Tokyo orientation

In order to catch up, I'm just going to start from the beginning.

My 14 hour flight wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be. I caught up on my travel journal and watched four movies. I had an aisle seat so I only got about one hour of sleep. The woman sitting next to me was also in the JET Program so we had a nice chat every once in a while. Tokyo's Narita airport is two hours away from Tokyo, so we had to take a long bus ride to our hotel after going through customs and all that. It was good that I didn't sleep on the plane because by the time we got to the hotel, it was about 8pm and I fell right asleep.

We stayed at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, a major hub of Tokyo. It was about two blocks away from the hotel that the movie Lost in Translation took place. Over 1000 "JETs" were at orientation but we were grouped by prefecture. Many new Jets in my prefecture are from England, Australia, Ireland, Canada, and the US so I had fun meeting/learning more about those countries as well. Orientation consisted of an information overload about Japanese culture, language, and English teaching techniques. The view from the 43rd floor conference hall bathroom:


In the evening I went out with people from my prefecture and Ai, a friend from Wellesley. I ate all those foods I mentioned and went out for kareoke and dancing. In Japan, kareoke is done in small rooms with a big tv and stereo system. You can order food and drink to be brought it like a restaurant. It's more of a private party than a stage and audience thing like in the States. Anyways, Ai took me to a traditional Japanese restaurant where we put our shoes in cubbies, sat on the floor, and ate in a little cubicle where we could ask for our waitress with a button.




There were two types of toilets at the Keio: squat and controlled. The squat toilet (on the left below) is used just like going on a bush while camping.....yet being able to flush afterwards. The controlled toilets have buttons on the side that allow you to control the temperature of the seat, water pressure, and bidet features.