Saturday

The plan was that MJETs (an organization that gets Miyagi JETs to come together) was holding a walking tour of Sendai, followed by a Nomi-tabehodai (all you can eat and drink) and some late night fun. So, Alia and I catch the bus for Sendai, which ended up being a surprisingly cheap and easy way to get to the city. We get there a little early, find some JETs we know and have lunch. I quickly realize that the GPS on my phone was far more detailed that I could have imagined and has made the walking tour all but moot (it was a flimsy pretext to go partying anyway). A

About the time the walking tour was about to start, a good 20-30 Jets had gathered at Sendai station and everyone was on their cell phones trying to IR connect phones to transfer numbers and email addys (think proto typical pictures of trendy Japanese youth and we were it). After a buying 4 JLPT level 2 books (it's coming up people, I hope you've signed up!) we headed to a pretty good Indian restaurant and got smashed again over some pretty good stories.

Speaking of stories, here's a good one I heard (I'm going to convey it in first person cause it's more interesting this way). So, on Friday we had our 2nd term beginning ceremony. There were two new teachers, myself and a 20ish female Japanese teacher. The ceremony starts and the new teachers are welcomed to the stage to the regular fanfare you'd expect. The Japanese teacher goes up the stairs first and assumes her place on stage, then I head up. But wait, as I get to the last stair on the staircase, the whole thing breaks and I go tumbling down the stairs just shy of the stage.

The place goes dead silent

I get up with just a few cuts and bruises and laugh it all off, but every second I get a "Are you ok!?" from each teacher and I try to tell them I'm fine; though, it's painfully obvious that they are not fine. However, the ceremony keeps going, I say my spiel and everyone claps. Yay. Is it over? Oh no no no. The ceremony was 2 hours... 2 frackin' hours of standing in the hot sun while being leered at (the kids were supposed to stand, but many broke down and sat on the ground - we teachers did not have the luxury). So, the other new teacher and I are bowing and nodding at the appropriate times, and the time FINALLY comes to get off the stage. The poor girl next to me took one step and jelloed to the ground. And I could see the determination in her eyes to stay conscious, until the final moment when she finally conched out. "Oh, this is terrible," I thought, "but at least it takes the attention off of me."

And that's what you can expect from Japanese Junior High Schools.

Dinner was followed by some pretty good Karaoke, which was followed by a trip to Bar Isn't It (which wasn't, it was more of a club). It's also important to mention that our group acted as a sort of magnet for English capable Japanese people, so the JETs pretty much ended up being the party at the club. I could go into the details of the club, but they wouldn't be very coherent. So, just imagine lots of inter-cultural lovin' going on. After people danced for about 3 hours (until 3:30am) my small group decided to pack in for the night. I had made arrangements to stay at a friends place, but all the trains had stopped at 12am, so I was screwed. Luckily, I met an ex-Jet, Sarah, who became a private JET in Sendai and she offered her flat to us for the night. So, we finally got to bed at 4:30am and set our clocks for 9am to catch our 10am bus.

Mmm, nothing like hard drinking, strenuous exercise and the prospect of no sleep.

So, what kind of weekend does a JET have? (aka. what wacky shit happens?)

(I usually don't go over my blogs, so just deal with the style, vocab, and spelling errors)

I'm glad you asked... cause this weekend was especially crazy (Saturday at least)

Friday
On Friday, the town I'm stationed in held an 宴会(enkai = welcome party) for the 4 new JETs, and the 2 recontracting JETs were invited to come join the festivities. The new JETs are Alia, Heather, Andres, and me, and the vets are Jeff and Kennard (though we don't see much of Kennard).

The party was held at a Zen temple at 5:30 and all the big wigs from most of our schools were there. They had been planning the party for about 4 months, and the owner of the hotel was a Shotokan karate instructor whose English was very good. The food situation was a sukiyaki type deal with a gajillion different things thrown in. In the 'odd food category' I had Beef tongue (I think this was the second time I had it), some terribly bitter river fish (awa, I think) and some pork intestine (内臓 - ないぞう). They kept expecting us to freak out with every dish, but everyone held up pretty well until I had to explain that I've tried organs in a lot of styles but I just don't like the flavor of the meat. This was met with the typical "Oh, your Japanese is SOOO good" followed by several people picking organs of the grill, savoring the smell and eating it slowly while slowly drawling out, "delissssscious." And that was that.

The drink situation was of the 'bottomless beer cup' style. At about 7:30, everyone except for Alia and Heather were pretty soused (Heather doesn't like to drink and Alia has a Kidney problem). They asked/forced the JETs to sign a song, so we belted out "Amazing Grace" and The US national anthem. I don't know the anthem, so Heather thought ahead and saved my ass by bringing the lyrics. At first, I was impressed that we harmonized pretty well... until our superiors starting singing. We were schooled. I don't know how or why, but all Japanese people have hidden amazing singing powers. Well, after our impromptu song session concluded, they decided we needed more singing, and it was off to Karaoke!

...but it wasn't the Karaoke I was used to. I was a 3 TV setup with about 4 mics, but only one song can be song at a time. I felt a little bad, cause our boisterous group pretty much took over the establishment from some construction workers. So, I'm pretty drunk here, I start browsing the song selection (which was really vast, despite the place being pretty small) and I see... SUPERSTAR by S.H.E. (it's in Chinese). I decide, what the hell, I know most of the words anywho, so I select it, get up and start to belt it out....

The reactions were excellent.

The construction workers were dying of laughter, the supervisors were shocked, the bar owners were bemused and the other JET were caught off guard. When I finish it's the standard applause and Jeff turns to me and says, "Off all the things I was expecting you to sing, that wasn't it. At first I thought I was going crazy, but then I realized it was Mandarin." I quickly say that the only reason I can sing it is because I heard it so much in Chinese, before anyone gets the wrong idea. Although, that bold first strike at embarrassment really gets things started. Before long everyone is signing, getting more drunk, and we somehow manage to work 6 languages into karaoke before we ended (The construction workers did Dragostin din Tei (sp?) or the Numa Numa song, and we just about died). Although we ended at about 10pm, I was ridiculously drunk and had had no water all nite. After they sent us off in separate taxis and bid us good nite.

I somehow got my futon out before I crashed but woke up at 5am, terribly dehydrated. Mmm, it's like college all over again.

(I'm cutting this into 2-3 entries that are easier to digest) Next, Saturday in Sendai! And Sunday, smashed take 2!

So, I’m in Japan and I’m alive. I’ve been here for about a week now, and I’m been in my town in Miyagi-ken for a couple of days. I guess I have a few updates to give, so I’ll do it by memory (if you want to skip the random rants, jump ahead a bit):

Orientation Problem

This was from August 5-7 in the sweltering heat of Tokyo. The day started off with me just narrowly getting all my crap checked onto the plane (and in the case of my over-sized backpack, sneaked onto the plane). But no, I had not tricked the system because as soon as I got to my first flight from DC to Newark, I realized that the overhead bins were dangerously full, save the first few rows. Now, see, common sense would tell me to put my luggage up before the other people arrive, but no, I didn’t want them to suffer the ‘inconvenience’, so rather, I waited till I got to my row to first it completely full and asked the flight attendant what to do. The last thing I remember as she swiftly spirited my bag off the plane was “Don’t worry, we won’t lose your bag *saccharine smile*”.

Fast forward to Tokyo, “Excuse me, Mr. Grant? Your bag got delayed it should be coming in tomorrow… or the day after... perhaps *smile*” (meanwhile, I’m in a long sleeved, very warm polo shirt and jeans) “But I NEED that bag, it has everything I need in it!” Reply: blank stare. So, knowing that a losing battle was imminent I continued on with the clothing on my back. And, the best remedy for this situation was to spill booze on myself at karaoke later that night, and have the winning smell of tobacco seep in (I wasn’t smoking btw).

So, the first day of orientation, everyone is in suits, and I look a mess. One would think this situation does not warrant interrogation? Nope, I had this exchange every couple of hours: “So, you do know this is a formal event, correct?” they would say, followed by my retort “I don’t have anymore bloody clothes! They were lost!” followed by a sympathetic nod (repeated ad naseum). So, come midday, and I’m entirely expecting a report on my bag, where I get “Um, Mr. Grant, we don’t…know… where your bag is…” The sad thing is that I couldn’t even get mad at anyone because this came about 3-4 people down the chain of command. Anywho, I spent the rest of the day roaming the streets with Nat (and some other guy whose name we had trouble remembering) looking for a Uniqlo (aka, the place that sells fat foreigner-friendly clothes). And, after buying a set of clothing so I could get by, my luggage greets me as I arrive * sigh *. Better late than never.

Orientation Itself

Having frequented boards on the subject of the JET orientation, I was at least fairly certain what to expect. So, for those of you who have you eyes set on JET, let me say one thing, MOST OF ORIENTATION IS A WASTE OF TIME. Honestly, just go to the opening ceremony and your prefectural meeting and you’ll be fine. I went to two workshops, the team teaching at elementary school one and the driving in Japan one, and I find that the second did not apply to me in various ways or that I knew most of it already. Also, the ‘panel’ of learned guests was just awful, but I was unfortunately between two people and thus couldn’t leave. I luckily did not suffer any jet lag, but I could see the other JETs dropping like flies when the lights were dimmed. It was Astronomy class all over again.

What I found most impt about orientation was the social networking aspects and the exploring aspects. I got a good amount of DrumMania in, and I found a couple of Traders where I purchased Kingdom Heart 2 Final Mix (plus limited edition book!), Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, and I big box of JLPT 2kyuu flash cards. (I also looked for a TV, but I then realized that Japan uses something called D端子 for its HDTV needs (unlike our component cables) and then I proceeded to buy $200 worth of cables on Amazon.co.jp.) Anywho, I met a lot of interesting people and wouldn’t mind partying with them down the road.

Home

After Orientation, all the JETs are shipped out via train, bus, car, boat, or plane to their final destinations. I, and two other lucky people, were off to a little town in Miyagi-ken. When they said Inaka, they weren’t kidding. While our area is ,without a doubt, picturesque, it is definitely a sudden shift of lifestyle. I was a little wary at first as we passed the 90^th acre of rice field and pulled up to our Stalin-esque apartment complex, but I’ve become pretty excited about what the town offers. The people are great, the onsen are plentiful, rent is nothing, the food is cheap, and I get a good chance to improve my Japanese daily. There may not be any bars or game centers or large book stores… but I can always drive to the next town for that.

My apartment was pretty spacious, although the mess I was welcomed to took about a week to clear. Also, for some reason the faucet mechanism befuddled me for the first few days, where, you pull down on the level to get water. Easy enough, although the water tends to get everywhere if you pull the fountain a little too far. Furthermore, my natural inclination to stop an oncoming deluge of water (as trained by my faucet in America) is to pull down. So, this ended up with me being doused with water the first few days (which wasn’t so bad, considering it’s hot as hell here).

I had more, but this went on way too long.

間違いがいっぱいので、すみません。

皆様、このブログによこそ。僕のことに心配した友達に安心してくれ、まだ生きてる。JET先生として八月の五日から日本に住んでいる。まあ、「住む」というけど、本日は八月の五日から七月まで、東京のJET入門指導に出席した。必要と伝えたなのに、半分ぐらいサボった。。。でも、いいわけあるよ！まず、僕のスーツや服を入れた荷物が亡くなっちゃった。仕方がなくなったらので、ウニクロから服を買いた。まあ、やかったです、外国人サイズがあった。もう文句言わないで続く。じゃ、入門指導だって。。。いらないと思った。本当に基本的な情報を教えてくれた（例えば、「日本で運転する」というクラスでは「道路に左の方運転するべきだ」とか「スピードすらな」という情報を伝えてくれた。だが、一つの面白いことに、日本では、法律のBACがなし。言い替えれば、一つずつのビールを飲むと、運転できない（N.B.　僕なら、全然飲み運転しないけれど、ちょっと驚いた）。その以外に、オリエンテーシオンが時間を無駄に使ったと思った。