Today was the first day of Tokyo Orientation. I've basically been out of the room and going to workshops, panels, and listening to different speakers since this morning. It's been a looooooooooooooong day. I've also met a LOT of people. I couldn't tell you half of the people's names that I met, though. lol. It is surprising the amount of countries that are part of the JET program. I've met people from New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Russia, UK, Jamaica, Fiji, and even a girl from Germany. I ate lunch w/her, and she's actually going to my prefecture! She said that she could speak German, English, Russian, Spanish, and Japanese fluently. Wow! I thought I was doing good w/English and my little knowledge of Spanish and German, lol.
Jet lag- beast of burden. I went to bed around 8:30 last night. I know that makes me an old person, but I really needed the sleep. My roommate asked if I wanted to go out, and I was like, "heck no!" It would be nice to go out and see Tokyo, but I would prefer to get over this jet lag ASAP. I woke up this morning feeling nothing, and I thought, sweet! No jet lag! However, after lunch is when it hit. My 2pm would be 12am in the USA, so that explains why I was dragging all afternoon. :( I'm used to experiencing jet lag w/Europe where you land in the morning, drag all day, sleep at night, and more or less are okay. I think since it's such a severe time difference, it'll probably take a few days to adjust.
Japanese toilets- Wow. Talk about sophistication. Not lying, last night I wasn't sure how to flush the toilet. There's a panel on the left in which you can choose to have a warm mist spray your area for cleaning purposes, heat the seat, play music, or adjust the water pressure. In addition, it makes a flushing sound whenever you first sit down for "modesty" purposes. It took me a minute to realize that the flusher wasn't on that panel. Instead, it was on the right connected to the counter.
English bubble- So far, I feel kinda bad about it, but I've been living in an English bubble. I rationalize w/myself b/c I say that I'm basically going somewhere where hardly anyone speaks English, so I might as well soak up all the English I can get now. :) I went straight from the airport to the hotel up to my room yesterday, and today, I've mostly shuffled from one workshop to another in the hotel. I first left the hotel on one of the breaks earlier. One of the other Nashville JETs and I walked to a store close by b/c she wanted to get some snacks. Being outside of my English bubble and on the streets of Tokyo made me realize that I'm probably going to have a bit of a breakdown when I get to Yunomae, lol. It'll be weird to go from speaking English all the time to trying to convey the simplest point in broken English and gestures. Life's an adventure! :)
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