The First Day

Even before setting out for the airport, there were a couple days beforehand of orientation, tearful goodbyes, and frantic packing. I was so nervous the day before we left that I couldn't eat a thing. The night before leaving I was put up in a hotel next to the Toronto airport and stayed with a few other JETs (the nickname for those in the Japan Exchange and Teaching program). I was the lucky one out of about 15 who got a room to myself.
The next morning we met for breakfast, and then proceeded as a group to the Toronto airport. There we met a representative from the JET program who directed us to the baggage drop off. With crossed fingers I watched them load up my enormous suitcase and duffel-bag and saw that I had come within mere pounds of being overweight. Safe! Before the flight we chatted together and I picked up a weird neck pillow thing for the long 13-hour flight.
Once on board the plane we played some of the games installed on the screens we each had. Mostly trivia against each other. I watched several movies, drank several mini bottles of wine and ate typical airplane food. Finally, FINALLY we arrived in Tokyo. I hadn't slept more than 20 minutes and was already tired, but this had been my plan from the beginning to get a jump start on recovering from jet lag.
From the plane, all the way to immigration were representatives from CLAIR, the program responsible for hiring us in Japan. At immigration we met with our first bump in the road as they had apparently not received our photos for our residence cards. That, or there was an issue with our visas, we weren't sure. In any case, it look about an extra hour and a half for us to all get new photos taken at the limited stations with cameras installed. Finally we were able to collect our baggage and make our way to the buses which would take us to our hotel in Tokyo. We all sent the majority of our luggage with a shipping service which would deliver our bags to our schools, all except a suitcase and carry-on which we were allowed to take with us to the hotel. Once we arrived at Keio Plaza, it was about 7 or 8 pm Japan time. We were so so tired. And also hungry. None of us had eaten since our last meal on the flight around 1 pm Japan time. We dropped off our bags in our hotel rooms and made out on our first adventure in Japan to find food.

The street just outside our hotel.

I was able to find, along with several others, a very cute omurice restaurant not far from the hotel. Omurice is a Japanese dish in which rice appears to be stuffed inside an omlette (in reality the omlette is usually just laid on top and cut in such a way that it falls to cover the rice). Its then spruced up with different fillings and sauces. I had omurice with chicken and camembert and it was to die for.

Delicious Omurice

The waitresses were all dressed in adorable checkered outfits and the whole place was very cute. After dinner we wandered briefly around the area, visiting a convenience store (Japanese convenience stores are famous from being very well stocked, cheap, and well...convenient!), and taking lots of pictures. Once we stumbled back to our hotel around 10 pm, none of us had any energy at all. I fell into bed, shut off the lights and tried to stay somewhat awake until my roommates at the hotel returned for their dinner. I failed, and remember waking up at one point to tell them that they didn't need to whisper, I would sleep through anything! 

And that was the first day in Japan. It was crazy, but also a hell of a lot of fun. The next day, we would all be starting the real work and attending workshops! 

Welcome!

Since arriving in Japan it has been an absolute whirlwind. I've done my best to take some notes in order to write about my time so far, but I'm afraid I may have already forgotten some parts of my amazing week. I'll do my best, and I hope friends and family back home don't mind sifting through the sappy posts and pictures! Here Goes!