Finally!

Hello everyone! I am so happy to finally have this blog up. It took a lot of patience, mostly from the extremely willing Japanese staff at the Leopalace, but my home internet works :). The Leopalace is the name of a nationwide apartment facility- at least I think so. I believe they have some sort of contract set up with Nichii Gakkan, my employer, so that they house foreign employees with no place to live. But I'll get into living arrangements later because get ready folks, I am about to tell my first tale of my blog: the first 12 days of my life in Japan!

Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this story...
JAPAN: Entered

It was a comfortable early morning, that of the 25 of January, 2013, in which I arrived at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. After some goodbyes, airport security, and breakfast tacos, I was well on my way. The layover in LAX was nondescript at best what with wavering wifi and expensive airport food. And then finally, it happened. Singapore Airlines, flight 11 to Tokyo was boarding. Oh ma goodness, this double-decker plane was just a dream of the 90's and now I am boarding an enormous Airbus a380? Wikipedia it, it's huge. Although I was stuck in the middle seat of the middle row of Economy, I didn't mind too much. I had a seat next to me that was empty so, with proper maneuvering, I could utilize the extra leg room of the empty seat while giving the Japanese man next to me just enough space to maintain comfort. Despite my slightly taller-than-usual size, everyone knows that fitting into the Economy seats is an art, and I believe it is one that I mastered that day. Word is that Singapore Airlines is one of the best airlines around and boy, that word is the truth. Hot towels administered multiple times during the flight, braised beef option or traditional Japanese with teriyaki salmon? Yes please! Many naps and a few Japanese lessons via in-flight entertainment later, not to mention the viewings of Pitch Perfect and Bernie, the massive air tank landed gracefully in Tokyo. Past customs was Dan, the very man who interviewed me over Skype. After waiting for another flight to land, Dan, a fellow instructor, and I made our way through the train system to Kashiwa where the other instructor's and my hotel was. Dan made it back to his house that night and us girls got our first taste of Japanese life. Small showers, small hotel rooms, small everything, leave your shoes at the door. The next morning, we finally found our way to the training center and were met by one of our trainers who taught us about Japanese culture that morning, took us to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant for lunch, and showed us two of the COCO Juku schools that would be similar to the ones we would work at. The head company I work for is Nichii Gakkan, but that has multiple branches including a healthcare branch and some other cool stuff, and only recently did they open up the education branch. COCO Juku is the name of the schools: COCO for Communication Competence and Juku which basically means school.

TRAINING: Monday 28-Friday 1

Every day training began at 9 and lasted until 18:00 (oh yes, I will be using 24 hour time as much as possible) with an hour for lunch served in the cafeteria. There was a lot of boring, so I'll keep the description brief. We got practice teaching lessons which was great not only to build confidence in lesson planning the COCO Juku way, but also to learn what techniques our fellow trainees have utilized in the past. We also learned a lot about what Nichii Gakkan has done and what their goals are for COCO Juku. A little background information: COCO Juku has only been a reality since April of 2012 so most schools do not have a full staff and many don't even have students yet (including mine!). We obviously aim to provide the best English learning possible, and we do so by many means but a big seller is that we offer classes with two teachers. This way, we can work in two different cultures who both speak English (hopefully a mix of American and British or Australian) and teach the differences between them as well. The point is, I gained an unexpected amount of respect for my company, even though we are just starting and have a few little bugs to work out of the system (but doesn't everyone?). So training was fun and we got to eat out around Shin-Kashiwa (where the training center actually is, called New Kashiwa) and the bigger, more exciting Kashiwa. I had my first and second hamburger for breakfast while at the training center, as well as my first salad for breakfast. Very interesting times. I was glad to be there but even more so when I got to move to Matsue.

MOVING: Saturday Feb. 2

Hauling a 20 kilo suitcase and an 18 kilo duffel bag around trains, monorails, an airport, and a bus is not a fun thing to do and golly am I glad it's over. Waiting for me at the Matsue station were four women: Izumi and Naoko, who are counselors that I work with, Yamamoto my branch manager, and Kakayama my section manager. Japanese culture fact: everyone is very respectful of one another. For example, I do not call my branch manager by her first name, which I don't know, or even her last name, Yamamoto. I call her Shitenchou (sh'ten-choh) which literally means branch manager. Many more examples of Japanese respect are to come. Anyway, I got to my little apartment and these wonderful four women went to work helping me get my paperwork sorted, checking to make sure everything works, waiting for the man to turn on my gas, the list goes on. After that was complete, Naoko, who speaks the best English out of the group, took me to get basics for my apartment: two pad things I stack on top of each other for a mattress, an extra blanket, chopsticks and plates (yes, I have converted to chopsticks. Trying to find forks anywhere is useless), and more. We then went grocery shopping so I wouldn't starve - hooray! That night, I was taken out to a lovely dinner by Shitenchou, Izumi, and Naoko and we had all sorts of food from fish to veggies to octopus to pizza to edamame. It was delicious. I got back to my apartment and set up the bare necessities before crashing for the night.

LEARNING: Sunday 3-present

That Sunday I had off of work, so I wandered to the 100 yen store (with current conversion rates, that equals $1 so that is handy) and bought a bunch of cheap stuff for the apartment. That is a 15 minute walk one way. Then I made sure I could get to work, another 15 minute walk away. Matsue station is across the street from my work, and they have free wifi so you know I stood outside in the cold as long as I could stand it to get in touch with everyone I could. I made my way back home and then to the 100 yen store again because there is a lot to buy when you start almost from scratch, and stopped at the supermarket on the way home. That supermarket is 5 minutes away, but I get the idea I am getting ripped off, so I am going to shop around (ha! Get it? shop.. for shops. yes). I showed up for work Monday and it happened to be the first day the school was open! Izumi, Naoko, and I are the only ones working there right now but we are supposed to get another instructor in about a week and a half. Without any students, life around the office has been pretty slow. I try to make lesson plans and familiarize myself with the textbooks, but it is difficult to plan for students who don't yet exist. When I am not doing that, I am either having Izumi or Naoko help me figure out all of my paperwork or running around Matsue registering myself with the city, learning about Japan's crazy trash system, trying and failing to buy a Japanese cell phone, the list goes on. Today was cool because I learned to write my name in katakana, which is one of the four ways of written communication in Japan. Katakana and hiragana are two alphabets that have somewhat similar sounds to English letters, they also use kanji, which are Chinese characters, in almost every sentence, and rarely things are spelled out in the Roman alphabet probably just for foreigners.

INTERESTING FACTS
It has been a long day and my concentration is failing me so I will leave you with a few things I have learned that I think are neato.

1. When giving or receiving things, use two hands. Almost always unless it is an extremely casual situation, and even then it depends. It shows that you respect what you are giving and being given.
2. A similar topic, giving and receiving business cards is a very methodical and formal ceremony. When given a business card (or a gift), you accept it with both hands and read over the entire card carefully. If you are going to be in the person's presence for a longer amount of time, you leave the business card displayed on your desk neatly. Again, respect.
3. In general, the Japanese try to burn their trash. They separate it into burnable, nonburnable (plastics that aren't plastic bottles), plastic bottles, and metals. I think that's all of the categories. They have many more trash collection days that we do, usually multiple burnable collection days per week.
4. Unless you are a thug guarding your turf, do not put your hands in your pockets. Ever. Bitter cold, slightly snowing, wind cutting like ice? You brave it, my friend. I have learned to bring gloves with me everywhere.
5. If you aren't working hard, work harder. If you are working hard, work harder. Japanese are generally workaholics.
6. I am not as much of a giant as I thought I would be. Although I am taller than probably 95% of people I would consider "old," there are a number of 20-30 year olds who are close enough to my height to not make me feel totally strange.
7. Most public toilets have heated seats and spray, bidet, music, flushing noise, and extreme deodorizing functions. So far, I have abstained from any extraneous button pushing.

As of yet, I am the most thankful for the support I am getting back home, my picture Japanese-English dictionary (thanks, swimmers), and my amazing winter jacket. And duh the fact that I'm here relatively unscathed.

Soon to come: deets on my tiny apartment, more about my job, other customs, more life!

Comments are welcomed, questions are encouraged. Sayonara!