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 The morning of the 17th finally arrived. We packed into Tish's parents' car, and were off to the airport. Of course, even this first part of the journey was not without incedent. A couple of serious accidents along the 80 delayed us by a half an hour. Fortunately, we had budgeted time for just such an event. We arrived at the airport with time to spare (for getting lost on the trains between terminals). We said goodbye to Tish's parents at the security gate, grabbed a small snack before the flight, and boarded the plane.
It was a long flight, over twelve hours. And the flight was made longer by the fact that the plane's audio system wasn't working, so we could only stare blankly at the inflight movies. At one point, it seemed like we went through a half hour of serious turbulence. We eventually found ourselves flying over the fields and rice paddies of eastern Japan, before we landed at Narita Airport.
When we disembarked from the plane on the evening of the 18th, the first thing that struck us was the incredible humidity. Coming from Southern California, any humidity would seem oppressive to us. Some staff from our new employer met us at the airport, and gave us directions for taking the train to meet our landlord. Before long we were on the train, trying to read the Japanese names for the stops as a myriad of glittering pachinko parlors streaked by outside the window.
 We met our new landlord in Tokyo, and signed our lease. Then he escorted us to our new apartment. A 12 tatami mat room may seem small by Western standards, but it's huge in Japan, especially for English sensei. Our apartment is probably about 250 sq. ft. In this picture you can see our kitchen, washroom, and bathroom, as well as a little bit of the genken (entryway). The flooring is a sort of fake wood-like linoleum, but we still take our shoes off and leave them in the genken every time we enter our apatto (apartment).
 Almost as soon as we arrived in Japan, we began to explore Tokyo. Within the first week, we had already located a bookstore with an English floor in Shinjuku (where a lot of the government is situated), and the Starbucks in Shibuya (an area of Tokyo where a lot of young people hang out). We were feeling pretty good about our ability to decrypt the subway map for Tokyo, which happens to look like a plateful of technicolor spaghetti, when we hit a huge snag. We missed the last train trying to get home after orientation, and ended up taking a ¥10, 000 ($100) taxi ride back to our house. Ouch! Soon enough we were settled into our new job and new home, and on our way to all kinds of glorious (and perhaps some inglorious) adventures.
Stay tuned until next week, when our heroes encounter . . . |
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