Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Konnichiwa from Japan!
Okay, everybody, I've arrived in one piece and not totally exhausted. Right now I'm staying at the Keiou Presso Hotel in Shinjuku for a few days while the woman that's currently staying in my apartment moves out. There are about 15 other Nova teachers here, and they're all really nice, so I think after breakfast we're going to go on a massive tourist spree around Tokyo today. First on the list: Tokyo Tower! I can't wait!
Excuse me if this post sounds a little strange; I didn't sleep but about 30 minutes on the flight and then I woke up at 5:30 this morning, my body complaining that it was 3:30 in the afternoon and I needed to get out of bed now! So I'm a bit punchy. But I'm sure I'll be fine with an afternoon nap. Strangely enough, the sun had already risen by 5:30. Either they like to set the clocks earlier here than in America or I'm going to get a LOT of sunlight. (I'm hoping for option number 2, of course.)
I'm trying not to fangirl too obviously, but I can't help a little squeeing here and there. There are Japanese people everywhere! (Many of them are staring at me.) There are Japanese signs everywhere! And OMG there are SCHOOL GIRLS IN SAILOR FUKU! GAH! They are SO CUTE! And there's Japanese stuff on TV! I watched part of Hey! Spring of Trivia as I was getting ready for bed last night. (For those of you that don't watch enough Spike, Hey! Spring of Trivia is a totally silly and pointless trivia show where the hosts say one ridiculous statement and the contestants have to guess whether it's true or not. Then they rank the true statements according to just how amazed they were to find out that it was true. Last night I learned, for example, that Michael Jackson made a Sega game in the early 90s in which you had to moonwalk to save the planet from aliens. No, I'm not kidding. They showed fight scenes from the game, and it was the most bizarre (and frightening!) thing I've seen in quite a long time. Bet you never guessed just how educational this international experience would prove for me!)
Japanese computers are really hard to use. First off, it took me about 10 minutes to find the apostrophe. Then I accidentally turned on the Japanese input mode, so all the characters moved around the keyboard. And even common pages like Blogger pop up in Japanese--good thing I could read the 'New Post' button or I wouldn't be writing this right now!
I was wondering if everyone would be so kind as to pray for me. I got my work schedule last night, and I've been scheduled to start on Sundays at 11:40, which is right in the middle of church. According to my contract, I'm not allowed to request a shift change until I finish my two-month probationary period, so I may end up unable to go to church for two months. Hopefully my supervisor will be willing to make an exception for religious reasons. I guess I'll know when orientation starts Monday. Oh, yeah, and I'll be traveling about 45 minutes into Shibuya, Tokyo, for orientation, but after that I'll be working about 15 minutes away from my apartment in Kawasaki. (At least, I think it's 15 minutes away in Kawasaki. I can't tell from the map if it's actually in Kawasaki or not, but I assume they would have taken care to mention if it's in another city. Another question to ask my roommates, I guess.)
Well, I'm going to go get a map and plot out my train route for the day, then it's off to breakfast and exploring. See you guys later!
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Excuse me if this post sounds a little strange; I didn't sleep but about 30 minutes on the flight and then I woke up at 5:30 this morning, my body complaining that it was 3:30 in the afternoon and I needed to get out of bed now! So I'm a bit punchy. But I'm sure I'll be fine with an afternoon nap. Strangely enough, the sun had already risen by 5:30. Either they like to set the clocks earlier here than in America or I'm going to get a LOT of sunlight. (I'm hoping for option number 2, of course.)
I'm trying not to fangirl too obviously, but I can't help a little squeeing here and there. There are Japanese people everywhere! (Many of them are staring at me.) There are Japanese signs everywhere! And OMG there are SCHOOL GIRLS IN SAILOR FUKU! GAH! They are SO CUTE! And there's Japanese stuff on TV! I watched part of Hey! Spring of Trivia as I was getting ready for bed last night. (For those of you that don't watch enough Spike, Hey! Spring of Trivia is a totally silly and pointless trivia show where the hosts say one ridiculous statement and the contestants have to guess whether it's true or not. Then they rank the true statements according to just how amazed they were to find out that it was true. Last night I learned, for example, that Michael Jackson made a Sega game in the early 90s in which you had to moonwalk to save the planet from aliens. No, I'm not kidding. They showed fight scenes from the game, and it was the most bizarre (and frightening!) thing I've seen in quite a long time. Bet you never guessed just how educational this international experience would prove for me!)
Japanese computers are really hard to use. First off, it took me about 10 minutes to find the apostrophe. Then I accidentally turned on the Japanese input mode, so all the characters moved around the keyboard. And even common pages like Blogger pop up in Japanese--good thing I could read the 'New Post' button or I wouldn't be writing this right now!
I was wondering if everyone would be so kind as to pray for me. I got my work schedule last night, and I've been scheduled to start on Sundays at 11:40, which is right in the middle of church. According to my contract, I'm not allowed to request a shift change until I finish my two-month probationary period, so I may end up unable to go to church for two months. Hopefully my supervisor will be willing to make an exception for religious reasons. I guess I'll know when orientation starts Monday. Oh, yeah, and I'll be traveling about 45 minutes into Shibuya, Tokyo, for orientation, but after that I'll be working about 15 minutes away from my apartment in Kawasaki. (At least, I think it's 15 minutes away in Kawasaki. I can't tell from the map if it's actually in Kawasaki or not, but I assume they would have taken care to mention if it's in another city. Another question to ask my roommates, I guess.)
Well, I'm going to go get a map and plot out my train route for the day, then it's off to breakfast and exploring. See you guys later!
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