I don't even know where to even begin in writing about everything I've done in Himeji since landing on Saturday. This will be a rather lengthy blog post, just since I have so much catching up to do! Fortunately, I'm borrowing unlimited internet from a fellow Shirasagi resident until my modem arrives!
The Flight and Saturday, 8/24
The flight was a ton of fun! I think everyone, except me, took sleeping pills. And you could tell who had: they were fast asleep before take off even started! I, at least, was amused with the way they'd flop about everywhere.
I don't think I slept much at all, but I didn't mind, since there was such a nice selection of in-flight movies. I ended up watching five movies through the entire flight: Iron Man 3, Monsters Inc, The Avengers, The Hobbit, and one more which I'm afraid that I can no longer remember. The turbulence was pretty much constant--I think for at least two-thirds of the flight the seat belt light was on.
The plane was full of students who were travelling to Japan to study abroad. It made customs a rather arduous affair, since they were not prepared for so many foreigners at once. I couldn't understand everything they said, but I could definitely tell that the staff were surprised at how many of us there were!
We took a nice little shuttle ride to Himeji, from Osaka airport. It took almost two hours!
Watching out the window was fun, though it took some getting used to with regards to driving here in Japan. Not only do they drive on the other side of the road, but the driver's seat is on the other side of the car. The highways are much like Europe's, in that you have to stop and pay a toll at intervals along the way. The cars are a lot of the same models as we see in America, but significantly smaller. (Honestly, they're pretty cute!)
That evening, we were taken out to eat at a pretty neat restaurant by the senior ALT's and ASE's at Shirasagi. I was a bit frazzled at that point, so I forgot to bring my camera, nor can I remember the name of the place. Where ever it is, it's pretty close to where we live. The food servings were gigantic! Just one part of the Omurice, the omelette, was the size of my head, easily. And the rest of the portions were similarly large. The food was delicious, though, and a very reasonable price considering just how much food was on the plates.
Sunday, 8/25
On Sunday, after a good 12 hours of sleep, I woke up to a very lovely rainstorm! (Though I don't know if you can see it from these photos.) I took these from my balcony! Outside you can see Hyogo University, which happens to be my neighbor. They're very quiet, I think it's empty right now for summer break.
I started to unpack a bit on Sunday. It's definitely been a gradual process. Unpack a little bit of my stuff, then sort out the stuff currently in the apartment. Make a bit more room for my stuff, and then repeat. My apartment's a bit narrower than the others, and it only has one closet, so I'm learning to be pretty creative with storing things! (I'll take photos of the apartment once it becomes semi-presentable. Right now I'm cleaning and organizing in phases, which makes things look a bit haphazard to the untrained eye.)
Also on Sunday was my first guided foray into the downtown shopping area. Oh boy. I'll find a casual day to take photos sometime of just how amazingly intense the shopping area is here. Tons of giant buildings that are filled with department stores of all sorts, shopping arcades that stretch for blocks and blocks, underground tunnels filled with shops... My favorite so far is the giant 3-story Hyaku-en shop (100 yen). It's full of tons of cool, really nice quality things, and everything in it is a dollar!
We stopped to eat at an (if I'm spelling this right) Okinamanyake shop. They are, as far as I can tell, a mix between a pancake and quiche. They're made with all sorts of leftover stuff! They were particularly good with a bit of mayonnaise on top! We ordered three to split between the four of us. The table has a hot plate along the length of it, to keep the food freshly warm.
After we ate, we did a bit of shopping. Drug stores here are really cool, although it can get overwhelming with my inability to read the majority of the product labels. Usually you can guess what things are for... but it is a slow process. While we took a bus to downtown Himeji, we walked back to Shirasagi (it's just about 20 minutes or so). On the way back, you realize just how close Shirasagi (and downtown) is to Himeji Castle! Since we were carrying groceries, I didn't get a chance to take too many pictures yet, but it's so close by I'm sure I'll get to again soon!
Monday, 8/26
Monday was paperwork day. We were taken to Himeji City Hall to get our Residence Card (which I have to carry on me at all times), fill out paperwork for the Himeji Board of Education, and open our bank accounts (which involved more paperwork.) I think it took about 6 hours for all of this to finish.
The view from the office was pretty cool! You can see a lot of Himeji spread out from it. I couldn't tell you which direction of Himeji this is, but maybe this will help to illustrate just how massive of a city this really is. Apparently it's the third largest(?) in this region.
After many grueling hours of paperwork (and getting over our jet lag), we were treated to Sushi at a nearby restaurant. It was fantastic! This set gave you three choices of soba (?), so I chose one with a kind of fried batter in it. It was very delicious!
Tuesday, 8/27
Tuesday morning, Kari and I wandered downtown to visit the Hyaku-en shop (again). Unfortunately, we got there a bit early, as nothing really opened until 9 and 10am. Coincidentally, we ran into a few other ALT's in a drug store (and we were very excited by this), so we went and had donuts at Mr Donut. I had the one on top. It looked glazed, but it tasted rather like honey. It was different, but good.
After that, we returned to Shirasagi, with a bit of time leftover before meeting the JTE's near City Hall. We had to give some speeches (some of which I could do partially in very awkward Japanese...), listen to more speeches, and then we got to meet with our schools' supervisors. (Mine are Hirohata and Jinan). I don't visit Jinan until April of next year, so I was taken to get a tour of Hirohata instead.
I should have taken some photos of the school, but I promise I'll find an opportunity to soon. It was very big, and very nice! Lots of green! There are potted plants on little end tables in the hallways, apparently to prevent students from running in the hallways. If they bump into a plant while running, they have to apologize to it!
In the teacher's office, this was waiting for me at my desk:
I'll probably be keeping it forever. It is super cute! (Kawaii desu!)
My teachers are all super cool, and I am extremely excited to start on Monday!
In the evening, we had a little potluck get-together at Shirasagi. There was so much great food! It was really great to get a chance to meet and talk with everyone--I can honestly say that everyone here are probably among the coolest people I have ever met. I wouldn't want to live anywhere but here!
Wednesday, 8/28
Today we went downtown to get our phones! Yay! I am now the proud owner of an Iphone 5. I'm still tinkering around with it, but it's pretty cool so far. It's so nice to finally have a way to contact everyone when I'm out exploring; it always felt kind of risky to wander too far, with no way of getting a hold of anyone if I need to. But now I have google maps and facebook at the touch of a button, huzzah!
One of the other ALT's, Sylvain, was kind enough to show me how to get to Hirohata by bus and train. I really wanted to practice once before school starts, and he wanted a chance to visit the school he had taught at two years ago--a win-win for both of us! It takes about 45 minutes by bus and train to get to Tenma-Sanyo station (the closest one to the school) and another 20 minutes or so to walk to Hirohata. Fortunately, both the bus that takes me to the station, and the two trains (I have to connect once) come very frequently in the morning when I would be going to school, so my morning schedule can be a bit flexible. My goal is to get to school by 8:00 every morning, so that I can be there before the 8:20 Teacher's Meeting starts.
On Thursdays I'll be visiting four different elementary schools, a different one each week. They feed into the two middle schools I'm going to, so two are near Hirohata and two are near Jinan. The ones by Hirohata are both very close, but the ones by Jinan are at the opposite end of town! I won't have to worry about those for another three weeks, but I'll have to figure out a whole different bus route to reach them.
There's a nice ramen shop near Hirohata, so we stopped by there for lunch. Mine was particularly tasty! It was cold, and almost like a salad. I managed to eat all of it, and my gyoza (dumplings) too!
After that, we took a train back to Himeji, but got on the wrong one when we were connecting back. It was a bit of an adventure, but I've managed to ride on an Express Train already! Fortunately, when we finally reached a stop, the next train took us straight back to Himeji Station.
I was shown some really cool parts of downtown Himeji. One of the shopping buildings, Forus, had this extremely neat store on the 7th floor, full of all kinds of counter culture stuff from the US and Japan. It reminded me of Hot Topic, but on a more massive scale. There were a ton of capsule machines (they're everywhere, actually) so I tried my luck at one. I managed to acquire a key chain of the new Eevee evolution, which was the one I wanted, so I'm pretty ecstatic. I have it hanging on one of my purses now!
I think I could easily spend a month just exploring all the shops in downtown. It's that insane. But I should probably wait until I get my first paycheck on the 15th, which cannot come soon enough!
Thursday, 8/29 (aka, Today!)
I did a bit more cleaning this morning, and then trekked out to this shopping complex that is aptly named The Mall. It was about a 40 minute walk, but I really don't care for biking, and the weather wasn't too atrociously humid... I managed not to get lost, which I think was my biggest accomplishment today!
The Mall itself is gigantic, and I barely explored it. There were all kinds of department stores in it, but I think I wound up mostly exploring a Walmart branch (they sold walmart bags, it had to be a walmart) on the 4th floor. I was looking for bedding to spruce up my apartment a bit (I'm working with what came with the room, which isn't much). After getting thoroughly confused by all the Japanese packaging, I finally worked up the courage to ask a sales clerk where the sheets were (beto shito). They definitely understood what I was asking, and eventually pointed them out to me. After opening them, though, I'm not sure they were bed sheets... unless Japanese sheets all come with zippers, like a duvet cover. And I bought some that should have been a bit bigger than a standard Japanese twin bed (and I had my Iphone with me to check), but it seems like the twin beds here in Shirasagi are massive. I also goofed up a bit and got pillow cases that were too small. I'm going to have to find out if returns are possible here in Japan, which I'm sure will be an interesting experience. Worst case, this will get chalked up as a lesson learned.
Still, I'd love to wander over there again sometime. Maybe I'll have improved my bike riding enough to ride there next time. It's just a bit too humid to walk that far without ending up dripping with sweat afterwards. And being able to carry purchases in my bike basket would be a lot more convenient.
The rest of my day was spent doing more cleaning (I bought a duster) and using my computer, since I finally have internet!
And... I'll stop writing here. I think this is a nice way to make up for my lack of posts this week. I have so much more to talk about, with everything I've been learning. But at that point I'd be writing a book. So I'll wait, and give my fingers a break from typing!
The Flight and Saturday, 8/24
The flight was a ton of fun! I think everyone, except me, took sleeping pills. And you could tell who had: they were fast asleep before take off even started! I, at least, was amused with the way they'd flop about everywhere.
I don't think I slept much at all, but I didn't mind, since there was such a nice selection of in-flight movies. I ended up watching five movies through the entire flight: Iron Man 3, Monsters Inc, The Avengers, The Hobbit, and one more which I'm afraid that I can no longer remember. The turbulence was pretty much constant--I think for at least two-thirds of the flight the seat belt light was on.
The plane was full of students who were travelling to Japan to study abroad. It made customs a rather arduous affair, since they were not prepared for so many foreigners at once. I couldn't understand everything they said, but I could definitely tell that the staff were surprised at how many of us there were!
We took a nice little shuttle ride to Himeji, from Osaka airport. It took almost two hours!
That evening, we were taken out to eat at a pretty neat restaurant by the senior ALT's and ASE's at Shirasagi. I was a bit frazzled at that point, so I forgot to bring my camera, nor can I remember the name of the place. Where ever it is, it's pretty close to where we live. The food servings were gigantic! Just one part of the Omurice, the omelette, was the size of my head, easily. And the rest of the portions were similarly large. The food was delicious, though, and a very reasonable price considering just how much food was on the plates.
Sunday, 8/25
On Sunday, after a good 12 hours of sleep, I woke up to a very lovely rainstorm! (Though I don't know if you can see it from these photos.) I took these from my balcony! Outside you can see Hyogo University, which happens to be my neighbor. They're very quiet, I think it's empty right now for summer break.
Also on Sunday was my first guided foray into the downtown shopping area. Oh boy. I'll find a casual day to take photos sometime of just how amazingly intense the shopping area is here. Tons of giant buildings that are filled with department stores of all sorts, shopping arcades that stretch for blocks and blocks, underground tunnels filled with shops... My favorite so far is the giant 3-story Hyaku-en shop (100 yen). It's full of tons of cool, really nice quality things, and everything in it is a dollar!
We stopped to eat at an (if I'm spelling this right) Okinamanyake shop. They are, as far as I can tell, a mix between a pancake and quiche. They're made with all sorts of leftover stuff! They were particularly good with a bit of mayonnaise on top! We ordered three to split between the four of us. The table has a hot plate along the length of it, to keep the food freshly warm.
The view from the office was pretty cool! You can see a lot of Himeji spread out from it. I couldn't tell you which direction of Himeji this is, but maybe this will help to illustrate just how massive of a city this really is. Apparently it's the third largest(?) in this region.
After many grueling hours of paperwork (and getting over our jet lag), we were treated to Sushi at a nearby restaurant. It was fantastic! This set gave you three choices of soba (?), so I chose one with a kind of fried batter in it. It was very delicious!
I should have taken some photos of the school, but I promise I'll find an opportunity to soon. It was very big, and very nice! Lots of green! There are potted plants on little end tables in the hallways, apparently to prevent students from running in the hallways. If they bump into a plant while running, they have to apologize to it!
In the teacher's office, this was waiting for me at my desk:
My teachers are all super cool, and I am extremely excited to start on Monday!
In the evening, we had a little potluck get-together at Shirasagi. There was so much great food! It was really great to get a chance to meet and talk with everyone--I can honestly say that everyone here are probably among the coolest people I have ever met. I wouldn't want to live anywhere but here!
Wednesday, 8/28
Today we went downtown to get our phones! Yay! I am now the proud owner of an Iphone 5. I'm still tinkering around with it, but it's pretty cool so far. It's so nice to finally have a way to contact everyone when I'm out exploring; it always felt kind of risky to wander too far, with no way of getting a hold of anyone if I need to. But now I have google maps and facebook at the touch of a button, huzzah!
One of the other ALT's, Sylvain, was kind enough to show me how to get to Hirohata by bus and train. I really wanted to practice once before school starts, and he wanted a chance to visit the school he had taught at two years ago--a win-win for both of us! It takes about 45 minutes by bus and train to get to Tenma-Sanyo station (the closest one to the school) and another 20 minutes or so to walk to Hirohata. Fortunately, both the bus that takes me to the station, and the two trains (I have to connect once) come very frequently in the morning when I would be going to school, so my morning schedule can be a bit flexible. My goal is to get to school by 8:00 every morning, so that I can be there before the 8:20 Teacher's Meeting starts.
On Thursdays I'll be visiting four different elementary schools, a different one each week. They feed into the two middle schools I'm going to, so two are near Hirohata and two are near Jinan. The ones by Hirohata are both very close, but the ones by Jinan are at the opposite end of town! I won't have to worry about those for another three weeks, but I'll have to figure out a whole different bus route to reach them.
There's a nice ramen shop near Hirohata, so we stopped by there for lunch. Mine was particularly tasty! It was cold, and almost like a salad. I managed to eat all of it, and my gyoza (dumplings) too!
I was shown some really cool parts of downtown Himeji. One of the shopping buildings, Forus, had this extremely neat store on the 7th floor, full of all kinds of counter culture stuff from the US and Japan. It reminded me of Hot Topic, but on a more massive scale. There were a ton of capsule machines (they're everywhere, actually) so I tried my luck at one. I managed to acquire a key chain of the new Eevee evolution, which was the one I wanted, so I'm pretty ecstatic. I have it hanging on one of my purses now!
I think I could easily spend a month just exploring all the shops in downtown. It's that insane. But I should probably wait until I get my first paycheck on the 15th, which cannot come soon enough!
Thursday, 8/29 (aka, Today!)
I did a bit more cleaning this morning, and then trekked out to this shopping complex that is aptly named The Mall. It was about a 40 minute walk, but I really don't care for biking, and the weather wasn't too atrociously humid... I managed not to get lost, which I think was my biggest accomplishment today!
The Mall itself is gigantic, and I barely explored it. There were all kinds of department stores in it, but I think I wound up mostly exploring a Walmart branch (they sold walmart bags, it had to be a walmart) on the 4th floor. I was looking for bedding to spruce up my apartment a bit (I'm working with what came with the room, which isn't much). After getting thoroughly confused by all the Japanese packaging, I finally worked up the courage to ask a sales clerk where the sheets were (beto shito). They definitely understood what I was asking, and eventually pointed them out to me. After opening them, though, I'm not sure they were bed sheets... unless Japanese sheets all come with zippers, like a duvet cover. And I bought some that should have been a bit bigger than a standard Japanese twin bed (and I had my Iphone with me to check), but it seems like the twin beds here in Shirasagi are massive. I also goofed up a bit and got pillow cases that were too small. I'm going to have to find out if returns are possible here in Japan, which I'm sure will be an interesting experience. Worst case, this will get chalked up as a lesson learned.
Still, I'd love to wander over there again sometime. Maybe I'll have improved my bike riding enough to ride there next time. It's just a bit too humid to walk that far without ending up dripping with sweat afterwards. And being able to carry purchases in my bike basket would be a lot more convenient.
The rest of my day was spent doing more cleaning (I bought a duster) and using my computer, since I finally have internet!
And... I'll stop writing here. I think this is a nice way to make up for my lack of posts this week. I have so much more to talk about, with everything I've been learning. But at that point I'd be writing a book. So I'll wait, and give my fingers a break from typing!
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