Tokyo Orientation 2014, Day Four and First Day in Tottori

Our hotel room.

This morning we had to get up early to catch our flight to Tottori. We packed our suitcases, but didn’t leave enough time for breakfast, so we went straight to check out and then to the 5th floor to meet with the other Tottori folks. We left around 7:20am and took a bus to the airport. I’m not sure if we were the first group to leave, but when we walked out all the other groups in the room cheered us out like we were celebrities or something, which was awesome and hilarious. We got to the airport, checked in, and then had to wait for a few hours for our flight at 10:45am. The flight was good, and it gave us a pretty nice view of Tokyo for a bit.

Tokyo Haneda Airport.

Leaving Tokyo

Leaving Tokyo

We landed in Tottori’s tiny airport and went to retrieve our luggage from the single conveyor. At the airport, my supervisors N-san and O-san were waiting for us. O-san drove us to a restaurant called Cafe Gusto in Tottori city for lunch. We all had hamburg steak sets. Over lunch we discussed what to do over the course of the day. O-san asked me (using a translator app on his tablet - very handy!) what I wanted to buy for our apartment, but I said I didn’t really know what I should buy without seeing what was in the apartment already. They then decided that we should drive into Chizu to see the apartment and then drive back to buy items. I felt really bad about it, but its really hard to express myself completely in Japanese. 

First views of Tottori!

First views of Tottori!

Before we got to the apartment, we stopped at the Chizu government office to register all three of us as residents. It took a few tries, but we finally got it right! They also had all our suitcases there, so those were brought out to the car.

Then we drove like one minute to our apartment building, which is directly across from the train station. There are 2 buildings on the lot, and we live in building 2. Our building has 9 floors and we live on the 5th. There is just one person across from us (so 2 apartments per floor). Our apartment is nice, but its smaller than it looked in the photos we saw! I think its probably about the same size as our house. The wood on the floors and walls is really cozy, but there are some not so nice things, like a bit of mould and air conditioning only in the tatami room (which we weren’t really planning on using). My supervisors showed us around the house, explaining things like the bath to me. Except when he was trying to explain about plugging the bath to fill it up, for some reason his translator was saying something like “it happened after the war.” I have no idea how that worked, but it was really hilarious. 

We dropped off our luggage and then went back in the car. We picked up a stovetop from the government office and then drove around for a while looking for futons without much luck. We kind of wanted a queen-sized futon for me and Justin, but we had to settle for two singles in the end, which is fine. We ended up back in Tottori city to buy the futons, along with other bedding (Yana picked out a Pokemon pillow), and some basic groceries for breakfast. 

Then we went for lunch at an udon restaurant in the city, where Justin and I got tonkatsu and Yana had plain udon, a Japanese food she will actually sort of eat. Then it was time to go back to Chizu. We were all exhausted and everyone fell asleep in the car, except for O-san, who was driving of course.

Back at the apartment, O-san explained a bit about what we would do the next day, and then left us to finally settle down for the night.

Overall, I am really interested to see more of Chizu and Tottori. The mountains are huge, lush, and omnipresent. We drove by a castle on top of a large hill on the way to Chizu, which was gorgeous. I’m really looking forward to our prefectural orientation, when we get to visit the sand dunes and go on a boat tour of the coast!

Oddly I still don’t really feel jet lagged, just tired after busy days. I also feel really calm and completely nonchalant about everything, and I’m not sure if that’s the product of some sort of brain malfunction or an actual sense of ease and acceptance of my new life here. I’ve been holding out for a freak-out moment, so far I’ve felt pretty cool and collected about everything. I am kind of terrified of actually starting teaching, but I know it will get easier with time, so I’m just telling myself to wait out the first few weeks of hardship. 

So that was my first day in Tottori! I will wrap things up here with some random, interesting things I’ve noticed:

The tap in our kitchen is a single lever style and you push down to turn the water on, not lift it up. I am having a lot of difficulty getting use to this and have sprayed water all over myself several times.

At the store, shampoo and soap are all in sealed containers, of course, but there are scent balls hanging beside each one so you can smell what its like without needing to open the container.

I’m really surprised at how much Japanese I actually have retained, even after not using it for 6 years. Its far from perfect, but I’ve been able to figure out most of what my supervisors say and they seem to understand me alright too.