On the way to school

Boring day. Was at school. It’s summer vacation right now so many teachers are absent and there’s not much to do. I’m enjoying the calm before the storm.

I did have some students come talk to me while they were waiting on another teacher. My principal helped them out at first and then he left. After he left, the convo got a bit better because they couldn’t rely on him. As a group they formulated and answer several questions about Disney, my fav artist, whether I was married, and if my hair was dyed. Lots of cute giggles.

My sleep schedule is pretty wacked due to the early sunrise and sunsets here.  I finally cleaned and unpacked all my stuff. I thoroughly searched through everything to see what my pred had left. It included some knitting supplies, and arts n’crafts things. I really need to buy a vacuum though. There’s dust everywhere and I feel like the broom isn’t cutting it. Maybe need to check at the second hand store?

Shrine by my apartment

I also made a longer trip over to the library in search of computer access. I passed through the touristy Silk Mill area. So many people on a weekend! Huge tour buses as well. I need to learn bike etiquette here really quick. I was able to use a computer at the library, but many sites were blocked. I almost completely my whole sim card application, when it needed an email verification so I had to quit. One of the librarians approached me with a sheet of paper once I stood up. I think I was supposed to fill out some type of computer request first. I apologized and gave her a super confused face. 

The building next door, I think is a learning center, is supposed to have Japanese classes, but I don’t know how I’ll go about figuring this out. I know K is also interested so I’ll have to check in with him.

Buckwheat tea

Friday, Friday! Today I finally met Ichigo-sensei, my actual supervisor. She’s in charge of the handball team so she was away in Osaka on a tournament trip. We headed off to the bank in the morning. We discussed the pros and cons of Gunma Bank and I mentioned to her that I’d like internet banking. She ended up getting me an account at a different bank, Ryokin. I think they have better access across Japan. Now I just have to wait for my atm card to come in the mail. As a foreigner, all we get is a cash card that you can use at ATMs. No debit or credit cards right from the get go.

We also went to fill out more paperwork to transfer gas and water for automatic withdrawal, and we visited my rental company. They served us tea while Ichigo-sensei kindly filled out forms for me all day, and I stamped my seal everywhere. Right near here was a gelato shop owned by the mother of one of my students. Must go! And next door, a local produce market. Supposedly fruits and veggies are a bit cheaper here.

Ichigo-sensei got me lunch!

We then headed off to go shopping at a large grocery store, Beisa. On the way, we stopped at Yamada Denki, an electronics shop, so that I could buy an adapter for my laptop. Beisa is like a slightly smaller Walmart. It carried the same diversity of products, and was definitely a large supermarket. I randomly picked some staple items and tried out edamame chips. I nearly had a heart attack at the fruit and veggie prices though. Gah! One avocado was $1.30. I later found out this was the cheapest grocery store too. All the packaging sizes were tiny as well. I’m used to European sizes, but this was even smaller! The tiniest little things. A bag of potatoes could hold 3-4 potatoes. I think I will be shopping all the time.

La Maison - French style resturant

After dropping my groceries off at home, we returned to school. After school, I took my bike out for a spin to McDonald’s in the search of wifi. I was trying to get my sim card ordered and my wifi application completed, both of which I needed internet for. McD’s was really close but over a steep bridge for my 6-speed bike. No wifi. I turned back home a desperate women. Still not feeling that well food wise, so dinner was small.

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.

Both of my roommates had to leave much earlier than I so I was woken up quite early. Ended up packing all my things together and promptly forgetting the shampoo and conditioner I bought in the shower. I went down to breakfast in a different room than usual since everything was split up into smaller rooms this morning. I sat with a Nashville friend, and as breakfast went on, we managed to gather a whole table full. It was nice to see them all one last time before we were separated. After breakfast, I took my things downstairs and called my family with the lobby wifi. I wasn’t sure when I would have wifi again.

I met up with the rest of the Gunma group as we awaited our departure time. Once our bus had arrived, I followed the line out into the heat. The cicadas were quite active. I could still load my large bag under the bus, yay! I sat next to K, the other ALT going to my town. I stared out the window for most of the ride despite the haziness. Apparently the humidity here is so strong, it distorts your view. We stopped at a rest stop in Saitama. I bought a milk tea that had Fairy Tail on it, ha. Sadly I then had to carry the empty bottle around with me. Japan has no public trashcans. Your best bet is outside convenience stores or vending machines. You also have to remember to sort your trash. Take the bottle lid off and remove the plastic labeling because those go in a different bin than the bottle itself.

During the drive, all the SHS ALTs practiced our Japanese intro speeches for tomorrow. Ick! We arrived in Maebashi at the Kencho building (the prefectural government office) after about a 2 hour drive. The expressway is not so express-like. There was a lot of traffic and the speed limits are really low. We unloaded all our luggage and locked it up in a room. Then we went across the street to the main building, the tallest building in Maebashi so you can spot it easily. There was an adorable statue of Gunma-chan, our prefectural mascot, outside. It won first place in the mascot competition this past year. It’s a gender-less, 7 year old pony. On the basement floor of the kencho was a Gunma-chan shop. You could buy so many things with Gunma-chan on them.

We went to have lunch in the cafeteria there. Very overwhelming. Everything in Japanese only. I couldn’t even do the point and say kudasai (please) trick, because there were different stations that served many different things. Lots of side dishes as well. I wanted to have udon, but then I was asked questions in Japanese and wham the language barrier really hit me for the first time. I tried to express myself, but I had to ask the other ALTs around me to find one who spoke Japanese. Frustrating for the servers as well as me, I’m sure. I managed to get my food and an eggplant tempura. Check out was interesting, because they weigh your tray and that determines the cost. Free water and tea, yay, like every restaurant I have been to in Japan.

After lunch we had a bit of free time, so I wandered around with two other JETs. We stopped by a restroom where two toilets were bidets as per usual, but the other two stalls had the squat toilets! Last time I saw those was in France at a rest station. I’ll stick with the toilets, thanks. We went to the top floor to get a view of Maebashi. Very impressive. Japanese cities are quite large and clustered. Maebashi has a population of 2 million people, I think. The neighboring city, Takasaki, is actually larger at 3 million. We also stopped on another floor that had a diorama of Gunma. You could see where the cities were located and how relatively tall the mountains were. Luckily I had memorized my city’s kanji so I could identify where it was.

We went back to the building across the street for our ceremony. Suit jackets back on and the sweating begins. Air con is almost non-existent. The temperature indoors is usually around 30 C. We all sat in our chairs, suffocating, as a bunch of Gunma officials were introduced. My name was actually the first to be called, ha. I walked up to the front with my squeaky shoes (too much sweat!) and shook hands and bowed to my JTE, Iowa-sensei, from my school. We went through all thirty of the new JETs in this manner. As soon as it was over, jackets came off. I grabbed my luggage and headed with Iowa-sensei to his car, saying goodbye to some of my new friends along the way.

The car garage was an automatic one! The attendants had to call your car and it would be delivered from the depths of the garage. It was crazy. I’ve only seen one of these once before in Europe. Soon we were off in his Prius. It took about an hour to drive to Tomioka. We made some good polite conversation. I’m never much of a talker especially in cars, but hopefully I made a decent first impression. He drove me to my school first. The building is a decent size for a high school. The hallways are all outside with sliding doors leading to classrooms. The building looks relatively new, especially compared with some of ones I’ve seen.

I was given some indoor guest slippers that I promptly slid around in because I was wearing pantyhose and my feet were too big for them. Iowa-sensei introduced me to the office workers first, and then we went upstairs to the teacher’s room where I gave my brief self intro. Fooled them into thinking that I spoke Japanese, hehe. Then we went next door to Kocho-sensei’s office, the principal. He used to be an English teacher for 20 years so he speaks really well. We sat down on his sofa and chairs, and I was served green tea! Very strong and delicious. We talked a lot about Sabrina the movie, Audrey Hepburn, and Sabrina pants. And had a long discussion with Iowa-sensei about how to spell my last name in katakana with a non-negative sound.

He took me on a tour of the building. We popped into the room where several third years were studying even during the middle of summer break. Then he showed me the gym where students were doing their club sport. Clubs are very important and students practice every day even on weekends and vacation. We also stopped by the library where they had a small collection of English books. The art room had these huge sculptures. I hope I can join the art club. That at least requires no Japanese skill. He talked to me about the students and how well behaved this school was, about the handball team that went to Nationals last year. They even have one student who will be in the U-18 Japan team and is going to India.

After we returned to his office, Iowa-sensei met us there and took me downstairs to collect my heavy, huge suitcases. The zipper was broken off on one of the outer pockets, but otherwise they seemed in okay shape. I was glad they had already arrived, because I had heard that it could take longer and I didn’t have any extra clothes packed in my carry on. We then drove to my house where I unloaded myself. Iowa-sensei helped in lugging the suitcases along. I took off my shoes in the genkan as is only proper (especially since sensei was there watching!).

The apartment is quite nice! I have lots of space, a hallway, bedroom, bathroom, toilet, kitchen/dining room, and a living room that has a sliding door. Also a patio! All wood floors too. Much easier to clean than tatami. The air con unit is in the living room so that’ll probably become my bedroom, ha.

We then went on a drive. He drove me back and forth between school and my home so I would know the way for tomorrow. He pointed out the police station, a drug store, the post office, and drove by my closest grocery store. He then dropped me off at home and said that he was leaving on a trip, but K-sensei would take me around to places tomorrow and drive me to Maebashi with K (the other Tomioka SHS ALT) for the appointment ceremony.

First things, first, air con on! My pred had left an old futon out for me. I had no sheets though. I found the blanket for the kotatsu that had a lined side that felt less furry and hot. I draped that over the mattress and used another blanket as a pillow. She had also left a reading type pillow, a black cat, so I used that as well. I explored the house briefly, mostly checking all the cabinets in the kitchen and fridge to see what my pred had left behind. I ate a lychee flavored ice cream and unpacked my laptop. I managed to find a free 15 min wifi trial, thank goodness, and sent a message to my family to let them know I had arrived.

Then the tears came. Honestly, I was rather tired, felt a bit sick, and was massively overwhelmed by all the information that had been thrust my direction all day. Cue the panic, could I do this? In a place so far away and different, knowing no one nearby at all? After all trying to get food for lunch was such a disaster, did I have the skills to continue? So I had just finished my good cry when the doorbell rang. Oh no! Who would come back now? I tried to compose myself but I knew it was hopeless. Upon opening my door, who was it but my principal. *face palm* He said he had come by to ensure I was okay and had everything I needed, before he left on his vacation. He then promptly remarked on my teary face. I told him it was just a bit of homesickness and that I was fine, but he insisted on giving me his number at school and private one, as well as Ichigo-sensei, my supervisor. So kind, yet also a bit awkward to show your red-eyed face to your boss on the first day you met him.

After he left, I used a prepackaged container of rice and a can of tuna to “make” dinner. I didn’t feel like leaving the apartment or going to the convenience store around the corner. I ate two bites before I got really nauseous and decided it’d be a good idea to stop eating before I threw up. I think the water finally got to me. There’s always that adjustment period when you switch your usual habits. I laid down and ended up chewing a lot of tums as I tried not to vomit. At some point I must have drifted off to sleep.