Orientating in Tokyo

A display of plastic food!

So after a hectic and incredibly enjoyable July saying goodbye to everyone and anyone, the time came on Saturday the 2nd of August to get on a plane to begin my JET experience!  We arrived in a VERY hot Tokyo at 10am local time on Sunday after a long flight, on which I got little to no sleep. However, determined to see some of Tokyo and have some Japanese food for lunch a group of us headed out. It paid off! We found somewhere that had all the dishes recreated in plastic in the window (standard in Japan) and we discovered we had to order on a machine- how modern! The whole process involved a bit of guesswork, not knowing what most of the food was or how to operate the machine but I ended up with a very tasty fish dish and my first use of chopsticks in Japan! We had well and truly arrived.

Monday and Tuesday were then spent at orientation in the hotel; I’ll just give brief highlights of what I discovered: 

• We were informed we could wear ‘Cool Biz’ for the rest of orientation, an official dress code in Japan, which doesn’t require suit jackets or ties. Cue sighs of relief!

• Japanese teachers are very dedicated and work an average of 53.9 hours a week!

•  In Japanese schools, there is an allotted time for students to clean the classrooms. 

• Club activities are taken very seriously in schools by students and teachers so we should probably get involved as well. 

• There is a HUGE amount of etiquette that we should try to follow, we even practised bowing. 

• In Japan, acts that may be seen as simply misbehaving at home will in fact land you in jail. An example given at the British Embassy reception was of a girl who stole a cardboard cut-out of Justin Bieber (of all people) from a karaoke bar on a night out and then spent two weeks in jail for it. TWO weeks! They take this stuff seriously in Japan.

Tokyo by night.

Taiko drumming. 

All of the British JETs were invited to the embassy on Tuesday night and we were given sushi and drinks and told again not to misbehave. The highlight was definitely going into the garden and watching Taiko drumming performed by some of the embassy staff. It was very impressive and nice to be shown some Japanese culture.  

Orientation was a whirlwind, lots of information (some boring) and meeting loads of new people. I met most of the people that are in Hamamatsu City like me and then had to say goodbye to many of the good British friends I’d made. But finally it was off to Hamamatsu!!