Otsu glad I made another post?

HELLLOOOOOO again

Sorry, it has been quite a while since I've updated and so much has happened since then. I'll try to do my best to catch up without writing a novel.

Last time I wrote I was still in Tokyo for our Post-Arrival Orientation. Honestly, that feels like it was three months ago. Since that post, I've moved to my home city, Otsu, met my predecessor, met all the teachers at my school, opened a bank account, registered as a certified gaijin (foreigner), moved into my apartment, gotten a cell phone and done about 10,000 other new things. During my first week in Otsu, I stayed in a business hotel, because my predecessor Zach was still hanging around. Despite not being able to move into my apartment for a week, I am soooooo glad Zach hung around. He helped me adjust to life here so much and honestly, I'd probably be completely lost if he hadn't. Plus, he showed me the greatest three days of gluttony in my entire life. So Zach, if you're reading this, thanks a million man.

Here's a quick summary of stuff. yeah stuff:

Last Wednesday: I arrived in Otsu, where we made the "hell walk" from the train station to the government office. Considering its name, "hell walk" didn't really live up to my expectations. Though it 85 degrees with 149% humidity, I managed not to pass out or croak before arriving for our welcome ceremony. After cooling off in the building, we got into our formal wear and nervously filed into a room to endure a awkward, sweaty exchange of words with our new supervisors. We, of course, had to address them in butchered Japanese, which most of us had copied directly from our JET handbook. You could easily pick out those who hadn't taken a lick of Japanese, since all of our speeches were absoultely identical. Whoever wrote that outline in the handbook should have patented it... he or she would be making some serious royalty bank.

After the ceremony I met my supervisor, Ito-sensei, my vice principal, Umemura-sensei and Zach. I'll give you a more detailed description of these people later, when I'm not so focused on writing two weeks worth of information in one blog post. They're awesome... I'll leave it at that for now. We went to the business hotel, where I would be staying, I changed out of my formal attire and we hit Kyoto for dinner and some drinks. We went to an Asahi brewhouse in downtown(ish) Kyoto. There we ate, drank and got merry and had a grand ol' time then I went back "home" and hit the sack.

My cozy little hotel room

View from my hotel balcony

Thursday: I went to school in the morning with Zach and met a lot of the teachers that I'll be working with this year. They all seem very nice and extremely interested in what Oklahoma is like. I told one teacher about prarie dogs and for the last week she hasn't stopped asking me questions about what she understands to be oversized moles. Will one of you please just ship me one, because I'm getting tired of describing the bastards.

My early-morning-squinty (because of the sun... im not making fun of asians)-first day-of-school-face

After we piddled around for a while, we went out and did a bunch of tiresome errands, like registering with the prefectural office, opening a bank account, blah blah blah... It ended up being a really long day, and I was beat once we started discussing cell phone contracts in Japanese. As if they aren't confusing enough in English. Too tired to do anything at night, I hit the nearby mcdonalds for a delicious "bacon lettuce burger" and crashed. hard.

mmmmmmm... oishiiii (delicious!)

Friday: All the new Shiga JETs spent friday at the government office going through "survival orientation". Essentially, all the veteran JETs from the area told us how to do shit we had already done the day before. I suppose a lot of the information was somewhat useful, but a lot of it could have been skipped, or covered in 1/5 of the time that was taken. I really did enjoy meeting a lot of the older JETs though and asking questions about, well, everything. Ohhh, how young and naive i once was...

Afterwards we all went out to Kyoto (obviously the place to be) to an Engrish pub. It was Engrish to the max! A lot of people made it out, and we all had a ball eating our fish 'n chips and drinking gin and tonics and just having a good ol' Engrish time. We proceeded to hit the nearby karaoke bar, where we all rocked out to some awful renditions of assorted Michael Jackson, Queen and Rod Stewart mega hits. I'm not afraid to admit that I salvaged any intergrity we had at the beginning of the night with my table top Billie Jean closer. Terrible dance moves always make up for any vocal deficiencies.

Kyoto

More Kyoto

Saturday: Woke up with an uneasy stomach, totally not from drinking too much, to bloody monsoon season in Japan. Flash floods, however, cannot deter me, so I slogged my way around Otsu looking for anything picture worthy. I found ppleeeeentyyyy, let me tell ya. This is just one I found particularly hilarious. I apologize for my middle school sense of humor
But, come on... how is that not worth a chuckle?

OK now lets get serious. During a break in the cloud cover I stumbled across Midera Temple which is hands down the most beautiful, peaceful place I have ever been. Words can't really do it justice to I'll have to let my pictures and videos do the describing. (Warning: video contains explicit language... I apologize, but I had just climbed like 500 stairs. At least I dropped the f-bomb in a positive way, right???)

^ Lindsey, I thought of you when I saw this. ^

So serene...

spiritual and soggy.

Well, I had intended to upload about 15 more pictures but it takes FOREVER to upload pictures and videos to this thing. I'm thinking I'll have to start up a photobucket account or something for all of my pictures, because I have tons and tons and tons more. I'll look into it and let you guys know what happens.

I had also intended on catching you up to the present, however, I am getting extremely sleepy and intend on waking up early tomorrow to catch the train to Osaka for a quick one-day trip. I am meeting two of my friends, Adam and Diku-nut, from Tokyo orientation in the other big city tomorrow, crashing in a cheap hostel then coming back on Sunday...

So... coming up in the next blog post:
-Train suicides: Tragedies that make everyone else late for work
- John gets a Japanese cell phone, and realizes he has nobody to call :(
- Japanese fireworks shows... way better than any others (sorry fellow Americans)
and much much more...

I love you guys and miss everyone at home (especially my main man marley and his beautiful roommate lindsey). Keep reading and commenting, and I'll do my best to keep posting.
With love from Japan,
John

PS: I apologize, but I just realized that I posted a bunch of really lame pictures. I have about 100 that are better than these. I shall redeem myself, I promise. Give me another chance