Quick

1) I moved all the rest of my stuff into my apartment but won't sleep there till Thursday night.

2) I'll be in Maebashi at the Gunma Prefecture orientation Tuesday & Wednesday and come back Wednesday night.

3) I bought a bike and rode from the store to my house and only got hopelessly lost about five times before a nice old woman showed me where I live. :)

4) I think I'm learning a little more Japanese every day...and learning my way around this city a little more.

Sorry, I'm exhausted tonight but just wanted to give you a quick update. I'll write more soon!

A Good Day & Fireworks

It was crazy hot again today, and the air conditioning only runs at night. They had all the windows and the doors open, letting the hot breeze roll through the house all day. Around 12:30, my host mom and I left the house and went shopping--first to Nitori (something similar to Bed Bath & Beyond but with less bath) where I bought a futon set (futon/mattress, blanket, and pillow) plus sheets and covers for everything. I got a pillow filled with soba as well, that they say is good to sleep on. After Nitori, we went to Aeon, which is a huge mall like any other mall anywhere else in the world. I got my inside shoes for school; apparently it doesn't matter how nicely you dress at school, you always take off your outside shoes and put on inside shoes once you're in the school. So I have a year of wearing nice fancy clothes and some cute ballerina slipper crocs that can never touch the ground outside of the school halls. :)

I had an awkward experience at the McDonald's at the mall (I know, I know, I'm embarrassed even admitting it; leave me alone). I didn't know any of the words for anything, so I said and pointed at a picture of a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke (ko-ku, I think...). The fries were in a picture with another sandwich, though, so when I got my tray, it had a cheeseburger, a Coke, and a chicken sandwich on it. I had to get my host mom to help me sort out the mistake. I thought my miming eating French fries was really good, but apparently it wasn't good enough....:) The cashier was embarrassed and so was I, and a lot of "sumimasen"s (excuse me) and "gommenasai"s (I'm sorry) were thrown around. Well, you live and you learn: they say "po-ta-to-fri" for French fries. Now I know.

This evening was an experience as well. It was the first day of the Takasaki Festival (which we skipped out on, but we'll go tomorrow, dressed up in yukata) and they had fireworks at the rugby field near the house I'm staying at. It felt festive, like the 4th of July but without the American flags and obnoxious people (there're always a few...). People brought blankets and we all picnicked outside. It felt fun to be drinking a beer and eating rice balls while watching the sky light up with hanabi (fireworks: hana = flower and bi = fire). The fireworks lasted almost an hour, with fireworks that light up like smiley faces, flowers, and, of course, cat heads. I met some of my host family's friends, and we exchanged smiling bows and names. I'm at the point where can I have a 2 or 3 word conversation with someone, and that's pretty nice.

I keep wanting to go to bed early; it's barely 9:30 p.m. but I feel exhausted. Maybe it's because I wake up at 5:30 with the sun! Goodnight!

Getting There...

Living in Japan, I think, is going to be drastically different than just visiting! I am thrilled about my apartment and having a space of my own. Right now a lot of my predecessor's things are in it, but I think it will soon become mine. Sooner than later, because I move in in a few days!

My apartment is called K-Haitsu (pronounced K-Heights) about 15 minutes north of downtown Takasaki. We got lost getting there because none of the roads have names, just numbers, and this area is very densely lined with houses and apartment buildings.

When you walk in the house, there is a bathroom on your right, with a sink, a washing machine (no dryer), and a separate room with a shower and bathtub. Next there is a separate room with the toilet, then the kitchen at the end of the hall. There are two big rooms on the other side of the kitchen, which you see in the picture. The first room has a window and a little table; the second room (the tatami mat room) is where I will sleep at night, after I buy myself a futon and some covers. There is one air conditioner in the tatami mat room, and if I close the doors I should be okay. In the winter I hear that I only heat the tatami room as well, so cooking and showering should be fun!

This city reminds me of any other city, except that I can't read any of the signs and the traffic is the opposite of what I'm used to (they drive on the left side of the road, like in England). Since I live so far out in the suburbs, I might have to get a car myself, but thinking about driving in Japan is scary!

I need to take more pictures of the streets so you can see how similar the layout is to a lot of U.S. cities. Of course it has a very different feel, but there are stores that are similar to U.S. stores (I went to a sorta/kinda Bed Bath and Beyond today) and the streets are lined with restaurants and stores much like Wendover Avenue in Greensboro.

Takasaki-Shi

Greetings from Takasaki City! It's been a long ride and I'm still not "home" but I'm getting there! I'm staying with a family here in Takasaki, and although I'm almost falling down from exhaustion from the long day, I feel very happy. I taught their 9-year old daughter how to play "Speed" (the card game) and got beat at Old Maid, so I think I'm doing okay. Tomorrow we're back to the Board of Education (where I left several very important documents, including my alien registration card...) to finish up the business of moving to another country. This weekend looks like fun: the Takasaki Festival and maybe some good Mexican food (although not at the same time). Oyasuminasai!

Full Day #2

(I forgot to mention that this blogger website suddenly jumped to Japanese as soon as I opened it in Tokyo.)

So. The thing with not speaking Japanese in Japan is that...you don't speak Japanese in Japan. Everything, everything, becomes harder. The JET folk talk to us about joining community classes, and I think, "Is there a 2-1-1 number we can call like in Greensboro? Is there help for the immigrant community? Will I have a sponsoring agency? How will I find out?" (JET does take care of us, FYI, and amazingly so, but it's still nerve-wracking to be so illiterate.)

I went to a quick-stop restaurant with two friends. It's a really small place tucked in with a lot of other really small places on a crowded street. We walked in and barely had enough room to stand at the machine that takes your order, the room was so full. It is only one big room with a long counter running through it, with a waiter on the inside bringing the food and the customers sitting around the bar in a horseshoe shape. There is maybe a foot of space between the barstools and the walls.

We stand there, we three gaijin (foreigners), at the selection on the menu. There are pictures, which is good, but we can't read the descriptions. (Well, one of us speaks pretty good Japanese, but I was lost). I picked one that looked good, put my money in the bill accepter, pressed the button for the food I wanted, and out popped a ticket and my change. I took the ticket to the counter, sat down on a stool by myself because there wasn't enough room for the three of us to sit together, and put the ticket on the counter for the waiter to see.

Not long afterward, out comes a few bowls for me: one bowl of rice and beef, another of soup, and another of a cabbage salad with corn. The waiter says something at great length, I smile and nod and murmur, "Arigatou," which I later learn should have been "Doozo." (Oooops.) Sitting there at the counter, watching the men (all men!!! Where are the women in this restaurant?!) slurping their soup and noodles and politely avoiding eye contact with everyone else, I suddenly got it: this is how I'm going to feel for a while. I didn't feel out of place in a "I need to get out of here" way, which I get sometimes, but I felt like I stuck out and there wasn't anything I could do about it. There was no conversation in the restaurant besides Tony & me whispering back and forth, "This is a lot of food. I don't know what to say. I feel weird. Am I blushing? I can't eat any more." When we finally left, I felt stressed, like I had just taken a test and didn't know how I did. But I felt proud, too, and happy, because that was my first time eating in a ticket-counter restaurant, and now that I've done it, I can do it again! The first time is over, and the second time I will feel just a little more comfortable as I navigate my chopsticks into my rice. And by the time a few weeks is over, I will feel even better.

Later, I went to the Seven Eleven--yes, the Seven Eleven--to buy pantyhose, because here, no outfit is complete without some. I pick up a package and stare as it for a while, wondering what size it is (it says "L" but what does that mean in this country?). Then I pick up another package that I think is more my size. I stand there for a few minutes staring at the two packages, trying to decide. They both list hip sizes (at least, the katakana said, "Hi-pu", which must mean something...) but it's in centimeters. What's my hip size in centimeters? No idea. I finally decide on one pair and go to the counter to pay. The cashier tells me something and I smile and nod. She rings up my purchase and tells me how much it is. I fumble around for a 1,000 yen bill because I know it'll be enough, but when she points at the screen to tell me that it's only 380 I think maybe I have enough change to pay for it with coins. So I fumble around some more in my purse, but can't find the handful of coins I know is in there. I mutter, "Gomennasai" (I'm sorry) and hand her the original 1,000 bill. She smiles and says something that hopefully means, "It's okay; I know you have no idea what you're doing. But you'll get it." I smiled, took my change, and went back to the hotel.

Full Day #1

It still doesn't really seem like I'm in Tokyo, considering I spend all day long with 1,000 (or 2,000?) other English-speaking people. But tonight I got my first glimpse of what it's going to be like. Two other JETs and I ventured out into the city near the hotel and I spent an hour and a half gawking in amazement and taking pictures of literally almost everything I saw. (These pictures will be on Facebook soon, and I'll probably open a Flikr account, too.) It isn't like Mexico City, or New York, or Madrid, or Chicago, or any other big city I've been to....but in a way it's exactly the same. Everything is new to me, and thrilling and exciting, but terrifying because I have no way to really communicate with anyone. But it's fascinating to be here where everything is new (and strangely familiar?). It will be exciting to see how my feelings change as the months progress...

Here!

I could write a beautiful, poetic account of everything that's happened in the past 24 hours, but this will be maybe a little brief and maybe not very well-written (my apologies). It's currently 8:30 a.m. on Monday, August 2 (I'm 28!) and I've slept for the past 12 hours.

Yesterday, or rather, the day before yesterday, I left Portland, OR for a 10-hour flight to Japan. The flight was fun, I watched a fantastic movie called Serendipity (hahaha), and met a lot of cool people who will be here with me. We arrived in Tokyo at 4:00 p.m. Tokyo time (something like 1:00 a.m. Portland time) and were herded from the airplane, through customs, through immigration, to a line of buses awaiting us. We sent two of our bags on to our prefectures (that's Gunma, for me) and and kept two with us to carry onto the bus. I was absolutely exhausted, but couldn't sleep too much on the bus. It was about a 2-hour ride from the airport to the hotel. I tried to keep my eyes open to see the scenery, but I was too tired to see much. I remember the guy with us telling us to see Disneyland and some other sites, but I kept my eyes closed...I do remember that the trees look vaguely North Carolina-esque...lots of pines and maybe oaks? And, weirdly enough, what looks like kudzu all over the place!

This hotel is absolutely beautiful, extraordinarily fancy, and really nice! I'm sharing a room with two other Portland JETs. I crashed last night about 7:30 p.m. Tokyo time and slept off and on till 6:30 this morning. (For some reason, I had a hard time going to sleep, but I ended up sleeping really deeply as the night wore on.)

This morning we woke up and went to a fancy breakfast, which included super floppy bacon, eggs, various cut-up fruits, toast, coffee, stir-fried vegetables, and shoe-string French fries! I sat with some people from the U.S., the U.K., and New Zealand, and marveled at the accents. :)

We have meetings all day long and a semi-formal tonight, but I'll try to keep you updated on everything else that we do. It seems so weird that I'm so many miles from home, but it's definitely going to be an adventure!

Sorry for the train of thought post, but I wanted to let you know that I've arrived safe and soundly and that things are good. I'm still a little sleepy but I think I'll accustom myself sooner or later. I hope everyone is well! I'll post pictures soon, too.

Till next time......!