Sunday, December 03, 2006

Now in Tokyo!

Well now Mhairi and I are living in Tokyo. Last Thursday was exhausting as you can imaging I am sure. Three hours sleep, moving, getting lost trying to find the apartment, waiting for luggage to be delivered, unpacking, moving furniture around the apartment, poor Mhairi had to go to an interview. We went down to our agent’s office to sign our lease and when we came back we just passed out.
Friday: Well Friday was my first day of work. My job is so chill. Oh may I love it! I was in the office all day and they had nothing for me to do so I planed out my train schedule and the routes to the schools, and played on the internet waiting for time to pass. Oh and they decided to extend the teacher’s Christmas holidays so I now have the 22 of December to the 9th of January off. And this is paid holiday. Oh so chill. I have said before they I am only in each school for 2 hrs but I have found out that that is a max of 2hrs so I might only be in a school for one lesson (30mins). Man I love this job. There is a little work to be done in regards to creating flash cards and we are working out the new curriculum which is essentially the same as the old, with a few vocab changes and standardizations for fluidity throughout the year. That takes very little time. I am in the office twice to three times a week. The schedule changes a lot so I have one week where I am in the office for three afternoons and one day where I don’t seem to be anywhere…but that can all change. This job is so great and Tokyo is so amazing, I can see myself staying in Tokyo for over a year…who knows man….
Friday Night: So Friday was Michelle’s birthday and seeing as she has also moved to Tokyo from Ota (all the cool kids are doing it), we all (Ani, Nina, Michelle, Mhairi and I) hung out in Shibuya and it was awesome. Man I love Shibuya, it is like being in a moving. Every time I go cant believe that I live in this amazing city. Shibuya is everything I imagined Tokyo to be. We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. Its great, you order from a machine, give your ticket to the waitress and she brings your food. Fabulous! It was delicious and cheap for Tokyo. Then we went to a really cheap bar that we had stumbled on earlier while we were waiting for Nina. The $2 beers didn’t only draw us, but all other gaijin that were walking by. It was insane! 80-90% of the people were gaijin and it was like a big party. It was great to be around so many other foreigners, especially after the fabulous, but limited, foreign population in Ota. I spent most of the night talking to a Japanese women who is now working as an interpreter and who had just gotten back to Japan from a tour on the PeaceBoat so we spent a great deal of time talking about that and about conflict issues. It was great! She really encouraged me to apply to work on the PeaceBoat. Which is of course more reason to stay in Japan as I need at least 18months teaching experience. Mhairi and I headed home around 11pm, Michelle left a bit later, but she did catch her train. The trains in Tokyo stop running around midnight. Crazy early!
So that’s it for my first two days in Tokyo.
Cheers

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