Cucamonga. I actually briefly talked to her online via the LA JET forum without knowing who she was or seeing her face, and then unknowingly met her as I was getting off the plane, and then finding out she was my roommate, to then find out that she was the girl who had texted me to ask if I wanted to meet up at Victoria Gardens to meet other people around San Bernardino area, which I didn't end up going. Small world. Actually majority of JET is really small world. Everyone knew everyone else somehow and some small way unconciously and it was the orientations that made everyone realize that. Wierd but very cool!

Anyways, in Tokyo on the 27th-29th I met up with majority of the Irvine crew: Collin, Chingyi, Jonathon, Greg, Patrick, Jamie and met a whole bunch more great people: Dustin, Shana, Emily, Jennifer, Shay, Aaron (whose super tall by the way), Erika, Miki. There were a crap load of JETs there! About 830-something. And 50 of them were going to Hokkaido which is the largest group of JETs. The first day there was the opening ceremony and then after that a bunch of workshops. Everyday starts at 7:30am with breakfast and goes until 5pm. It's tiring, but in a wierd masochistic way, kinda fun. The first night was the welcome reception and it was a standing enkai (meet and greet). I really was hoping that we would be able to sit because my feet were killing me, but, alas, it was not to be. Miki and I decided to leave after an hour and a half. Then at 8:30 was the Hokkaido enkai. Luckily that was much more relaxed. 47 of us went to an izakaya with our Prefectural Advisor. It was nomihoudai....Yeah...So I ended up chugging because the boys decided that I needed to do it before I left...I was getting pretty tired so Collin and I walked on back home.

The next day was more orientation and workshops. I decided to skip the last few workshops and head on out to Harajuku with a couple of the girls and Kenny. We walked around for a long time and my feet were basically dying because I was still in my business gear. We then headed back to the hotel for our prefectural meetings. After that I had to go pack my bags and stuff and get ready for tomorrow. For domestic flights the weight limit is 15kg which is just terrible. There's too much stuff that we get from the orientations that will fit under that weight limit along with our personal belongings. Terrible! >.<

So I had 5 kg worth of crap that I was unable to fit into my bag. Thankfully Collin was super nice and put it all in his bag. Seriously thanks!

7:30pm all of us met up for our last dinner and hang out together. We first went to Yodobashi Camera for some stuff and then decided to head over to Shibuya for dinner. Majority of them have never been to Shibuya so it was a cool trip for them. I decided to take them to Lock-Up which is the dungeon/jail themed izakaya. They loved it! We played the russian roulette game with the takoyaki, cream puffs, croquettes, and soba. Poor Aaron got the bad ones four times. But it was funny. =P We were all pretty much tired after that so we headed back home. Everyone else went up to their rooms except for Greg, Chingyi, Collin, and I. Collin met his predecessor. So they talked for a long time. The rest of us just sat on the steps and chilled and commented on our new lifestyle with rare use of normal English...It was a little sad that we were all leaving each other as we were all super good friends by the end. About midnight we headed back to our rooms to rest for the night as the next day was the day that we left for our different prefectures. ;_;

July 29th was our last breakfast together. It was a little depressing mixed with anxiousness and excitement. Everyone said their last goodbyes and hugs all around. Then each of us headed to our own prefecture. All of us going to Hokkaido, which there was 50 of us, all headed to Haneda airport to board our flight to Japan. Continuation of this will be in the next post. Pictures will be on Picasa web albums which is associated with this blog I believe. If not just look for them on facebook as they will be posted on facebook as well. Kay continuation of this in a little bit.