Tokyo Orientation: Part Deux

The morning of the first day of orientation (Sunday), I woke up around 4 and was completely unable to go back to sleep. So, around 6 I got up and got dressed, and headed out into Shinjuku to have a look around. I was also on a mission to locate the object of my heart's desire for the past two years -- Mr. Donut, makers of the best damn donut in the world. For the past two years there has been a sweet, donut-shaped hole in my heart that only the fine "Misdo" could fill. Seriously, Mr. Donut puts Krispy and Dunkin' to shame. SHAME!

I luckily had navigated the entirely Japanese-language Mr. Donut site before I set out, and so I had an idea where two stores should be located. Took about 20 minutes to get to the first one by foot, and sadly it was closed because it was located in a department store. BTW, department stores in Japan have everything. Usually a few floors toward the top (many of them have 8-10 floors or more) house a bunch of restaurants, and the basement floor is often a giant supermarket. It took me about 10 minutes to walk to the next store. Lo and behold...


MR. DONUT. Pay no mind to the pictures of hot dogs and other "growing food." Growing food should never be eaten at Mr. Donut. I cannot express how elated I was to have successfully found the donut Mecca. I was nearly in tears.

Here's a pic of the donut I ate. In case you were wondering, it was effing delicious.

I got back to the hotel with plenty of time to get ready. The first part of orientation, which merely involved meeting the other new JETs in our prefecture didn't begin until 10. When I arrived at the giant conference room where this part of orientation was held I was floored by the number of people. I wish I had taken a picture now in hindsight, but I hadn't thought ahead enough to bring my camera with me. There were about 1500 JETs at this first orientation (there's a second orientation going on right now, with about 1200 new JETs in attendance). After meeting each other we listened to a couple of speeches made by various Japanese government officials and CLAIR officials, the organization that runs the JET program. All of this was ridiculously boring, and I had to fight sleep. After I finished lunch, I took the opportunity to go up to my room and sleep for 4 hours, skipping a number of other speeches. I asked around to be sure I didn't miss anything, and everyone assured me I would have been asleep either way. I'm glad I chose to nap in my boxers in the comfy hotel bed instead of napping whilst sitting up in control-top pantyhose.

Upon waking I got ready to meet the other JETs in my prefecture in the lobby to go for "nomihodai", or all-you-can-eat/drink. Basically, you pay a flat fee (in this case, 2500 yen) and get to drink (beer, mixed drinks, soda, whatever) and eat (mainly snacky finger food) however much you want for a certain amount of time (two hours). Luckily the place our prefectural advisor took us also had karaoke. Here we are bustin' it out:



No! Scott is definitely not drunk.



Despite the par-tay, I got to bed surprisingly early that night, around 1AM.

The next day the teaching workshops started at 9AM, so I woke up bright and early at 7 and got ready so I'd have plenty of time for breakfast. The breakfast they provided had a lot of options and was really tasty, so I tried to fill up (I always fill up on free food). The workshop that morning was pretty helpful. It was led by a JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) and her ALT (which is what I am -- an Assistant Language Teacher). They went over how to make lesson plans and generally what to expect in the classroom. After that workshop was over I met my good friend Matt (Nunnelly-san) to explore Shinjuku a bit and get some Ramen. Matt and I were in Japanese together at Carolina, and he's the only person I knew at orientation. We found a really cool hippie shop with some awesome clothes (all of which were unfortunately too expensive for me), and a tiny alley that housed nothing but yakitori shops:

We found a Ramen shop and ate some exxxxxxxcellent Ramen. Folks, THIS is what REAL ramen looks like. This is not the best picture because I ferociously dug in as soon as they brought it, but you get the idea:

After the delicious ramen, we made a stop at Mr. Donut. I meant I was gonna fit as much Mr. Donut in as possible before I left Tokyo in case there wasn't one in Murakami City. Unfortunately, I've learned there isn't one in Murakami, but there are plenty in Niigata city (I'm going there tonight!!!!! MisDo here I come!!!!)

Once we got back to the hotel, I went to a short workshop for female JETs. Most of what they said was pretty common sense, but it was good to hear anyways. They explained what happens when you go to the gynecologist in Japan, which was pretty amusing. God I hope I never have to make that trip while I'm here...

That night I decided to stay in and take it easy. A few people from my prefecture planned to go out, but I was too pooped and still a bit jet lagged. I went to sleep around 9:30, which was nice. Now that I think about it, its probably been 5 years since I've gone to bed that early. Heh.


The next morning our prefectural group set out for Niigata. We rode a double-decker shinkansen (bullet train) to Niigata City. At the station I was met by one of the English teachers I'll be working with, who speaks excellent English, as well as my supervisor and another office worker at the Board of Education, both of whom speak no English whatsoever. At this point I said good-bye to my fellow JETs and made my way to Kamihayashi with my new bosses. My trip to Kamihayashi and Murakami City will come in a later post, though, so keep checking in!