Exploring Handa

So yesterday after school I went exploring around town. There is a Mos burger, they have delicious burgers, and a karaoke place right across from my apartment. There are 7-11s everywhere! Down the main street about 15\20 minutes away there is a mcdonalds, kfc, baskin robins, and a dennys...so i have too much american food near by. There are a couple of department stores close, but i havent tried to see if the clothes fit me yet, but august is sale season so im going to go shopping this weekend and check it out. Handa is the largest city in the Chita peninsula with a population of about 117,000 and it is located near the coast, i have to go beach hunting next week. Yesterday kawai-sensei took me to get my alien registration card and then to the bank to open an account, so i have all the basics covered...and dont worry mom i think i still have some money, but next week friday i am going into nagoya for alt orientation and im sure ill be partying with the other jets...haha. Today all the lady english teachers are taking me out to lunch and right now i am working on my self-introduction, which i will be presenting to the students during the first week of classes and also studying my japanese so i can have some kind of a conversation with my neighbors, who i havent met yet. I will have to post pictures of my apartment because its so hilarious i cant even describe it. I can barely fit in it so it will be interesting if anyone comes to visit haha, but i encourage anyone who wants to to come, japan is pretty amazing thus far (but apparently i am still in phase 1 of culture shock-euphoria-so i may be singing a different tune when phase 2-frustration-hits. haha i got that from a speech at jet orientation. i will post pictures as soon as i have internet in my apartment and who knows when that will be, my surpervisor katsumata-sensei is gone on a buisness trip and will be back monday to sort out all that and take me to the other two schools i am teaching at! thats all for now, hope all is well in the states. LOVE YOU! shitsureshimasu.

Handa Here I Come

Hello again!! Tuesday morning we all got up and listened to a bunch of speeches from the Ministry of Education in Japan which were entertaining but altogether useless. Then I made an executive decision to skip some of the workshops to take a nap, but then went to listen to workshops about team teaching and senior high schools (which is where i am teaching) in Japan. We got done with all the conferences around 5 and then had to take our luggage down to be shipped to our contracting organization. Then me and some guys from my prefecture decided to go out and exlore tokyo a little. We took the train to harajuku to see the lolita girls and mountain hags (a term for japanese women who are hyper tan with their hair dyed blonde and crazy frosty make-up on. I love Harajuku, way too much crazy fashion. After that we went to shibuya which has the worlds largest intersection, seriously millions of people and bright lights everywhere. Then it started to rain so we went back to the hotel and called it an early night. Wednesday morning we had to be down in the lobby at 9:30 to catch the shinkansen, bullet train, to Nagoya. It took us about 2 and half hours to get there and I was greeted by huge signs with LAUREN on them, it was great. They really go treat us like celebrities here. The vice principal of Handa High and an english teacher, Kawai-sensei, were there to greet me. They tok me out for a sweet, as they called it, in order to welcome me. Then they drove me into Handa, which is only 30 minutes by train outside of Nagoya, the capital of Aichi prefecture. When we got to Handa we went staight to the school and they took me on a tour. The school is Huge...it has a swimming pool, soccer field, handball field, tennis courts, a baseball field, a track...it is three buildings connected by corridors...i couldnt believe how huge it was! After that Kawai-sensei took me to get pictures for my alien registration card and to the supermarket. It is surprising easy to tell what is what and my Japanese is getting better already. Right next to the school is a 7 Eleven, which is not only convient but awesome. I have already drank my fair share of Fanta, which tastes way better here than in the states. Then We went to my apartment and sorted everything out with the landlady, who took ALL my money...its way too expensive here! But my apartment is cozy and they put in new wallpaper, so it looks very nice and clean...and there is air conditioning thank god! its fricken hot here! anyways, after that i decided to wander the city and go back to the grocery store. I got lost. It took me about an hour to get to grocery store that is literally 5 minutes away. sad... but then i went back to the apartment took a shower and went to bed, yesterday was a long and hard day. This morning, thursday, i got to school at 9 and met the students in the english club, who showed me around the school. They are so shy, but so cute all in there uniforms and they giggle at everything...but they are really looking forward to me helping them with their speeches for the english competition in september. All the students are on summer break right now, but they come to school a lot to study and do activites, very different from us haha! But anyways i have to get back to my desk to eat lunch...a rice ball and yogurt, man i miss pizza! ps. this computer at the school is all in japanese so i have no idea what im typing and if its right, so good luck reading it!! love you all!

Tokyo Arrival

Ohayo gozaimasu!!

Im here in Shinjuku, Tokyo staying at the Keio Plaza Hotel (5 star hotel). 184 JETs from Chicago arrived at Narita International Airport around 3pm Sunday afternoon and then we all hoped on buses and sat the 2 hour drive to the hotel. When we got to the hotel we were greeted by tons of former JETs and given massive amounts of papers and books and sent up to our rooms. I have two roommates--Danielle, who went to Madison and is in the same prefecture as me (there are 4 people who graduated from Madison in the same prefecture!!) and Ashley--and the room is so nice, a lot different from where I will be living tomorrow! Then a couple of people and I went exploring around Shinjuku--lots of lights, karaoke bars, pachinko parlors, etc etc etc...Monday we had conferences all day and workshops on how to adjust to life in Japan and cultural shock...unfortunately I slept through most of those (I blame it on jet lag not the fact that they were SO boring) and then we had some pretty cool seminars on japanese popular culture--telling us all about the popular J-pop bands and manga/anime to watch and discuss with the kids. Then we had a huge dinner with all the big wigs of CLAIR (the gov agency that not only sponsers but basically runs the JET programme). We were not allowed to drink or eat until they said kanpai (cheers) and then proceeded to drink lots of japanese beer. During dinner I met all the Irish Jets and have decided they are the ones to hang out with, since Irish are the best after all. After that everyone from our prefecture (Aichi) went out for karaoke, which let me tell you is AWESOME in japan! They take you to a small room with lots of black lights and disco balls and its all you can drink for 2000 yen! We sang for hours--mostly backstreet boys and awful american music and even tried some japanese songs...those didn't work too well! Then came home went to bed and am now getting ready for breakfast and another day of conferences, cant wait!!