Updates...

Well, it's been a busy weekend in Kamo! I'm feeling much more settled into my apartment now and a little less anxious about this whole just-moved-to-Japan affair in general. Major highlights of the past few days have been:

1. Gospel choir practice at the Kamo community center: Friday night, Tomoko, one of my predecessor’s friends invited me out to the Kamo community center to see her gospel choir practice. Yes, gospel choir practice – we’re talking 15-20 Japanese men and women singing “This Little Light of Mine”, “Amazing Grace”, and the arrangement of “Joyful, Joyful” from Sister Act 2. It was pretty amusing, all in all. Somehow, I made the mistake of telling Tomoko that my choir had sung the same song in junior high – and now they want me to “teach” them the solo part next week. Hrm.

2. Dinner at Pinokio: Julia, another friend of my predecessor’s invited me to go to a cute little restaurant called Pinokio – she told me that my predecessor used to go there practically every day and actually taught the chef how to make one of the desserts on the menu. Anyway, I had tuna pasta, similar to at home. Julia is Filipina and very active in Kamo's International Association. She came to Tokyo as a singer 17 years ago, married a Japanese man, and has been living in Kamo ever since. I gather that she was very close to Geraldine and helped her out a lot - she likes to help out all of the foreigners here and acts as a counselor to those in international marriages...

3. Guitar concert / Impromptu welcome party / Acquisition of a car: Julia also invited me to a guitar concert at the home of John Okada, a well-known guitarist around here. He had his traditional-style Japanese home remodeled so that the upper floor is a small club. Anyway, the concert was fun - he played a fair number of English songs like Hotel California and Stand By Me. Eventually, the concert devolved into various audience members going up to jam with each other on stage. I went with Julia, a couple of Russian exchange students, and a couple of older businessmen who are taking English classes from Julia. Afterwards we went to Pinokio for drinks and talking. Eventually, we went to the third-floor for karaoke. I had a delicious seafood pizza, pineapple, etc. and sang and danced. The businessmen were *hilarious*. And one of them, a good friend of Julia's and my predecessor's, *gave* me a car. Pretty crazy. I don't think I can fully describe the bizarreness of it all. :) But it was fun...


The jam session after the concert...

Anyway, today I'm back at work, checking my email and looking through some of the junior high textbooks to acquaint myself with the types of things I will be teaching... Omi-sensei took me to Sanjo to order Internet service on Friday, so I should have that set up in two or three weeks (yay!). Better run for now!

Pictures!

It's been a busy past few days, but I managed to take a few pictures of my apartment and just a couple of the surrounding area. The outside pics aren't a great representation of what Kamo looks like, so I'll have to get out to take a few more pictures of the river, the park, etc. Anyway, here's what I've got so far:


My apartment building, "Fragrance" - I'm the unit on the upper-right...


My living room (with kotatsu table)...


Kitchen...


My tatami room/bedroom (I was still unpacking at the time)...


The other half of my tatami room/bedroom...


Looking at my apartment from one end to the other...


What I see from my living room window...


What I see from my bedroom veranda...


The street in front of my apartment...


The street full of boutiques about one block over...


The Omi Shrine, located very near to my apartment...

Hello from Kamo!

Well, after two hectic days of orientation in Tokyo, I'm vaguely settled in to my new apartment in the small city of Kamo, in the Niigata prefecture of Japan. The Tokyo orientation was busy and filled with literally pounds of paperwork. But it was a lot of fun. I think the thing I was most struck by was the number of different types of English I heard spoken - British, Irish, Scottish, Kiwi, Australian, American (with various accents), Japanese... My ears were working overtime to decipher the meaning of all of these different sounds. And I found my own language being tempted to adapt to different types of pronunciation. It took effort to keep my flat West Coast style. :) Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and rather like a huge international convention. There are about 2,600 new JET participants this year, from 44 countries. A lot from the U.S., but definitely a healthy smattering of other countries as well. We totally took over the Keio Plaza hotel for two days. Unfortunately, I was pretty wiped out from the plane, so I spent most of my time either attending workshops or resting. I'm confident I'll make it over to Tokyo sometime in the near future, so I wasn't too anxious to go out and about. And after all, I was here about nine months ago. One of the highlights of the orientation was an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink "night out" with the other Niigata JETs. That was pretty fun... Met some nice people. Hopefully I'll get to see them again.

Anyway, I'm at my first day of work today at Kamo Junior High School. I have my own desk in the teachers' room - and a computer with broadband, thank goodness. All of the kids are on vacation right now, but many are here participating in various sports and club activities. I think I'm just kind of hanging out at the office and orienting myself for now, which is fine by me. I'm running out of time at the moment (it's time for lunch soon and then I have to go to get my alien registration card), but Kamo is a very cute little city. With a population of about 35,000, it's not too big and not too small. I explored a little bit today and am planning on doing more this weekend - I'll be posting pictures on Monday, most likely. Everyone has been really nice to me, helping me to get settled in. And my apartment is also very cute. One thing's for sure - I'm really glad I speak a fair amount of Japanese, otherwise I would probably be terrified out of my mind. It's still fairly intimidating, even when you've spent the last seven or eight years learning about how things are done in a country.

Details and pictures on Monday, I promise! Or maybe sooner, if I find the public library (which has free Internet). Still in the process of getting my own access set up from my apartment. Little by little, I'll get it all figured out...

I'm here!

Hello everyone! I'm happy to announce that I have arrived safely at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo. The flight was the nicest flight I've ever been on. Ever. Well, except for the one time I flew first class to the Philippines. The plane was actually roomy, and they had an amazing built-in screen in front of every seat where you could select different movies or play music or play solitaire (and that nifty computer mahjong matching game I was so addicted to as a child). I watched Kung Fu Hustle on the way over. And barely slept at all. But it was fun. :) The JET Program people have things amazingly well set up for us here - I'm very impressed. I feel so pampered - and really grateful that I don't have to be figuring out logistics on my own. Anyway, it's 4 or 5 am here, and I'm trying to beat the really long Internet/phone lines for a few minutes. I've been meeting people and testing out my Japanese knowledge. And it's been mostly successful so far. :)

More updates when I have more time (and after I figure out where to get a phone card and change some money)! Much love!

The big day...

Well, this is it - the laptop is being packed away and I'm doing the final double-checking for my 2:35 pm flight to Japan. Once I get there, it'll be roughly 5:00 pm on July 24, Tokyo time. We stay in Tokyo for July 25 and 26, attending various orientation sessions before being retrieved by people from our respective prefectures and being taken to our new homes.

Next time I write, it's from Japan!

The clearing haze...

Little by little, I've been getting information of what it is I'll actually be doing in Niigata. This handy bit of information came in the form of a letter from the Prefectural Board of Education a couple of days ago:

You will be living in Kamo. Your base school, which you will visit approximately 3 times per week is Kamo Junior High School. Once a week you will visit your regular school, Wakamiya. You will also have one shot schools, Osaki and Tagami, that you will visit once a week on alternating weeks. Your working days are 8:10 until 4:55 Monday to Thursdays and from 8:10 until 11:10 on Fridays.

• Monday: One shot
  
• Tuesday: Regular
  
• Wednesday: Base
  
• Thursday: Base
  
• Friday: Base

And this even more informative email from my predecessor cleared up a lot of living details:

Hello Kristi,

Well, first, I want to congratulate you on your acceptance to the JET Programme. You will have an unbelievable time here, in the quaint little city of Kamo. Let me introduce myself. My name is Geraldine and I come from South Africa. I have lived and worked in Kamo for the past 2 years and have enjoyed my time immensely. The people are friendly and you will have everything you need (such as bank, grocery store, post office) within walking distance or a hop on the local train. Your apartment is about a 2 minute walk to the station, which is great if you want to visit other places or friends. The beautiful Kamoyama Park is just down the road from your apartment, and is especially lovely in summer, spring and fall. Kamo offers an abundance in nature and a camera is a definite must. I am going to give you some basic information and some of it, you may already know but please bear with me.

Life in Kamo
Kamo is relatively small with a population size of about 30,000 people. Kamo has a nice, quaint feel about but if you are in the mood to paint the town red, then the bigger cities of Niigata and Nagaoka is just 40 minutes away on the train if you feel like a night out on the town. People are very friendly and helpful and they love it when ALT's participate in community events. Kamo has a international association which offers many events and it is always good fun to join in every once and a while. I have met many wonderful people there, not only foreigners but also Japanese people that want to improve their English. Kamo also have many festivals such as the Kamo river festival on August 14th which culminates in a big firework show. It was a lot of fun!

Your job
You will work at junior high school only, with Kamo JHS as your base school. You will go to Wakamiya, Osaki in Sanjo city which is 2 train stops away and Tagami (also 2 train stops away) from Kamo. At the moment, I visit 5 schools and visit Tagami only once a month but that might change for you...I don't know. Students are friendly especially at Wakamiya and Tagami but overall they are shy but it gets better when they get to know you. For your introduction lessons (you'll have many of these), make sure to bring lots of material about your home country (flag, map, pics, stickers and anything that you can think of). You have to go to the Chuetsu BOE once a month for the monthly meetings where you and other ALT's will meet with Mr Shimizu and exchange lesson plans etc. There are loads of lesson plans that im leaving either at the apartment or at the base school.

Your apartment
You will be residing at Fragrance 202...I love that name! Anyways the apartment is spacious enough for me and it gets a lot of light which is good especially in the winter. You have a 6 mat tatami room with a verandah, a little kitchen, a living room with the best piece of furniture known to mankind....a kotatsu table with a heated carpet which is just perfect for the cold winter in Niigata. You also have a western toilet, don't know if you will be upset about that. Im leaving you basic things like towels, bedding, sheets, kitchenware behind so don't worry about that. It gets quite cold in the winter and though you have a heater and obviously a air conditioner, bring lots of layers for winter. Oh yeah, you also have a parking spot, which is free. I didn't have the need for a car but if you can get one, so much the better.

On a final note, everyone has a different experience in Japan and im sure yours will be wonderful, remember that a smile goes a long way and just have fun teaching. If you have any more questions or concerns about things that seems unclear please feel free to contact me via e-mail or call me.

Warm Regards,
Geraldine

All in all, it sounds like a good setup. Now all I've got to do is get there. :) Less than two weeks to go.