My First Day in Chizu

Woke up to these gorgeous misty mountains this morning.

This morning I woke up early, as seems to be the norm when changing time zones so drastically, and to one where it gets light out at 4am. My supervisors were coming to get me at 9am, so I spent the morning cleaning up the apartment a bit (we just crashed last night) and getting ready slowly, so as not to become drenched in sweat immediately. 

When O-san and N-san arrived, they informed me of the day’s plans (sort of, well, as best they could). O-san had also brought a step stool from his house for Yana to use (for the toilet and sink), which was extremely kind as we couldn’t find one in the store last night. 

Firstly we walked to the bank, where I had to set up my account. This is very important, as I get paid directly into my bank account and similarly, most or all of my utilities will be directly withdrawn. Setting up a bank account in Japan is quite the harrowing experience and it takes a looooong, long time. Firstly I had to fill out three forms, but in kanji (Japanese characters) and all by myself. The solution was for N-san to write it out in pencil and I copied overtop in pen. So, impromptu Japanese kanji practice! Then there was a big issue over whether or not I could get a bank account without a phone number of my own. It took a while to file all the paperwork, but finally they could use my personal seal to finalize everything (like a signature)…except that we were then informed that N-san had accidentally put today’s date in the spot for my birthday, so we had to write in the corrections and then stamp it with my seal to confirm. I was then told that it would take 2 weeks to get an ATM card! There are 2 ATMs in my town, and one is in the hospital right across the road from us, which is great (the other is in the bank). It does cost money to withdraw, but only during off hours and weekends. 

After the bank, we walked across the road to the government office, and on the way they told me we were going to meet the “top boss” of all of Chizu’s education! Okay, so that was a great surprise. I’m not sure I dressed nicely enough. We went upstairs and into his office and I awkwardly sat down after almost taking his seat. We chatted a bit and then N-san left and returned a moment later with 3 other people who work in the office, and whose names I’ve pretty much forgotten already. They started introducing themselves and I realized halfway through that I was still sitting on the couch while everyone but the “boss” (we’ll call him Mr. N) was standing. I felt way to awkward too just stand up randomly, so I continued sitting through all their introductions, dying slowly on the inside. Afterwards, N-san filled out a bunch of paper, and I attempted to make conversation with Mr. N and it went alright I think. He showed me some brochures about Chizu and a drawing of the new junior high school which is being built. We talked a bit about Canada and he told me he had been to Petrolia, which is a tiny town in Ontario, oddly enough it is very close to where my grandparents live and I’ve been there myself. 

Next we went grocery shopping at the nearby store, TOSC. I was unsure of what to get, so I ended up getting blueberries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, ramen, macaroni, a bag of meat pasta sauce, yogurt, bread and apple juice. It was about $21 CAD. Then my supervisor walked me home and used my seal to fill out some paperwork for internet and water and such. They said I had the afternoon off, to “clean up the room,” which was really kind. 

TOSC, my local grocery store.

Unfortunately there’s not much to do at home. We have no internet, no tv, no books, and hardly any stuff. The stuff we do have doesn’t have a place, as we need to buy some organizing and storage items. Still, its nice to finally have some time to relax, as its been pretty go-go-go since Tokyo for me. 

So I had just settled down with Yana to rest while watching a movie when the doorbell rang. It was O-san and N-san, who had come to say that the schools were closed tomorrow, so we had to go visit today or next week. I said today was fine, so off we went! 

First we stopped at the elementary school, and several girls gathered outside the entrance repeated “kawaii, kawaii” (cute) to Yana. We met a lot of teachers and I can’t remember their names. They also showed me the desk and computer I can use. 

The junior high school is a new school that is still in the process of being built. The amazing thing is that it is almost entirely wood - local cedar which grows on the mountains surrounding Chizu town. The school actually smelled amazing because of it. They brought us into a meeting room to meet the principal and two English teachers, one of whom is the vice principal. We sat here and chatted a bit more than at the elementary school, since the JHS is my base school and I will teach there most often. We also met a lot of the office staff, who all seemed very kind. 

One thing which was funny was that at both schools everyone kept calling Yana “ningyo,” (mermaid) and doll. One man even reached out to touch her hair! Obviously her ego is going to explode here, because everyone fawns over her.

O-san and N-san drove us back to our apartment, where they had to do some work to get our washing machine hooked up to the water. Finally it was fixed, but then we realized we didn’t have any laundry soap, so we had to go out shopping again. O-san took us back to TOSC, but they didn’t quite have what we were looking for, so he ended up driving us about 5 minutes to just out of town, where there is a larger store that is more like a pharmacy. We found some soap there, as well as a few other things we needed and then drove back to the apartment, where O-san showed us how to use the machine. I also asked him about how to sort garbage, as it has just been piling up on counters until then because I had no idea what to do with it. I'm still not sure I know what to do with it.

After that O-san and N-san left, around 6pm. Justin and I made dinner, which was the odd combination of watermelon and pasta with meat sauce. I had bought this sauce which came in two small bags and you squeeze it out onto the pasta. It was “meat” flavour, which was a bit sketchy, but it was actually pretty tasty! However, I’ve found that so far the fruits we’ve eaten here have been a bit tasteless compared to Canada. The blueberries were bland and grainy, the cherry tomatoes were okay, but again, a bit bland, as was the watermelon. But either way, I’m just happy to have something Yana will eat, since she’s so picky!