Arrived!
Its Monday morning here in Tokyo, and thanks to the free wireless connection set up for us by JET, I'm able to pop online for a bit before the day's events get started at 10am.
I've been in Japan now for almost a day, but I'm still not sure that the weight of moving here as set in yet. As soon as I arrived Sunday night I ran straight out of the hotel to meet up with a handful of people from my first JASC. Walking through Shinjuku to find them felt so surreal...Tokyo feels like something both familiar and foreign, as though I knew it a long time ago but my memory's gone fuzzy, so even though I didn't really know where I was going, it was exciting to be walking around, taking everything in, and I caught myself grinning like an idiot. Walking into the pub to find a table full of familiar faces (many not seen since the last time I was in Japan) was also amazing. Though I have only kept in touch with one or two of the people there, it felt like we'd never spent 2 years apart. Having this network of people here in Japan has meant to much to me as I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to move here, and now that I've gotten to see some of them I've realized how important they're going to be for me throughout my stay in Japan.
Being in the middle of Tokyo again, but surrounded by hundreds of English speakers from all over the world creates a funny atmosphere. When I'm with all of the other JETs I almost feel more like a tourist at epcot-Tokyo than someone who is ACTUALLY in Japan...though I expect this feeling will disappear almost instantly the first time that I try to buy groceries in Kiryu or try to make sense of a train schedule. Either way, I'm thrilled to be here. Everything is exciting and new and all of the people that I've met so far are amazing.
While I'm in Tokyo I hope to check my email and update my blog a few times a day. I'll try to get some pictures up here too (once I start taking them).
I've been in Japan now for almost a day, but I'm still not sure that the weight of moving here as set in yet. As soon as I arrived Sunday night I ran straight out of the hotel to meet up with a handful of people from my first JASC. Walking through Shinjuku to find them felt so surreal...Tokyo feels like something both familiar and foreign, as though I knew it a long time ago but my memory's gone fuzzy, so even though I didn't really know where I was going, it was exciting to be walking around, taking everything in, and I caught myself grinning like an idiot. Walking into the pub to find a table full of familiar faces (many not seen since the last time I was in Japan) was also amazing. Though I have only kept in touch with one or two of the people there, it felt like we'd never spent 2 years apart. Having this network of people here in Japan has meant to much to me as I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to move here, and now that I've gotten to see some of them I've realized how important they're going to be for me throughout my stay in Japan.
Being in the middle of Tokyo again, but surrounded by hundreds of English speakers from all over the world creates a funny atmosphere. When I'm with all of the other JETs I almost feel more like a tourist at epcot-Tokyo than someone who is ACTUALLY in Japan...though I expect this feeling will disappear almost instantly the first time that I try to buy groceries in Kiryu or try to make sense of a train schedule. Either way, I'm thrilled to be here. Everything is exciting and new and all of the people that I've met so far are amazing.
While I'm in Tokyo I hope to check my email and update my blog a few times a day. I'll try to get some pictures up here too (once I start taking them).
posted by Kris at
8:56 AM
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