Tokyo orientation

　　　　　Upon my arrival in Japan on August 5th, I along with 1000 other native speakers of English were deposited via bus at the Keio Plaza Hotel in the heart of Tokyo, 2 blocks from shinjuku station. There, we were subjected to long boring speeches from government officials, as well many workshops that were pretty useless. However, some were beneficial to those like me who have no prior teaching experience, and I suffered through all of them to find the good ones. My advice?　Go to any workshop on teaching that you can so that you have some idea of what to do come September. The nights were pretty standard Tokyo-fare. Going out, getting drunk, and making your way back to the hotel to sleep it off. My nights were pretty tame as I was still tired as hell from the plane ride over, but make the most of it if you can. Orientation lasted from the 5th, a sunday, to wednesday the 8th when we were all herded off to our respective prefectures (the fukuoka-ken JETs went by plane to Fukuoka airport). I was surprised to see that we took a 747 jumbo jet (capacity 400 ppl) from Tokyo to Fukuoka, a 1 hour 20 minute flight, but I guess in a country as condensed as Japan (population about 133 million), jumbo jets are necessary.

　　　　　After meeting my supervisors, a very nice woman fluent in english named Kobukata-sensei, who studied at ball state for a year, and a man named higuchi-sensei who only speaks to us in Japanese but understands English well, we drove to Kurume city, where I am currently posted. Instead of taking us to our home, we were brought to the board of education, our workplace for the next month, and introduced to all of the teachers and administrators currently working there. We also met the superintendant, who, unlike in America, sits in a plush office, sort of like the prime minister. We were all ushered into his office (me and 4 other JETS), and given a formal introduction; the superintendant even gave us a letter of appointment, all part of the show. I also performed my best, lowest bow, since he is of much higher rank than me, the lowely english teacher. Then I was taken to my home, a 2, 6 tatami room apartment, with a kitchen and bathroom, about 5 minutes from the Board of Education by bike. Kurume is a very bikeable city; in fact a bike is almost mandatory. Well, I havent been here for even a week yet, but i am definately liking Kurume. Pictures to come.