quick note..

I'm still a slave to smokey internet cafes, so this post will be brief...

Things are still going great here. I've been able to wander around a bit more this weekend and no longer get lost going home from my friends' houses or the main hang out spots in Kiryu.

preparations are underway all over the city for the Kiryu Yagibushi Matsuri, our summer festival held on August 5-7

a little canal that cuts through the street I live on

7-11 is the convenience store closest to my house - the green and red signs inform shoppers that they carry alcohol and tobacco

Brian smashing a watermelon at his going away party as part of a traditional Japanese summer game similar to breaking pinatas

There was a going away party for two Americans who are leaving Japan in August held at a beautiful park along the Watarase river in Kiryu. We had a BBQ with tons of amazing food and I had the chance to meet a lot of new people. Later in the evening we went for karaoke..my first time in Kiryu! ..always a ton of fun.

I've been walking around a bit more, exploring the city and get lost much less frequently. I've also accomplished a lot of unpacking, so more pictures of my apartment soon to come!

token funny Japan thing

Toilets have a "big" flush/"small" flush option.

my apartment

As promised, I've hunted down an internet cafe to post the pictures of Kiryu that I took on the first day here. I've taken more since then, but that'll have to be the main event of another post.

My apartment building is small and quiet. The landlord lives in a house closer to the street and there are a million generations of landlord family in and out of there all the time. I have yet to meet my 2nd floor neighbor, but hear something about a wonderfully sweet woman with two very cute little boys...maybe this weekend. There are also a grandma and grandpa whose house almost touches my building who have sworn to assist me in any way possible or help me if I'm confused about something very Japanese (like sorting the garbage into combustable, noncombustable and a million kinds of recylcing, then finding the designated neighborhood disposal site). I'm not sure what they plan to do for me since they speak zero English, but their offer is very conforting and I think that even if patience with my Japanese is all they can offer, they would be doing me a great service.

My apartment is also small and quiet. The kitchen is a big (as Japanese apartments go) space with tiny appliances. To the left as you walk in my door there is a short hallway containing my washing machine, sink and doors to the toilet and bath/shower rooms. Hot water is in abundance, water pressure is great and I have a"western style" toilet... all things that I was secretly wondering about before I came. Straight through the front door and through the kitchen is the first of my two tatami mat rooms. This one is smaller and contains the AC, so this is where my bed is. I can close a sliding glass door to separate the tatami rooms from the other half, which conserves energy and makes it easier to control the temperature in the back rooms (it will make it easier to heat the apartment in the winter too!). The other tatami room is a bit bigger, though by no means large...this is where my futon closet is and where my desk, chair, couches and kotatsu (heated table) currently live. My predecessor took down the sliding door between the two rooms, but I may put them back up this weekend. It'll be nice to have a little privacy if I have guests and once again, make it easier to keep my bedroom warm in winter. Maybe that needs a little explanation of its own... there is no heat in my apartment. I'm like one of the early 19th century pioneers who built their houses from sod to capture the heat energy from the day's sun. In short, if I want to be warm this winter I have to break every rule of fire safety that I've been taught throughout my life...but this was meant to be an adventure, right?

What else... my street is small and narrow, as are all streets in residential Japan. There is a little canal of some sort running through my neighborhood that I'll have to take some pictures of and a bit of shopping nearby, including a cute bakery that doesn't open until 8am (which is too late for weekday breakfast) so I'm planning to check that out over the weekend. Once I get my bike on Saturday I'll be able to explore town a bit more and really establish some bearings on where I am.

the front of my building (my apartment is on the second floor, righthand side)

the view from my front door into my apartment (I'll take pictures of my bedroom and living room once everything I own is off the floors and neatly organized)

my kitchen...other than the tile floor, this is pretty much the entire thing

the view of Kiryu from my front landing...everywhere you turn there is a beautiful view of the mountains!

in Kiryu!

Although I'm quickly getting established here in Kiryu, it may be a while before I get internet set up in my apartment... so my next few posts may be short and scattered. I've been taking a lot of pictures though, and will get all of that stuff up as soon as I can.

I really like my city, apartment, supervisor and peers here in Kiryu. Its a great little city and everyone is extremely helpful. I've been trying to use as much Japanese as possible and find that it softens the anxiety that some people may feel when they watch a foreigner walk into their shop (its a lot of pressure for them to have to speak English or try to communicate with someone nonverbally, so any Japanese on my part makes things go much more smoothly). The city is gearing up for its big summer festival next weekend, so I'm thinking of buying a yukata...sort of a less formal, lightweight summer kimono...next week.

Also, I experienced my first earthquake last night. I write this not to scare anyone, but to reassure anyone who may have heard about it on the news. I'm fine, there was no damage around here and aside from being a bit startled, it didn't affect me at all. They're expecting a lot of activity in the coming months, so please don't be worried everytime news of an earthquake reaches America.

Well...I'm online at work and have to run, but I'll try to post again soon and get those pictures out ASAP.

Gunma-ken!

Its 7:30 am on Wednesday here and I thought that I'd make a final Tokyo post before I head to breakfast.

By 9am I'll be on a bus with the rest of the "Gunmanians" headed to the prefecture capital of Maebashi. It should take us about 3 hours to drive up there and get lunch along the way, so I'm excited to have a bit of time left with the people from my group. Around 1pm we'll have a small ceremony at which we'll be formally introduced to someone from our respective Boards of Education, probably our supervisors, with whom we'll depart for our cities. I've heard that my supervisor is a great guy and that the people in my city are really cool. Throughout my orientation stay in Tokyo the current JETs who came down to help with our training have been randomly coming up to me and pointing at my nametag saying, "you're headed to Gunma? What a great place, you'll have a lot of fun there!" ..maybe they do that for everyone, but its really made me feel good about going to Kiryu. Whatever its like in my city, I've also learned that the network of support provided by JET extends far beyond the people I'll be working with everyday, our Prefectural Advisor and Gunma Association of JETS (AJET) program reps are both amazing people (and current JETs themselves) who I definitely feel comfortable talking to if I ever have an issue..even if that issue is as simple as finding skim milk (which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist here..*sigh* I won't give up just yet though!!)

I'm excited to be getting to Kiryu and get started with my life there. Getting on the internet may be more of a process until I can get it installed in my apartment, but I'm going to hunt down a nearby internet cafe and try to stay on top of posting and emails... I plan to be photo-happy the next few weeks, so look for more pictures soon!

Second night in Tokyo

Its late here and I'm sleepy, even though I took an unscheduled nap this afternoon.

So, after a long day of orientation-type meetings and panel discussions, I met up with about 2 dozen fellow "Gunmanians" for an evening of karaoke and all-you-can-drink festivities. It seemed like a great plan...until we got 1/3 of the way across Tokyo and the skies opened up on us. We'd heard that a typhoon was scheduled to hit us tomorrow, but none of us was prepared for a cloud burst on the way out tonight. Everyone we passed on the street seemed to know what to expect, so we were the only 25 people in the entire city without umbrellas (though I think our blatantly loud English set us apart from the Japanese more than our wet clothes). It was a great night though, wet jeans and all. Everyone is extremely outgoing and personable, and I feel like these are some of the most interesting, diverse folks that I've met in a while. This week's orientation is entirely comprised of countries whose national language is English (the US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, Ireland..and one or two more that I've forgotten) but we have as many commonalities as we do differences.

..okay, enough of my "we are the world" talk. I am having a wonderful time though and I can't wait to move on to my final destination...yay Kiryu!

Hopefully the typhoon won't be so debilitating that I'm unable to venture back out into Shinjuku tomorrow for a final meeting with the JASCers...do your anti-rain dance for me.


the main conference room where most of our orientation events are held


one of the karaoke places that we found along our way through Shinjuku

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).

She's Leaving Home

It probably won't surprise anyone who knows me that it is 4:42 on the morning that I leave for Japan and I'm still not done packing. The good news is that this last minute nonsense doesn't stress me out. In fact, I've decided that my anxiety over forgetting something or packing an item in the wrong bag far outweighs my short term need for sleep..something about being awake right now is calming (and I suspect I wouldn't be able to sleep much even if I had the time to try)

I thought it might be interesting to try to put my expectations, thoughts and emotions into writing, then compare them to my initial reactions as I move through the first few days in Japan. However, I have so much left to do in the next 4 hours that doing so would be the ultimate act of procrastination..but maybe I'll write them out in the airport or on the plane and post them later.

So off I go, though I can't really believe that this is happening.