Home sweet home!

I'm finishing up my first full day in Aso and so far it's been quite an adventure! Tokyo orientation was really fun. On the last night our prefecture went out to an all you can eat/all you can drink place with two of the Japanese men that work with our Boards of Education on behalf of the JET program. It was quite fun, and I soon learned that the most important thing to say after I say that I'm from Boston is Daisuke Matsuzaka 松坂 大輔 (check out that Japanese!) I was then met with, in broken English, "so is it true you hate the Yankees?" It was the highlight of the night! Then when the people in charge returned to the hotel, the new JETs all walked around Tokyo and went to an arcade to play and take photobooth pictures (Purikura)


















It was a great last night but we didn't want to go too crazy for our big day of flying to Kumamoto! The airport experience was sooo much easier than flying in the US. We didn't have to show any identification which was surprising, could bring liquids, and didn't have to take our shoes off! (The one time you don't have to take them in Japan when you do in America!) I got to sit with Erin (the good friend I had made at orientation) and we had fun enjoying the opportunity to talk about whatever we wanted, as loud as we wanted, because no one except the other JETs would be able to understand us!

After landing, we went our seperate ways, and I was greeted by my advisor from the Aso Board of Education, Takuma-san, and some other JETs in my town. They took me out for a delicious lunch of yakisoba, which is a type of noodle dish, and then they took me to my house and the board of education. The house by Japanese standards is pretty large. I almost hit my head in the doorways but I just make it! I'll post pictures soon, but basically there's an entry way, a bathroom consisting of three rooms - shower and bath, toilet, washing maching machine and sink, 3 tatami mat rooms - my bedroom (I have a bed and a futon so I'm not on the floor!), a room with a dresser and closets that I'll use for getting dressed, and a room with a television and kotatsu (heated table - I actually have two and am using the smaller one in my bedroom) and I also have an open kitchen and hardwood floor room with a couch and desk. After checking everything out I went to the Board of Education (I'll refer to this as the BOE from now on) and met some coworkers. The heads of the BOE weren't there, so I didn't do my big Japanese introduction.

Then the other JETs helped Takuma-san and I communicate in order to fill out my paperwork before heading out for the day. My predecessor is staying with me until Sunday, so at night she took me to dinner with one of her favorite teachers that I will be working with. It was basically like Japanese tapas and it was delicious! I'm trying lots of new foods which can be interesting to say the least, but most things are pretty good! The teacher was really nice as well. She is 25 and speaks pretty decent English. At dinner I tried a drink called calpis, pronounced "cow piss." I definitely asked for some clarification before trying this one, but it ended up being extremely refreshing. In Japan there is zero tolerance for drinking and driving, so calpis is a nice alternative if I'm driving somewhere - which yes, I will be starting to do soon! This scares me a little, since I can't even remember that the passenger door is on the left side, and don't get me starting on how frightening right hand turns can be, but I'm sure I'll get used to driving on the other side soon!

After dinner, my predecessor took me to a bar in the area run by two women that speak some of the best English I've heard from a non-native speaker in Japan thus far. They were really friendly and hospitable, and while the bar patrons were generally older men singing kareoke, I really like the women and think they will really help me get better at Japanese.

Today I filled out some more paperwork and ran some errands with Takuma-san. I picked out my cell phone which is going to be awesome! I have full internet and a Japanese dictionary. I will also have a feature that will translate any line of Japanese that I take a picture of! Pretty crazy! It flips around and does all these cool things, so I'm pretty excited to play around with it! Today I also got to do some sightseeing. I went up one of the peaks of the Aso caldera today and it was gorgeous. You can't always see the horizon here, but on the back side of the mountain it was really clear and beautiful. Then my predecessor and my neighbor that is also a JET took me for lunch to an American style diner. It kind of feels like a Johnny Rockets in there, and I really enjoyed my burger which I've been told is one of the best in Japan. (oh PS I'm no longer a vegetarian!) The guy working at the restaurant is friends with my neighbor as well, so when I start missing the US or American food, this will be a nice place to go.

The rest of the day I spent cleaning and unpacking. I'm pretty much done aside for some decorations I would like to add, but I'm pretty happy so far. My predecessor definitely thinks I'm a nut for cleaning basically every surface imaginable, but hey - I want it to be clean! Then my neighbor cooked me some dinner and we hung out before writing this overly lengthy blog entry - so if you've read this far I'm impressed! I'm looking forward to the weekend and will probably be heading into Kumamoto city for some of it. My neighbor also wants to take me to one of the local hot springs so should be fun!

Soon I'll post an entry about a lot of the cultural differences I've experienced/experiencing. Some I can't quite wrap my mind around, and I was warned it could eventually turn pretty frustrating, but for now everything is so new and exciting that I find it endearing. Oyasuminasai!