Three days all crumpled together

-Currently I am sitting in a place called an "Internet Cafe."  They have a softdrink area, manga to read, and booths with computers in them.  You have to pay per hour to be here, but I won't be getting internet in my apartment until August 9th and keeping in touch with people without it is quite difficult.  I like it in one regard, but if people expect to hear from me it's bad.

Anyway, the entry below I wrote while I was in my apartment without internet, so I'm posting it today.  Happy reading.

07/29/10

Hello all!

Today I do not have Internet, but I am typing this up anyway because if I don’t I’ll forget to talk about my last few days or post it.

Today is my first full day in my own apartment.  I have unpacked everything (by 8:32 AM.  I was so tired yesterday I went to bed around 8:30 and woke up this morning at 5:30) and I am waiting to go outside and take a walk.  It is raining and I don’t have an umbrella, so I’ll wait for the rain to let up enough to let me walk to the conbini (convenient store) to buy one, and then I can continue from there.  Also, at 8:30 not very many stores will be open.

I really like my apartment.  It is quite small, but it is a perfect size for me to start out with.  There is no sort of oven, so I will be doing a lot of stovetop or microwave cooking.  There is more furniture than I was expecting to already be here, but still not a whole lot.  I’ll try to take a video clip of the apartment when I’ve settled a bit.  There is a small 2-person table that can double as a desk/work space, a few shelves here and there, and a cot-type bed.  I was expecting only to have a futon.  Basically, it is a Japanese style futon placed on top of the cot.  I think because it is above the ground, I’m not going to have to put it away every day, but that is something that I will have to ask when I “go to work” tomorrow.  There were also a few household gifts for me when I got here.  For example, there were some dishes, broom, a pot and frying pan, cutting knife and board, 3 utensils, teakettle, dishtowels, toilet paper, bug spray (just incase) blanket and pillow.  The big things I am only borrowing from the Board of Education while I am here, and will have to return them before I leave.  We are trying to get me a bicycle from the BOE to use.  Anything that breaks that belongs to them, I am responsible to pay for the repair charges or price of a new one.  I am so fortunate to have someone think about all of these things for me!  Mr. Amemiya, my supervisor, took me to the grocery store to get a few more things for my first day.  I bought a garbage bin, towel, and food for a few days.

After having seen the roads in this area, I will definitely NOT be getting a car.  I am still interested in getting a small scooter/motorized bike however.  The parking by my apartment is free because we have a pretty good-sized lot.  Also, everything is close enough for me to not need to drive.  A current JET named Kendra lives pretty close to me, and was very helpful in my transition to Fuefuki yesterday.  She has a car, and said that she and my predecessor used to hang out a lot, and my predecessor would sometimes ask her to help with things, which she was fine doing.

Yesterday we took the bus from Tokyo Orientation to Fuefuki.  There are about 11 new JETs that were in Orientation A that are going to the same prefecture, so we all took the bus together.  Kendra who was helping at the orientation came with us.  Our individual supervisors picked us up from there, and took us back to our individual towns to set up all of the paperwork we needed to complete as a new foreign resident in Japan.  We went to the town office to register me, and sign me up for an Alien Registration card.  Then we applied for health insurance, to the local bank to set up an account, and then we went to an AU (a store) to register me for a phone.  It took a long time to do all of this, but it all went fairly smoothly I think.  Afterward we went back to the BOE and split up for the day.  Kendra, the vice-principal of my school, and another BOE worker went home or back to work, and Mr. Amemiya and I brought my stuff to my apartment.  He showed me how everything worked, and then took me to the grocery store.  (Before we left the BOE we also called the Internet Company to order it for my apartment.  It will take approximately four days for it to be installed, so if I don’t find a café or get to use the internet at work before then, I may not have access to e-mail.)  Kendra was with us because she got a ride with us from the bus stop to our town.  Like I said, we live pretty close.  I felt bad that she had to sit through all of this waiting, but I guess she got a free lunch out of all of it. ^_^

My cell phone does accept e-mails, but I ask that you only send e-mails there if you have a question or comment that you would like me to see immediately.  Answering in English on the phone is quite difficult/time consuming, and I also may not be able to respond to your e-mails right away.  I may even choose to answer when I get home to my computer.  If you would like this e-mail address however, please send me an e-mail asking for it.  I will not post it here in order to avoid receiving spam.

There are nightly fireworks in my town until sometime in August, so it was nice to see those from my window my first night.

Also, I've been lucky so far that today was cloudy.  Apparently it gets really hot in the summer here, and also really cold in the winter.

Bus ride to Kofu, the capital of Yamanashi.

I think this is a combination of Yamanashi city, Fuefuki city, and Kofu city.  I'm not too clear about the borders around here...

My dinner on the first night in my apartment.  I didn't feel like figuring out how to cook anything...

These are the fireworks from my apartment.  The second night I was there I went to sleep too early to see them, but they woke me up.  Listening to Japanese can be super exhausting if you're not used to it. ^_^  The same thing happened to me my junior year.

-----------------------------------------------

07/30/10

Well, that is the end of yesterday's post.  It's only been three days really since I've been in Fuefuki but time has been moving quite slowly.  It feels like I've been here longer.  My apartment already looks much different than it did yesterday.  I'll go home, tidy it up a little, and take a video of it.  I think that the pictures make it look a lot bigger than it is.  When I walked in for the first time, I was surprised by how small the kitchen was.  I don't have too much stuff in it now, but enough to make it look more my own.

So as I said, yesterday I explored around the town a little bit and did some shopping.  The day before that was all paperwork preparation.  Today I went into the Board of Education and had my first full "work day" there, 9 am-4 pm.  I say "work day" in quotes because that's not really where I'll be working, and I didn't really doing anything that would constitute as work.  I met a few more people, I gave them my Omiyage (おみやげ）, signed more important documents for housing, living, contracts, etc, and paid my first months rent and water bill deposit.  Going through the garbage + recycling separation procedure was a little complicated, and I still don't quite understand everything.  There is a big poster hanging on my wall now about that so I'll just have to look a little further.  It seemed like there were 100 pages to sign too, and each one required me to rewrite my address in kanji.  :)

Carl, the English teacher who is at the middle school right now, stopped by the BOE and he and I talked about Isawa, Yamanashi, and the Junior High School.  It's the biggest middle school in the whole prefecture with 740+ students.  He said there's a pretty big range of students from shy to misbehaving.  I wonder if they picked me to teach here because I'm from NY. ^_^  I don't want to tell you too much from hear-say though, so I'll tell you more about the school when I actually go and start teaching there.

Below are a few photos of the apartment when I first brought my things in.  Next time hopefully I'll share the short video tour.  I might wait until things are a little more settled though.  There are a few decorations and such that I'd like to add before then.  If I can find it, bamboo plants might be nice.  Not because I'm in Japan, but because Bamboo is less messy than other plants. ^_^

I'm sorry if there are any spelling mistakes, but my time is almost up and I don't think I'll be able to reread today's post.  If you notice any, please leave a comment and I will be sure to fix it next time I have the internet.

I have posted next week's schedule in the "schedule" section to the right, so please check it out!

I miss you all very much and hope I can keep in touch with you this way.  Feel free to send me mail. ^_^

Love,

Lana

Ah.  PS. I forgot to post these pictures of my apartment from two days ago.

These photos didn't seem to want to load so I stopped here.  It's a good enough image anyway...