Blitzkrieg ALT Training Week

I said I was going to write more about my time in Tokyo but frankly, this is the first time in a week I have actually even opened my laptop. The reason? Blitzkrieg ALT training. Literally, about 3 days of just intense back to back 12 hour training days. At one point I just burst into tears from the sheer stress of it all (only has happened once before where I have cried from stress). After long days and very little sleep, manage to pull off a 30 minute lesson on my exam day! It was a great feeling of accomplishment to be able to finally pull together a lesson for a JHS, I'm more excited now to go teach and meet my students!

That bring said, this experience also introduced me to a lot of great people too! My hotel mate is wicked cool, it has been great to be able to bounce ideas and share information on what we've learned. I can't really say what the training consists of but I'll ay more when I am well rested and have extra time

Get Lost

The best advice I can give you from my first day experience in Tokyo is this: Get Lost. Look at a map, determine the direction you need to go to get to the destination you would like then just go and leave the map behind. Doing this has been very rewarding! I have found several small temples, shrines and interesting little markets off the beaten path. The best thing about Tokyo is the small alley ways. It is amazing what you will find when you take the less direct route. Between the Japanese men in short shorts, Gaijin throwing up in the train, cute Japanese school girls with way too much makeup and beautiful cherry blossoms it has been a very interesting first day. I will post pictures later when I have time but for now off to Ueno Park! Here is a photo from the internet of Ueno Park:

Terrible Japanese is better than no Japanese

After 22 hours of flying, I finally arrived in Japan on the evening of the 21st. Completely exhausted, I faced my next set of challenges of going through immigration (took a little over an hour), getting my luggage and somehow navigating the subway system to the place I would be staying at in Tokyo. Now I have a giant suitcase, a carry on and a backpack that were all very full. This made things very interesting.

What I quickly learned, to my great relief, is that all the stations had their names in Hiragana and English. This made things significantly easier but I also want to note that knowing the phrase:
"(Place you want to go) doko desu ka?" was very useful in figuring out which platform to take. To be honest, it was very refreshing to see how orderly everything was. Everyone got in lanes on the side and left the middle open for people to get off the train. This was at 9:30pm at night though, I'm sure rush hours are much more chaotic.

"People will stare." That was the most common thing everyone would tell you about being a foreigner in Japan, needless to say that with my three bags I stood out even more than I usually would do. Luckily, I was prepared for this and honestly was too caught up with the thought of, "Holy crap I'm in Japan! LOOK AT ALL THE JAPANESE PEOPLE AND SIGNS AND VENDING MACHINES!" to even really care. After I riding the train, I got off the train to only realize I didn't have my ticket on me. A moment of panic set in, after some deep breathes I began to look for a train attendant and pray he knew some English or had paper so I could draw my dilemma at the very least. Needless to say he did know English and after explaining the situation let me go through without a problem. Maybe it was the tired look or out of pity but in any case I was and still am grateful.

As I reached my destination, I breathed a big sigh of relief. As I got ready for bed, it was great to take a shower again with hot water (since my parents have luke warm water at best). Also wanted to note, the place I am staying in is a hostel so there is two bathrooms we share. Having lived with at one time 5 people and 1 bathroom, it reminded me of the great times in San Francisco and the amazing new memories I was about to make in Japan. With that thought I went to sleep at midnight... only to awake at 6:30am.

When I was living at home, we would wake up at 6:30am to gather together and say family pray. Needless to say that my body still remembered so I said a quick morning prayer and went back to sleep. After a nice little 20 min nap, checking my facebook and twitter I set off to get ready for the day. Waking up early has its perks.

As a Japanese old woman passes by she says "Good Morning!" while I say "Ohayōgozaimasu!" We both look at each other and burst out laughing. It was an amusing sight, we both smiled at each other and were on our way. Thus my morning went as it usually does, except that all the sudden I have become a neat freak, it felt great to be able to do my routine. Today I will be heading down to Akihabara and taking some pictures with my DSLR, hopefully I can upload those in my next post. I'll admit that since I have touched down in Japan, despite not knowing the language very well, it felt like home. It is rare but I just felt like I was at the right place at the right time. This is only the beginning.

"Adventure is out there!"
~UP