Japan at Last!

Konichiwa from Japan! David and I safely arrived in Japan about 2 weeks ago.  We have been very busy, but we are really enjoying this beautiful country.  Sorry it took so long to post, we only found free public wifi a few days ago, and it is a 20 minute subway ride to get there.  Once we move to our permanent apartments on Monday the 16^th, we should be able to get the ball rolling on our own internet.  To make up for it in the meantime, I have written a fairly long blog post. Read on if you dare…

So, Japan has been a complete rush so far.  The scenery is beautiful, the culture is interesting and the people are so kind! A wonderful example of my life in Japan so far: I got lost on my way to a school for training, because the train line I was on had no English signs.  They also had no hiragana (the Japanese alphabet) signs, they only had Kanji signs (the Chinese characters).  I was pretty sure I was on the right train, but to be sure, I asked the lady sitting next to me if the train was stopping at Nagoya station (by ask I mean I said excuse me and “Nagoya?” with a questioning and frightened look on my face).  She said yes several times in Japanese and I bowed a quick thank you.  She then proceeded to tell me the name of every stop as we stopped, translating the Kanji and then walked me off the train at Nagoya station and pointed me towards the exit.  All this from a complete stranger who didn’t speak my language.  Japan is also incredibly safe.  Muggings, thievery and assault are unheard of and you can tell by walking the streets.  There is no concern about walking around at night, and you can approach anyone on the street for help.  Within our first two weeks, Japan is already starting feel like a second home! So, now for a catalog of the events of our trip over here and our experiences so far!

Our trip over got off to a rocky start, as my ticket was booked as Sarah Graham (oops!).  This was fairly quickly resolved, but we still missed our first flight to San Fransisco.  This unfortunately meant cancelling our breakfast date with David’s older brother, but we did arrive in plenty of time for our flight to Japan.  The flight over was fairly uneventful, but very long, 11 hours in the air! After being a nervous wreck about going through customs the whole flight over, it ended up being a breeze and we left the airport a mere 30 min after landing.  Now, the coolest thing about the flying to and in Japan, is that shipping luggage is the norm.  We had our luggage delivered from the airport to Peppy Kids head office in Nagoya for roughly 16 dollars a bag! Convenience is the name of the game for pretty much every service in Japan.  We then hopped on a 15 min train to Narita, the town where the Tokyo Airport is located.  Narita was a surprisingly quaint little town, but we sadly didn’t get to see very much of it.  This was because we got caught in a rainstorm and became lost on the winding streets.  We ended up walking the same route a few times until a kind lady took pity on us and using our map, gave us sign language directions to our hotel.  This all with two broken pieced of carry-on luggage (my wheel broke and David’s handle broke).  Needless to say, by the time we showed up to our hotel we looked two tired, hungry and partially drowned rats.  To make matters more uncomfortable, the lobby/dining room was full of a travelling baseball team.  25 Japanese teenagers watched two wet and dirty looking foreigners carrying broken luggage check in.  Trust me, it was quite a sight to see.  After we changed shoes and slippers the requisite million times as you transfer from room to room, we arrived at our room.  It was perfect.  We stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel equivalent to a Bed and Breakfast in the States.  Our yukata, light cotton kimono-eque robes, were waiting for us, as was hot green tea and crackers.  We settled down on our futons and relaxed in a perfectly Japanese space.  For our first night in Japan, it was perfect.  Now as exhausted as we were, we only managed a few hours of sleep.  The jet lag was pretty bad. However, in the morning we had another extremely Japanese experience.  The baseball team left, leaving us as the only guests.  We had a traditional Japanese breakfast served to us by the owner of the ryokan.  He could trace his lineage back to three generations of samurai and had a full set of amour and other family heirlooms on display.  After finishing our delicious breakfast, he personally drove us to the train station and explained how to get to Nagoya, which was best accessed by the Shinkansen, more commonly known as the bullet train.

Now I was expecting the bullet train to be fast.  I was expecting to get to my destination quickly.  I did not, however understand the true meaning of fast and quickly until I rode the bullet train.  Our journey looked fairly tedious on a map, crossing nearly half the country.  However, as scenery and towns whizzed by at the speed of sound, I had barley gotten settled in when we arrived at our station.  In a mere hour and 20 minutes, we were at Nagoya Station, a journey that would have taken 5 hours by car.  If you ever go to Japan- take the Shinkansen.  It’s worth every penny.

So, there we were.  Nagoya, our home for the next three weeks.  We would soon be told that it is nicknamed the armpit of Japan. This is due not only to it’s location on the island, but also to the absolutely insufferable heat.  I was told it would be hot  and humid in Japan.  I was not told it would be 100 degrees and 100% humidity.  For a week.  After adjusting to the brilliant habit of carrying a handkerchief for mopping up sweat and fan to create a weak imitation of breeze, life became slightly more bearable.  It did cool down eventually, but that first week was rough.  Here are some pictures from our tourist adventures in Nagoya.

A Mario pinata-esque thing.  There was a contest at one of the festivals we went to to make the best video game or anime paper mache replica, this one was my favorite!

That's right. A square watermelon.  Simpsons fans rejoice. This was in the upscale department store in Sakae, a ritzy neighbourhood in Nagoya.  David and I were pretty sure we didn't have enough money to exist in this store.  This is where Japan gets the expensive reputation from.  Luckily, the grocery store down the street offers food at similar prices to home.  I don't care if the watermelon has corners, I'm not paying $210 for it.

View from the top of an enclosed ferris wheel in Nagoya.  The recorded voice kept telling us we were higher up in the air than the top of Nagoya Castle. That kinda makes me wish we went to Nagoya Castle...

A temple where we saw a  taiko drumming festival and the World Cosplay Summit.  You don't know what cosplay is? See below...

Essentially, Cosplay is where people dress up as anime, computer game or manga characters and other people take pictures of them.  Some people do this professionally.  It was intense!

A lantern festival near Nagoya. It was beautiful!

Then they made the lanterns dance! It was awesome! And yes, that kid is about 11., and they really looked heavy.

Training did eventually begin.  Our first discovery from training was that we really are working a sweet gig.  We work 3-5 hours five days a week.  We get 15 days off for Christmas, 5 personal days and every Japanese national holiday off (there are a TON!).  We also get paid pretty well. Also, our job primarily consists of playing with adorable kids.  The teachers we have met have said it is the best job they’ve ever had.  Some teachers are on their 10^th year, and the majority of the foreigners who work at head office are native teachers that have worked their way through the ranks, and still request to teach a few times a month.  All in all, Peppy seems like a great place to work.  This brings me to the hilarity of working for a company named “Peppy Kids Club.”  When describing anything at Peppy, one must simply put the word “peppy” in front to indicate that it is a part of the company.  Witness the hilarity that ensues.  When I got to the Peppy classroom, I grab my Peppy teaching manual and planned my Peppy lesson.  The Peppy students will arrive and I greet the Peppy parents using my Peppy phrases learned during training.  The Peppy textbooks are really useful when teaching the Peppy curriculum.  And so it goes for everything, including the Peppy fax machines.  Beyond making training sound far more ridiculous than it is, it also gives off the air that everything at work, even the most mundane of tasks has a cheerful and enthusiastic feeling about it.  Kind of like a Disney movie on speed.  I reality, the fax machine works like any other fax machine, which is fairly disappointing.  I was kind of hopping it would play a jingle and dance enthusiastically while faxing. 

Our training group is great, and we have made fast friends with most of them.  They are all around our age and though we have come to Japan for a variety of different reasons from different countries, we all want to get the same things out of living in Japan; experiences, understanding and adventure! Training has been a lot of long hours and hard work so far, but it is also paying off.  As we are starting to teach actual classes ourselves, we are really grateful for all the preparation they have given us.  I will let you know how training goes once we are finished, but right now it is mostly really busy.  Everyone says things get easier and calm down once you move to your area.  So, that is all for now, but we miss you all back in the States and hope you are all doing well! Till next time, sayonara!