More Shopping

This afternoon, N-san took us shopping at the big AEON in Tottori city. We bought a rice cooker, which oddly was impossible to find anywhere else, most inconveniently. We also got a clothes rack so we could start getting some things out of our suitcases finally! 

Afterwards, we bought some bread for dinner and I had the most amazing, delicious croissant of my life! It was so chewy and soft inside that I thought there was cheese! I really wish that AEON wasn’t so difficult to get to! Although, I guess my wallet would suffer! I also managed to find a bottle of yuzu juice, which I was thrilled about because they don’t sell it in our little TOSC.

When we got home we used the rice cooker, which took some effort because we had no idea what the directions said. But in the end it turned out really good! And we even got a cheap rice cooker. So even the cheap ones here cook rice better than I did in a pot in Canada. Then again, the rice is better, so that’s probably part of it. I think the rice we have is actually from Tottori prefecture, which is really cool! 

Exploring Tottori City

I hadn’t heard anything from my supervisor since she left on the 12th, so I sent an email asking what I was doing today. I got a reply that I was on vacation until Tuesday! So I guess I’ve basically been on vacation this whole time and didn’t know about it. 

With nothing else to do, and tired of being stuck in the apartment, we decided to go into Tottori city to do some shopping for the apartment. 

We managed to purchase train tickets on our own, thanks to the handy “English” button on the machine. I should add, though, that Tottori is so country that I haven’t seen an automatic gate anywhere! There are actual people who stand at the gate to stamp your tickets. (Normally you buy the ticket, then go to a gate, where you stick the ticket in the machine, it opens the gate, you walk through, and get your ticket at the other end. Then you keep the ticket and do the same thing when you leave the station, except the machine keeps the ticket so it knows you’ve completed your ride.)

We got on the train, which was very busy, probably due to the Shan Shan Festival happening in the city. Justin, me, and Yana sat down in that order, and a couple sat beside us, with the man beside Yana. I noticed from the corner of my eye that the woman had her tablet out and it was on camera. I saw my face appear so I looked over and she rushed to hide the tablet. Then the couple switched spots so the woman was beside Yana. She blatantly took our her tablet and snapped a selfie with Yana! I was a bit taken aback, but the couple were very kind. They were actually from China, so I’m curious as to what they were doing in Chizu! The woman even gave Yana some jelly and a pack of crackers and a wipe when she spilled. 

Once we arrived in Tottori we were pretty hungry, so we went and got lunch at MOS Burger. It was really delicious! I have never tasted such fresh tomatoes at a restaurant. I got a mango lassi too, which was amazing. They also had this spiced meat taco thing, so I decided to try it. The meat was definitely not the normal taco seasoning, and it was really sweet. But otherwise it was tasty too.

After that we walked to the nearby AEON, which I recognized as the place where we bought our futons on our first night here. We did some shopping, and along the way we ran into two other JETs, R and K! When we finished checking out, the cashiers and I bowed to each other, and Yana bowed too! It was the cutest thing, and I’m thrilled to see how she is absorbing things without even being told.

We walked back to the station and bought our tickets, but we were a bit early for the train, so we stopped in a bakery in the station, which was delicious. I love Japanese bakeries more than I can say!

Then we went to catch our train, and amazingly the Chinese couple had caught the same one! So we smiled and waved, but they weren’t sitting next to us this time.

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.

A Day Off?

So today is Monday, but I wasn’t told that I had to be anywhere, and nobody has yet to text me or come to my house, so I’m unsure of if I have the day off or what. I kind want to go out for a walk, but I’m afraid to leave in case someone comes for me.

I ended up not going out, but nobody came or contacted me, so we went out in the evening and walked about an hour or so to the big pharmacy just outside town and went shopping there for a few things.

Typhoon Sunday

This morning the typhoon is worse - still raining, and now with lots of wind. We probably could have gone out yesterday, as today is supposed to be the worst day. So again, we are stuck inside. Its also frustrating because it is still warm, but if we open the windows we get rain in the house. So we’ll keep them closed, I guess, and use fans to help circulate the air. 

After getting our laundry machine fixed, we’ve done a few loads of laundry. The problem, though, is that we don’t have a dryer and in the high humidity and general wetness here, the clothes literally take days to dry. We also only have one small rack to hang things on. We do have some clips for a railing out on the balcony, but of course we can’t put clothes out in a typhoon. I finally realized we can dry the clothes a lot easier in front of the fan, though! Still, not having a dryer is taking some getting used to.

The typhoon warning today ended up being a bit of a dud - in the afternoon it cleared up a lot and even became sunny. However, we still couldn’t go out because Yana was vomiting up everything. I think she was reacting to the new water here, because after drinking it was when her problems started. In the evening she was fine, and hadn’t had any water since the early morning.

A Typhoon is coming...

This morning I actually slept until 6:30am, which was great. I did wake up around 5am, because of the trains, but I fell back asleep. 

Today is Saturday, so its a free day! But unfortunately because of the typhoon we can’t really go out. I’m not sure how dangerous it will be, but its been pouring rain non-stop since yesterday and it might get worse, so we won’t chance it. Some events around here have already been cancelled because of it. 

I spent the day doing some organizing, but I can’t do much because we don’t have anything to organize with. Overall, a pretty boring day. I wish we had been able to go out.