Tokyo Orientation 2014, Day Two

I woke up around 2am this morning to Yana kicking me in the side. I was so NOT thrilled at the prospect of her being up so early, but luckily she went back to sleep eventually and is still snoozing at nearly 6am - hooray! However, after that I slept fitfully and woke up a lot. I left the curtains open and the sun starts rising really early here (around 4am), so that didn't help either. Tonight I will close the curtains! I feel tired, but mostly just like I didn't sleep well.

Before breakfast we went down to the convenience store in the south tower, mostly to get things for Justin and Yana's lunch. There were a ton of Frozen things for sale! Yana was going crazy at all the cute things. I got some pure gummies, a favourite from when I was here in 2008.


Here was our schedule for the first day of orientation:

7:00am-8:30am Breakfast
I was a bit worried about Justin and Yana getting in, but there was no one at the doors, so it went alright after all. Breakfast was pretty good. Lots of fruit, which I was happy about.

9:00am-10:00am Opening ceremony and essential information
I went directly to the room for the opening ceremony after breakfast, as we had to be seated by 8:45. I ended up with a bunch of the folks from Toronto, so that was a happy accident.

At the opening ceremony.

10:00am-10:15am Break

10:15am-11:15am Expectations of you as a JET
This presentation was mainly about tips to keep in mind. I kind of blanked out a bit during this one.

11:15am-11:30am Break
We ended a bit early, so we actually took a 1/2 hour break and went outside to a convenience store for coffee. We were going to go for donuts (so Canadian), but couldn't find the place and had to get back to the hotel for the next presentation.

11:30am-12:15pm Foreign language education in Japan
This was actually one of the most amusing presentations of the day. The speaker was really funny and he also showed us some great scenery of Japan. This presentation was about government mandates on how foreign languages should be taught in Japan. There is a fairly new suggestion that classes should be taught in English only.

12:15pm-1:30pm Lunch
We went and had lunch in the south tower, since it seemed less busy. We had penne with vegetable sauce, some kind of vegetable soup, and coffee.

Lunch was served on giant lazy susans!

1:30pm-2:20pm Team teaching demonstration and effective lesson planning, part 1 (Junior high)
We split into a bunch of groups for information about teaching at our respective levels. I was in the D group for junior high school. It was pretty informative. We learned about the school system, schedules, how to team teach, etc.

2:20pm-2:35pm Break

2:35pm-3:25pm Team teaching demonstration and effective lesson planning, part 2 (Junior high)
The second part of the teaching presentation.

3:25pm-3:40pm Break

3:40pm-4:30pm Characteristics of Japanese and self study techniques
This presentation was kind of boring and all over the place. It was really random and unfortunately the presenter didn't do a great job. It was supposed to be a kind of introduction to the language and basic Japanese.

4:30pm-4:45pm Break

4:45pm-5:35pm Workplace etiquette
Our last seminar of the day was about etiquette, so we covered things like bowing, greetings, and posture. Honestly by this point I was getting really drained, but thankfully the hours go by fairly quickly.

5:35pm-6:30pm Break

6:30pm-8:00pm Welcome reception
We actually ended up skipping out on this. I was so done with work stuff and I didn't feel like being in a suit and listening to speeches and dealing with forced social interaction. It was optional, so it was okay.

Instead we decided to go out and explore Tokyo, since we don't have much other time to do that.

Yana in Shinjuku!

We were trying to find our way to Don Quijote, but got a bit lost on the way. So first we ended up stopping at 7-11 to get a snack for Yana. She got some blueberry yogurt. Then we consulted some maps and after a bit of a walk we made it to Don Quijote, where we bought an umbrella and some 3-prong to 2-prong converters. After that we stopped by McDonald's because Yana likes their hamburgers. I attempted to order the food, but it went a bit wrong...instead of getting the #3 double quarter pounder set for Justin I instead ordered three double quarter pounders on their own. Which explains why they had us wait for 5 minutes for the food. Oops.

View of Shinjuku.

Oddly I don't think I've really been hit by jet lag at all! I felt tired after the flight, but that was because I hadn't really slept in 2 days. I've felt pretty great all day as far as that goes. Unfortunately I've become sick, which puts a damper on things. I felt it in my throat the day we left, but now I sound like an old man. I'm hoping it clears up at least a bit before I have to meet my supervisor!