Initial Impressions and Realizations

1. I learned yesterday that my shins can sweat.
2. Living alone in a foreign country is pretty stressful.
3. Teaching English is going to be more challenging than I thought.
4. There is a rooster in my neighborhood.
5. It is going to take me weeks to get caught up on my laundry because my washing machine is so small and I dont have a lot of places to hang up clothes.
6. It takes a very long time for clothes to dry in this humid place.
7. The students at my base high school are very nice and courageous.
8. I don't know how to differentiate between important mail and junk mail because I can't read kanji.
9. I tried to go food shopping but couldn't read the boxes or bags. Also, I don't have a stove to cook on right now.
10. I never realized how important communication was to me. I used to think that i could be an island and not need other people very often. These last couple of days have changed my perspective on this, I need interaction with other people in English...Or I need to learn Japanese very quickly.

Every work day I have a meeting with an English teacher and one of the school office managers. The meeting consists of a long itinerary of things I have to be aware of or what I have to do. The catch is that this list is all in Japanese, so the office manager reads off the list at the English teacher in Japanese, then the English teacher acts as a translator and tells me what the manager just said. More often than not I am able to pick up the gist of the conversation because of Japanese words that i know or because of English cognates.

The ability to communicate has become a central focus of my days at work the past two days. I spent 6 or so hours yesterday learning Japanese so that i could go to the store and ask "sekkan wa doko desu ka" = Where is the soap? It is the little things like not being able to find the soap in the grocery store or not knowing if you bought bleach or laundry detergent, is the frustrating aspect of all of this. I am left scratching my head at the little things that even an 5 year old can do, like order food a restaurant.

I am the only foreigner that I know of in my town. That is pretty difficult to deal with. I laughed at the "culture shock" presentation at Tokyo orientation but it is pretty clear that the excitement of being here in Japan has been replaced by the frustration of not knowing anything and being pretty lost.


Speaking of being lost, that has been my biggest fear these few days. I don't know how to get to Kyoto city or even my town center. People dont seem to like to give detailed directions to places here in Japan. It is always like, "get on the train, and go east, go out of the station and go left." That is not enough for me, I am a very detail-oriented person. I need addresses and street names...not that having those would help me.



Overall, I am still very excited to be here. This is a great opportunity and I am having fun. I have a feeling that once I get my bearings here in my town and finish cleaning and setting up my room, I will be in a better place.


On a happy note, this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Around every street corner there is a different view of something gorgeous. If you can get by the fact that everyone is staring at you whether they are looking at you or not, then this place is really amazing.

Plans for today: Find an electronics store, get some food that I have never tried, maybe buy a stove and try to figure out how to work my rice cooker.

~Gio