Hajimemashite, Koren-sensei!

Today was a busy, busy day.

While it was a great day of learning about my new home and how to live in Japan, it was mostly about meeting people. So many people that tomorrow I'm gonna have the fun job of apologizing and asking for people's names again.

First I was taken to my Board of Education to meet the people in charge. It was a weird kinda interview. It was like an interview in the sense that they were asking me questions about my previous experience with children and teaching, but it was extra weird cause they didn't speak English so I had to have a translator.

Then I was driven to the three schools that I'll be teaching at. Each school I went to had one teacher who spoke English, but their skill levels lessened at each school I went too. It will be interesting to see how well I can learn to communicate with adults who don't speak English. Good thing I rock at charades.

Everyone I met was very impressed with my Japanese, which was very nice of them since I really don't know all that much. Yeah, I know enough to get around and get things done, but for the most part, I have no idea what anyone is saying to me. Still, anytime I used a new word they were very impressed. It almost seems like they are just humoring me, but I know they are actually impressed that I know more than just "sayonara" and "arigato."

But tomorrow is my first day of work, so we'll see just how impressed they are with me then.

Greetings form Japan!

4 hours and 20 minutes to go

Yeah, it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm still awake. I'm fully packed, but I'm still awake. On purpose too! Since Japan has a 14 hour time difference I decided to stay up all night tonight, sleep on the flight over tomorrow and then hopefully it'll be easier to reschedule my sleeping pattern.

In other news: this week I got a phone call from the head office and I got a posting! Yay! I'll be working at a few elementary schools and jr high schools in the town of Nishiwaki in the Hyogo Prefecture.

Wow, Koren, that's a lot of words that don't really mean anything to me.

Yeah, well, I figured as much so here's a map. From what I understand, we're near Universal Studios Japan, the Imperial Capital of Japan, and the port where we would catch the ferry to South Korea and China. We're also around 6 hours away from Tokyo, and many hours away from the BFF, G-chan. Which makes me sad, but it's better than being an ocean away. We'll make it work.

Some people had voiced their concerns about us not getting an apartment quickly enough, and I'd like to take this time to let you know, that all is good. The same evening that I got the call about my placement, I got an email from a very nice person from my company who found me a semi-finished apartment near my schools. It comes with broadband internet, a TV and TV stand, a bed, and a washer AND DRYER! And it's more than one room! I'm pretty excited about that. It has a very authentic Japanese bathing area, so I need to do some research on how to to bathe Japanese style. That's gonna be a fun google search.

While I don't have any inside pics of my future apartment, I do have an external photo and a floor plan that you guys can take a gander at (see bottom) . My apartment in on the first floor, suite 104. When I move in on Friday I'll post some pics, or do a video blog and give you a grand tour of my new home.

Speaking of video blogs, expect to see my first one on Monday evening (which will probably be super early Monday morning North American time) which will show my hotel and a bit of Osaka, the town I'll be in for my training. Let's see if I can get final cut loaded onto my mac, and maybe it'll be a better quality of video.

If that's too long to wait to see how I'm doing, follow my twitter and see my instant updates. I will be updating as often as I can. It matters how many free wifi connections I can get. I wonder if there's an internet connection over the ocean...

A little more than 24 hours to go

Today was another busy day in a week of busy days. I did accomplish what I set out to do, and was even early to my meet-ups, so I'm pretty proud of myself.

Everything is just happening so fast, it's hard to take it in. Feels like yesterday I was making a list of activities that I wanted to do this summer, and now, I don't think I accomplished any of them. Which is not to say that I didn't have an awesome summer, it's just that it went by way to fast.

Plus, there were quite a few unexpected surprises over the summer. Some good, some bad. Before I knew it, it's the night before my last day in Winnipeg.

But, alas, I don't even have the time to reflect on it now. Need to get to sleep. Tomorrow's gonna be a long day.

Cross Country Tour

Last Sunday, Kris and I headed out on the road to quickly drive to Calgary to apply for our visas on Monday morning, and then turn around and race back to Winnipeg so that Kris could go to work Tuesday morning.

It was the longest drive we've ever done on our own, and it's not something we would suggest doing. It was fun, and it was some nice together time, but it's still not a recommended drive.

Here's the things I learned while driving across the country:

• Porcupines need to learn how to cross the road
• Saskatchewan is not as boring as people would lead you to believe, but it does smell funny
  
• There is nothing nice to look at between Medicine Hat and Calgary
  
• There are more hills in between Brandon and Winnipeg than there are between Medicine Hat and Calgary
• Apparently a lot of tires break down on the trans-can
• There's a Cost-co in the middle of nowhere just outside of Swift Current
• Winnipeg seems to be the only city not built like every other Canadian city on Hwy 1. These other cities you drive through just enough to get to a hotel, a place for food, maybe a superstore, and lots of places to gas up, and then after a km or 2, you exit out to the bypass. Winnipeg, you either drive through all the way, or you by-pass all the way. We need to work on that.
• There seems to be a country wide gas shortage that no one is talking about.
• Canada, all of it, is really quite pretty. We need to enjoy it more.
  

If you could only bring 5

One of the things we're going to be bringing with us to Japan is a small collection of DVDs. When I say small, I mean like 5 each.

So if you could only bring 5 DVDs, which ones would you bring with you?

Counting Down

As of right now there are 17 days, 16 hours, 11 mins and 39 seconds until I leave for Japan. For anyone keeping count, yeah, that means I'm leaving Aug 23rd. Kris has a few weeks on me since he's leaving Sept 5th.

Still, that's not a lot of time left and there's still alot to do. Nevermind just packing things, but we have to head to Calgary to visit the Japanese Embassy there in order to apply for our visas. We need to apply for our internation driver licenses. We need to convert our money into Yen and get some traveller's cheques. We need to move Mikey to my parents. I still want to put together the photo book of Winnipeg for my students. And we need to pack.

There's also trying to find the time to see all our family and friends before we go. Right now, we're saying that we're hoping to be out there for a year and a half, but you never know how things will work out, so it's important to see people before we go.

Hopefully, we get to see you before we go. After all, I still have a whole 17 days, 16 hours, 3 mins and 12 seconds until I leave for Japan.