On the bus ride from the airport to the hotel we were told that we would have to wait a while before we could get our keys which was a huge downer to me, I needed a shower, I needed a change of clothes; I had to become civilized again! When we got there though, luckily, this warning proved false and it was straight to the room and straight in the shower.
Contrary to the super posh appearance of the hotel in general the rooms were actually rather bland, they wouldn’t have looked out of place in Skegness, yet out of the window you had the shiny lights of Tokyo…hmm….
My orientation living arrangements turned out to be surprisingly good, a decent sized room sharing with only one other guy who I had met previously, he had been one of the people sharing a corridor with me at London orientation and we had spoken a bit on the long journey from Edinburgh. Speaking to other people it seems everyone wasn’t so lucky, one guy at least was the third man in a two person room and had to sleep on a sofa, a girl I spoke to one morning moaned of her grossly overweight, heavy snoring roommate.
My first order of business in Japan: Japanese TV.
Oh how disappointing it was. Nothing but baseball, talk shows and documentaries about small rice packaging plants in Ishikawa. There was nary a tentacle rape anime to be seen. Oh well, it was 3pm.
Or was it?
This would be a big problem with my time in Tokyo and even my first days once I got to my placement: My sleep cycle being totally messed up. At first I don’t think it was jet lag, it was simply that I had gone for over a day without having a nice lie down in bed. As the days moved on and I rested up though…then jet lag became the clear culprit. But anyway. That’s boring. Back to Tokyo Orientation.
…
Which was also largely boring really. Lectures about stuff I already knew and things that were totally non-relevant to me. Lots of formality and pomp…yeah.
On the first day I recall me and some others decided to go adventuring for food. We ended up in a small Japanese restaurant where nobody spoke English and I was probably the best Japanese speaker of the group; oh deer.
I ordered some sort of fried chicken, the Engrish menu advertised it as one of the most popular dishes in Japan, it finally came and….it was KFC style fried chicken. Ah. Well…I had heard they loved KFC over here, but….that was sneaky.
One big problem we had was that one of the girls with us was a total vegetarian. With my pathetic Japanese I tried to explain this to the waiter to try and see what was safe for her “Niku…IE!...err….Sakana….IE!”, complete with hand actions to indicate the no-ness.
I really feel for vegetarians in Japan, even the stuff without actual meat in it is normally made in a meaty broth. There really is nothing for them here, this scene sums things up well:
On a few days I went for a walk and soaked in the neon night life of Japan. You know….it was kind of cool, the feeling of “I am in Japan, yey!” but at the same time…it was a bit lacking. Not quite so fantastic as I had hoped. True, I was sticking to one small area, but this small area was right by Shinjuku station. Hmm….
Another night I recall there was the reception at the British embassy. It was the night before heading to our prefectures I believe. At the embassy was a taiko performance. And there was free beer. Some people were being paranoid sour pusses with this. Others were going all out and taking advantage of the free stuff. I…landed halfway. Well. Three quarters towards the latter. I was screwed up enough with my jet lag, what was a small hang over? I shouldn’t be doing much on my first day in my prefecture right? Just straight to my flat to sleep until tomorrow…
Straight after the embassy my plan was to head to bed but…I couldn’t help but give in to temptation as old timers from my prefecture had turned up to take the newbies to karaoke. Ah.
Karaoke…we better leave that story till another day.
All in all Tokyo orientation was rather lame. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt like death all the way through it, no way were we on top of our game and able to ask the questions we had to know the answer to and that sort of thing.
Tokyo orientation really felt like a relic of the Jet programme`s early days back when Japan was on top of the world, lighting cigars with 1000 yen notes and the Jet programme was still some great new and untested initiative. Considering most of what we were told I at least already knew I really question its purpose somewhat. Is it all just to act as a sort of airlock between the west and Japan? Bringing you to Japan with all these friends from home and letting you poke it a while together before you’re sent off alone?
Is it all just a networking opportunity, a place where you’re meant to make friends with people who are placed in places you want to visit?
Who knows.
It was and it’s done.
Pictures
Obligatory photo of a Japanese toilet which for the longest time I was sure did everything but flush, then I found the chain hidden on the wall. Ah.
The room. Very Fawlty Towers no?
It came out badly but it was meant to be a photo of Japan by night as it exists in the stereotypical mindset. Minus the sin industries.
Tokyo was the first time I`ve seen skyscrapers, probally the highest I`ve ever been (in a literal, not druggy sense), yet I was strangely not so amazed.
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