Tottori Prefectural Orientation 2014, Day Two

View from my hotel room.

Unfortunately I had to wake up early again the next morning for our second day of orientation. I was pretty tired, but luckily the night before I had purchased some coffee just for this reason!

We had to check out first and then everyone had to meet Mayumi in the lobby. We all walked together to the Hopestar, the location for the day. Here’s what our schedule was like:

9:00am-9:05am Introduction of senpai JETs (there were a few new people today)

9:05am-9:35am Introduction to TPIEF and emergency preparedness

9:45am-11:35am Workshop (divided by school levels)

11:45am-12:15pm Bus to lunch

12:15pm-1:15pm Lunch at Kuimonya Sazanami in Iwami

1:15pm-1:30pm Bus to boat ride

1:30pm-2:30pm Boat ride along the Uradome coast

2:30pm-3:00pm Bus to Tottori sand dunes

3:00pm-4:00pm Tottori sand dunes

4:00pm-4:30pm Bus to Tottori station

The boat ride was nice and relaxing, and there was a great cool breeze, but overall to be honest it was a bit boring. The rocks were pretty, but after about 10 minutes it just all looked the same. The seagulls and lone hawk following the boat and catching food was the most exciting part.

Uradome boat cruise.

The sand dunes were actually a bit more exciting. I explored with R1 and R2. R1 desperately wanted to sit on a camel, and we found that you can get photos for Y500; still a rip off, but cheaper than a 3 minute ride for Y2,500. So we waited in line for that, R2 and I did a photoshoot for R1 and then we decided to climb to the highest sand dune.

On top of the largest sand dune. It is a deceptively steep  drop to the water below.

It was a bit of a walk and on the way there we argued over whether or not we should attempt to scale the nearly vertical wall of sand or go for the gently sloping easy path. In the end we decided on the middle path, which was a bit steep, but not too much. Even that turned out to be a challenge though, so props to the people who attempt that vertical wall! The top was surprisingly high, and my fear of heights kind of began to kick in when I realized just how tiny the people at the bottom were. We enjoyed the view for a few minutes and then took the much less harrowing climb down. R2 decided he wanted to run down the vertical wall, but R1 and I declined after seeing another guy attempt the same and end up doing several impromptu summersaults and just completely eating it. 

The hike back was almost worse, because we had to go back up to the small dune, which was loooong and gently sloping. My legs got a serious work out! We rinsed our feet off and then went to get some of the famous nashi (pear) soft cream. They also had peeled, fresh pears to eat too. The soft cream was delicious, just as advertised. I only wish my cone had been larger! We took our ice cream inside the gift shop, where it was air conditioned. There were a bunch of free samples there, and I bought a pear to take home and try.

My 20th century pear soft cream.

Then it was time for the bus ride back to the station. I had been thinking of doing some shopping, but I was tired and my bags were heavy, so I stuck with R2 and L and took the train home with them.

Tottori Prefectural Orientation 2014, Day One

This morning I left the house early to meet N-san at Chizu station. I have Tottori prefectural orientation in Tottori city for today and tomorrow, so she rode the train with me. Three stops away from the city, two other JETs came on the train, R from New Zealand and L from USA, so we sat together and chatted.

When we got to the city there was still a lot of time to spare, so firstly we dropped our baggage at the Washington Hotel and then we all went to a cafe in the station for some iced coffee. I was never a coffee drinker before, but there is a lot of sweetened coffee here and I’ve been so exhausted that its almost becoming a habit. 

After coffee, we told N-san that we would be okay on our own, so she left to go back to Chizu. However, as soon as she left we realized we had no idea how to get across the street. I discovered a tunnel under the road, so we followed that. Along the way we picked up another JET from USA, C. There were two exits - one went to the street and one went into the basement level of the Daimaru department store. We decided to kill some more time in there and wandered around. After not too long we thought it would be best to head to the building for orientation. We thought it would be a short 5 or 10 minute walk, but it ended up being more like 20 minutes! It was getting a bit hot and humid by this point, and it didn’t help that several other JETs who live in the city passed us on their bikes!

We finally arrived at the building, which is huge with a cathedral-like ceiling all made of glass. It was like a giant greenhouse. Our orientation was held upstairs in a conference room. I sat beside L. Here’s what our schedule was like for the first day:

10:30am-10:50am Registration

11:00am-11:05am Opening remarks

11:05am-11:10am Explanation of schedule

11:10am-11:40am Basic information about work and life in Tottori (CIRs and ALTs)

11:40am-11:45am Introduction of Tottori AJET and senpai JETs

11:55am-12:55pm Lunch

1:05pm-1:35pm Basic information (continued)

1:45pm-2:45pm ALT specific information

2:45pm-2:55pm Break

2:55pm-4:45pm Panel discussion with senpai JETs

After that we all walked to the Washington Hotel near the station, which is where we were staying overnight. We checked in, picked up our luggage, and went to our rooms to rest a bit before the AJET party at 6:30pm. We were also able to rent wireless routers from the hotel, which was awesome!

My room at the Washington Hotel.

Around 6:20pm I went down to the lobby and met up with M (from AJET, and who was leading us all to the beer garden for the party) and the other JETs going out. We walked over to the beer garden, which is on the roof of the Daimaru department store, so not too far away. It is normally like Y3,200 or so for the beer garden, which is nomihodai (all you can drink) and tabehodai (all you can eat). But there was a coupon for Y700 off, which was great! There were lots of different drinks, mostly alcoholic, but some soft drinks too. The food was definitely different and I had no idea what most things were except for the potato wedges, chicken balls, edamame, and escargot. I only had one glass of alcohol, so overall it was a bit of a waste of money in that way, but it was fun to be there and I enjoyed meeting a lot of people. The beer garden closed at 9:30pm, so we crammed onto the elevator and met up on the sidewalk below. I don’t want to talk about it much for discretion, but some people were super drunk already, so it was getting pretty wild and people wanted to continue the party! We decided to got to karaoke, so a senpai JET led us to a spot, stopping along the way at a convenience store for more alcohol and fried chicken. We got a big room there and sang for almost two hours (a surprisingly good selection of songs actually, although the Celine Dion was questionable). I didn’t really drink much, but everyone was so fun and I love karaoke, so it was a really great experience anyway. Actually, afterwards I felt really energized and like it was good for opening up before going to teach a bunch of energetic kids. A few of us decided to call it a night around 11:30pm, so we paid and walked back to the hotel. I was a bit wired still, so I stayed up and finally crashed around 1am.