Oh the Places You'll Go!

So we set off early in the morning for Yamanashi-ken to meet my supervisor and find the place where I would call my home. I was quite nervous as I left the relative comfort of the Keio Plaza Hotel. As we started driving, I looked out the window and my whole world and outlook the second I saw these mountains.

Now you may be thinking (like me) that this looks like you have landed in Jurassic Park. You wouldn't be far off. Turns out Japan is pretty much a tropical island. It is all sorts of terribly humid, and at times the capitol of Yamanashi, Kofu is the hottest place in Japan. So it is sticky and hot. I saw these mountains covered in green and really realized that I was somewhere new. 

We spent the rest of the day doing paperwork, going to the grocery store and driving on the left side of the road. I got to my apartment/townhouse out in the backwoods up the mountain from Kofu. I will have to commute something like 30 minutes to my school each way, but it is about 10 degrees cooler up here in the mountains near Kiyosato. In my next post, I hope to have a video tour of my new place and let you all see what kind of world I will be living in (and what kind of accommodations you can expect if you come visit). I live right behind a preschool and beyond that on either side, it is forest. This means bugs (bug post to come).

Tokyo Pictures

I totally forgot to add pictures to Tokyo! Here they are:

 This is the Tokyo City Hall which was outside my Hotel room window

 This here is inside the Karaoke room which had black lights and all sorts of magic on the walls to surprise you

 "Karaoke is not Karaoke unless there is a naked cosmic baby" - Japanese Proverb

These two are pictures of the lobby of the Karaoke place

T-T-T-Tokyo Time

Tokyo is an incredible place from what I can tell (which is about 2 square blocks or so). Where we were there were giant buildings of all sorts of architecture. On the way in, I noticed the apartments and housing of the outskirts which was interesting. It looked like a concrete beehive. Buildings upon buildings of square concrete apartment buildings that seemed like it belonged in Soviet Russia. I really did think of it as a beehive. They seemed rather unfriendly. 


While in Tokyo, we went to the convenience store and walked around some of the shops near the hotel. When I was here I realized just how little of the language I speak. I feel completely useless when it comes to communicating anything effectively. Additionally, I have used limited Spanish as a backup for so long that I find myself trying to default to that when I try to speak. I need to do some brain rewiring.


Let me tell you why they call this "Land of the Rising Sun." Partially because Japan's origin story has to do with some kind of sun-goddess coming down and making the people here, but that is not all. The sun rises here at like 4:20 am. I woke up the first morning thinking that I had slept until about 7 am, based on the sun on the buildings. Turns out it wasn't eve 5 am. So there is that. It makes sleeping kind of tricky. As I write, I have been up for an hour or so and it isn't even 8 am. "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! Turn and face the strange"


Tokyo was a lot of rather boring orientation. Orientation to the Orient...Didn't really help that much because I still dropped my jaw the first time I looked around a store and took 20 minutes to decide to eat a piece of cheese bread and a Coke Zero. Speaking of Coke Zero, I miss Diet Coke. The love I have for Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper is almost enough to make me want to get on a plane and come home right now. I am told that there isn't any in this country... So sad. 


In Tokyo, we met with some of the people from our prefecture (think county/state) and went out for Udon noodles and Karaoke. Karaoke is a big think in Japan, as you can see from the pictures below. You rent out a room for a period of time and just belt it out with whoever you came with. They have a wide selection of English songs as well. I sang Under Pressure, and Pianoman. The Karaoke also comes with these music videos that have absolutely nothing to do with the song that is being played. It is usually some kind of Japanese man in some kind of angst about some kind of situation, or on a Harley. In one, there was a Japanese girl who must have had some kind of disability when it came to drinking liquids because she went on a horse right and drank from her canteen which spilled all over her shirt. Naturally, she had to take her shirt off and run around the beach kicking the waves for a bit after that...come to think of it, maybe she just had problems with water. 

Leaving Time

I landed in Tokyo at about 5 pm on July 24th, 2011. If you are not familiar with the Utah holiday on July 24th, it commemorates the first Mormon pioneers coming into the Salt Lake Valley. I am sure my mother (who is a 4th grade teacher) could tell you all about it and have some songs to go with it. I have been thinking a lot about what I should name this blog. The obvious choice - Jeff In Japan is just too obvious, so I decided against it. Then, seeing the contract which extends from the 24th to the 24th and the fact that I am venturing into a far land alone, I decided that The Pioneer Year would be a good one. So there ya have it.


I wish I could crystallize the thoughts that I have had over this last week (which has been one of the most tumultuous in my life). It is bizarre to think that I said goodbye to family only a week ago. The time for me has moved so slowly and quickly at the same time. I left early Friday morning to get to the airport in time for my plane to Denver to be delayed for over an hour. After arriving in Denver, we were whisked away to a hotel to get ready for the Pre-Departure Orientation. The PDO was relatively interesting (lots of don't forget your passport and here-is-your-ticket-info). After that we had a big meal and party at the official residence of the consulate general for Denver. At this party there was a whole lot of Japanese food that I ate and had a good time. Don't ask me what the food was because I don't know. I do know that there was something that looked like it should have been a chicken nugget, but it was filled with fish. I feel that this little surprise may be common in Japan.


On to the next day. Fly to Japan day (also known as the day of tears). If you didn't know, flying to Japan is...pretty awful. We flew Japan Airlines which was very accommodating, but sitting in one place for more than 10 hours ever is pretty much torture. Additionally, the sun doesn't set when you fly into it. We arrived in Tokyo like I said at 5 pm. Still sunny. America time it was about 2 am. My love for movies may have ruined me on this flight because I couldn't sleep because I wanted to watch all of the movies that they had. I ended up watching The Adjustment Bureau, Tangled, Limitless, Just Go With It, some of Sucker Punch, and some of Cars.


Arriving in Tokyo wasn't bad except for the bone-crushing exhaustion that comes from travelling for 21 hours. The temperature was abougt 80, but the humidity is like a sticky soup that you swim through. Cleared immigration and customs and I was off...to a bus...for 2 hours. Narita airport is actually pretty far away from the hotel we were staying at in central Tokyo. So it took a LONG time to get there. The Keio Plaza hotel is really quite ritzy. There were something like 650 foreigners there, so it didn't feel much like Japan. It was very comfortable, and my toilet had a bidet (which I didn't use).


I am going to break the next part into another post because I am sure that many of you didn't even keep with me after the fish chicken nugget...