My apartment view

When I woke at 5 am, like my apparently usual wake-up time here due to the sun, I was ravenous. I read for a bit and then decided to just eat the white rice by itself. I managed a couple more forkfuls than the night before but I still didn’t feel well though. I left my building at 8 am to stop by the conbini to get some ready-made food for lunch. I picked up a noodle tomato soup and an onigiri. No idea what was inside the onigiri. Mystery food is always fun. I hoped I’d feel better later.

At school, I sorted through my desk and read through the material my pred left me. There was a lot of it, and she left some detailed notes. Thank you, pred! K-sensei came by and introduced himself at 11 am. He gave me my inkan (personal seal) and we were off to city hall to register my change in residence. I had prepared my address written in Japanese and my name in katakana. We had to fill out a bunch of forms and hand in my passport and residence card. He checked some boxes and translated for me and then I had to painstakingly fill them out. Copying kanji is the hardest! If you make a mistake, you have to cross it out and stamp it with your inkan. Not only on the original mistake but also on all the carbon copies underneath. Don’t make mistakes! My middle name also caused some confusion, whoops. Then we waited for quite some time.

Since we left city hall at 12:10 pm and we had to be back at school at noon to pick up K, the bank account had to be skipped. K-sensei told me that Ichigo-sensei would take me on Friday. K apparently had the morning off so he had gone a three hour walk! He got to see Nukisaki shrine, which is the most famous one in our town. K-sensei drove the back roads to Maebashi instead of the expressway. We stopped at a conbini to grab lunch, I just ate my onigiri, my stomach still not up to par.

The senior high school appointment ceremony was in the main building this time. Suited up in the heat once more…I need to find a dry cleaner ASAP, ha. We got to sign our contracts, it’s all official now. Some speeches were given by more important Gunma government people, some only in Japanese, some in English. Then all the SHS folks got to give their speeches. Mine was brief and said only the bare minimum. Hopefully my pronunciation wasn't too horrible. A 5^th year JET there had to give a long speech in Japanese on our behalf. The whole thing only took about 45 minutes before we were on the road again.

The walk to school

K-sensei offered to stop at Nitori on the way back, a furniture/home goods store like Ikea. K and I jumped at the chance. He needed towels and I needed sheets. With the help of K-sensei, I could figure out what was 100% cotton. The prices were steep though. A single sized duvet cover cost me $30. I picked a pillow case and futon cover out as well, purple themed. Also got a hand towel, shower towel, and pillow. I asked if I could also get a futon since we had room and I was going to be dropped off at my apartment. I got a better one that seemed quite comfortable. The plan was to put it on top of my bed frame. Yay for shopping success.

We dropped K off near his place and then returned to mine. K-sensei was going to help interpret some of the kanji in my apartment – how to turn hot water on, run the washer, use the gas stove, use the air con. Apparently the gas is controlled by panels on the wall. You can adjust the temperature as you’d like. There’s even a button to fill up the bathtub automatically with hot water. I have to use this button if I want hot water for the sinks as well. After he left, I put in a load of laundry with my new sheets! Sadly they weren’t dry by the time I went to bed, but I can confirm the machine works.