The first two weeks

Well I'm here. After what seemed like forever of goodbye coffees, lunches and dinner it was finally time to head off for Japan (again!) although this time its going to be quite a bit different....Heres how my first two weeks went down.

Tokyo Orientation
This was a couple of days (with about 800 foreigners in Keio Plaza Hotel, Shinjuku) of "what to expect and how to deal with it" lectures, roleplays, panel discussions and meetings - which were useful but it was a bit intense getting back into the swing of Japanese. Also managed to find a little bit of time in the evenings to catch up with a bunch of my uni friends in Tokyo on Monday night at a little izakaya and met Juliette for cake and mojitos on Tuesday night after a "good luck, do NZ proud" little event at the NZ Embassy. Good to get to know a few of the other kiwis and a bunch of Brits, Canadians and Americans on the programme (who are all scattered around the country now)

Leaving for Sakai
On Wednesday morning (4 Aug) Junya showed up at my hotel room door at 6:30am (luckily my roommates were already awake as they were heading away earlier than me) on his way home from work, so we sat outside in the blazing morning sun and had a beer and a nice catch up. That day we were all heading off in our seperate directions and because Im the only JET in my city it was just my supervisor (Tsuda-san) and I taking the shinkansen (bullet train) to Shin-Osaka. The ride was nice, and much more comfortable than the night bus which Im more used to taking between East and West Japan from my student days. Arrived at 3ish, quickly dropped my bags at home then it was off to the office to meet everyone.

My apartment
Because the CIR before me is still in the Osaka region for a little bit (and he's moved up to Namba to be closer to his girlfriend) Ive ended up with a completely brand new apartment. Its very pretty and has lots of awesome features like "autofill" on the bathtub but other than that there was nothing inside when I arrived. Luckily on my first Friday I managed to get a few things off a friend of a friend - bed, little table, TV (without aerial), rice cooker (without inner bowl) and menu style microwave (which doesnt let you cook something for 2 minutes but instead lets you choose to cook one microwave pizza). Went shopping on Saturday to pick up a little sofa, spare mattress for visitors and duvet covers and inners for when it gets cold (although still need to pick up sheets). On Monday hopefully I will be able to get a fridge, washing machine, bike and a few other house bits and pieces off the old CIR and I'll put up some pictures of my place in my next blog post.

Food
Without a fridge, and with only one pot, meals have been a little bit limited but at least I can boil water now and heat up microwave rice, curry and instant noodles. Luckily I was out to dinner most of last week; Sushi (Wed), Okonomiyaku (Thur), Izakaya (Fri), Buffet (Sat) etc - check out my food album at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026477&id=220000480&l=00a42d4377  hopefully it will soon be filled with all kinds of Japanese deliciousness


Work
Its about a 15 minute work from my place to work (or a Y150 train ride one station if its raining or stupidly hot), Im on the 4th floor of the Sakai City Council Building which is pretty from the outside but feels like people are a bit crammed in on the inside. Most people work on laptops (apart from me because the person two before me spilt coffee on it) the desks are tiny and the chairs non adjustable (the health and safety HR side of me is screaming out so I have rearranged my desk so Im not going to cause myself permanent injury and have adjusted the height of the screen by piling some old books under it) and there is one telephone between each pod of 4 people. There is no staffroom or microwave just a little room with a sink and tea making facilities (everyone chips in to pay for the tea, coffee etc). Women eat their bento at their desk and the men often go out for lunch which is from 12-12:45 (no flexitime) with a bell at the start and end (kind of like school) and you have to clock in and out when you start / leave work. 

In terms of workload, things have been pretty busy considering its my first week and a half. Have had lots of translating to do for the Sakai Soccer National Training Centre brochure, letters filled with technical feminist words to people in the UN, pamphlets for the Fire Service and some Wellington schoolkids impressions of Japan from a school trip in 2008. Also had a night of interpretting at a 9 course dinner (we were just sitting behind, not eating) for some people from the South African Embassy in Tokyo who were in town for South African Womans Day

Technology
In a country where I can autofill my bath to whatever temperature I want by pushing one button, for some reason its too hard for my work to give me an email address (I think mainly because it takes a lot of signoff and they just cant be bothered) so I have set up a gmail to use at work which is nice because it means I can check personal emails to that address at the same time, although my computer is so old trying to get some information off a CD the other day crashed it. It took us four visits to the bank to get me an account, and seems cellphone shops have become more distrusting of foreigners since I was here last as they wont let me order a phone until I have my alien registration card (which takes a month) or my National Insurance Card (which Im still waiting for) so will check out some big electronic stores in Osaka this weekend and I havent looked into internet yet because Im hooking into someones unsecured wireless at the moment which is nice because Skype is my lifeline to the world for now.

So the first couple of weeks have been a bit up and down with a few frustrating moments due to Japanese bureacracy and the limitations of working in local government where penny is accountable. It has been tough getting off the train and starting straight into work that afternoon with little time to explore the area and needing to furnish my flat / set up my life here on the weekends. Havent had the chance to really meet anyone here yet so the evenings have been pretty quiet but Im sure I'll get into the swing of it soon enough :)