Tokyo Orientation

Answer to quiz question:

Omiyage are gifts that are brought from someplace that you have visited and given to your friends and family back home. It is a Japanese tradition to always get some Omiyage when you visit someplace. They are especially important at work as it is almost a way of saying, “I’m sorry that I was on vacation, and I want you to experience some piece of what I did.” I also brought Omiyage with me when I came to Japan to give to the teachers here. SO, if you earn a certain amount of points you will earn Omiyage from me when I return from Japan.

Correct answers:

It looks like the Johnson family answered correctly (with the exception of Dad), however, only Jesse earned double points because he included the fact that omiyage are gifts.

The buses from the airport took us to the Keio Plaza Hotel, which is in Shinjuku, a part of Tokyo. The hotel was very nice, and I was staying on the 19^th floor with two roommates, James and Daniel. James and I had been seated next to each other on the plane and we hung out quite a bit in Tokyo. The first night we went to a local park and one thing I noticed was the noise level. Tokyo seemed to be a lot quieter than I thought a city that size should be. I’m not really sure why, maybe it was because there aren’t a lot of people talking, or maybe it was because the cars were very quiet. If the city was quiet, the park was the exact opposite. There are lots of cicadas in Japan, big cicadas, and they like to make lots of noise. After the walk I went back to my room and straight to bed even though it was only about 8:00 because I was pretty tired. The next morning I woke up at 4:30 a trend which would continue for the next few days. The worst part was that after waking up I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I had a lot of free time in the mornings. Meals were very interesting. Breakfast was a sort of American breakfast with bacon, eggs, toast fruit, and even French Fries. Lunch was a more Japanese meal and I didn’t enjoy that as much as breakfast. Supper on Monday was very interesting. It was a formal welcome meal with important Japanese officials present and there was a very large buffet. Unfortunately there weren’t enough tables, and it seemed like I spent most of my time waiting in lines or waiting for more food to arrive. My night wasn’t quite over after dinner, but before I go on let me back up and give an overall picture of my time in Tokyo.

            We, the 41 JETS from Boston, arrived in Tokyo on Sunday and stayed until Wednesday morning. In total there were about 800 JETs at Orientation from a bunch of different countries, although as far as I could tell the majority were from the USA, UK, Canada, and New Zealand. This was the second Orientation, and in total there are more than 1400 new JETs in Japan. In total there are currently 4,372 JET participants in Japan. Alright, so some terms. JET, as I mentioned before, stands for Japanese Exchange Teacher. There are several kinds of JETs. There are ALTs, Assistant Language Teachers, who work in the classroom as assistant teachers, usually of English. CIR are fluent in Japanese, and they work in offices. SEAs are sports coaches who come over to coach in Japan. The majority of JETs are ALTs, like me, there are some CIRs, and there are only a few SEAs. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about what I learned, suffice it to say that I absorbed a lot of important information, and listened to a lot of speakers, who were for the most part very interesting.

            The most significant thing that I discovered, is that there is a JET Christian Fellowship group. (JCF). I was able to meet with some of them on Monday night after the supper event, and it was great to get connected with other Christians. I hope that I can get more involved with JCF in the future. It actually took me quite a long while to find JCF on Monday night. They were meeting at a place called Shinjuku I-land Patio, which was only a short walk from the Hotel. Unfortunately their directions weren’t very specific, and I spent about twenty-five minutes wandering around before I found it. I actually found Shinjuku I-land sooner than that, but it was an oddly shaped building with a collection of different kinds of stores and restaurants. I was looking for some sort of elevated deck, but the patio was actually down in the ground in an open air circle.

Japanese language break

The Japanese word “Hajimemashite,” means “nice to meet you for the first time.” It’s a very useful word to know in Japan. The way to say it is “Ha, gee, may, ma, she, tay.” One way in which Japanese is easy to learn is that each letter has only one sound. There are only five vowels, and the other two are “o,” and “u,” which sound like the “o” in “go,” and the “u” in “blue.”

            On Tuesday night the Otsuka’s came to visit me. For those of you who don’t know, the Otsuka’s are very good friends of my family. Linda is half Japanese, and Juro is full Japanese, and they have three boys; Isaya and Shimon live at home, and Yoshiya lives in New York. Only Isaya was able to come with Juro and Linda because Shimon has to work crazy hours. Our family met them when Juro was working on his PHD at UMass about fifteen years ago, and we have been good friends ever since. Yoshiya is about the same age as me, and Isaya and Shimon are a few years younger. It was very good to see them, and we went out for supper together. We went to get tempura at a restaurant somewhere in Tokyo. Tempura is basically a bunch of deep fried fish with a large variety of toppings to put on top. I tried eel for the first time and it was very yummy. That was my last night in Tokyo, and the next morning all of us headed out to our prefectures. Coming next time! Lost in Translation, Lost in Transition, Lost in Transaction, Lost in Transmission, Lost in Transportation, and the always popular, Chicken Donburi for the Soul.

Quiz:  1 point

My method of transportation from Tokyo to my prefecture was a Shinkansen. What is it? Remember, don’t look anything up, and answer via email or Facebook message.