Tally Ho!

So Wednesday was the day all the new JETs separated and headed off for places unknown. The differnet prefecture groups leaves Tokyo together, so the Nagasaki prefecture group was leaving at around 840, would catch a bus to the airport, then fly into Nagasaki where we would be met by our respective supervisors and taken to our towns.

The day started off with a bad omen.

The button of the nice shirt I had taken out to wear fell off. This wouldn’t have been that much of a problem had I not had to give away my luggage the night before, thus leaving me with only the one shirt. Of course, the button couldn’t fall off at a good time, an hour or more before I needed to meet with my group. No the button had to fall off at like 8 : 00, just when I was about to scurry off to quickly iron the shirt, drop off my card key, and head to the group.

Now for most people 8 is still plenty of time to get things done. But all who know me know I must be INSANELY EARLY for everything I do, and that being late can cause me to go mad (MAD I say!) with nerves. Luckily I had everything packed up in carry on nad random other bags the night before, which allowd me to rush down to the front desk, get a random tiny sewing kit, rush back up to my room, “sew” (I use the term loosly) on the button, and then rush around and get the shirt kinda sorta ironed before rushing to my group’s meeting place, all the while cursing the button gods.

And on the note of gods of random little objects, the zipper gods and are out to get me too. Every zipper I touch seemed to be breaking off. I have broken more zippers in the past two days than I have in a life time. Karma is annoying.

Anyway the plane ride was fine and uneventful, the group was more or less seated together, and we all got along pretty well, chatting about nothing until we landed. When I got my bag, I got my next shot of annoying karma. The handle bar of my carry on luggage had gotton broken in transit. (The one on the top Dad, something ripped the screw out of one side. And it wasn’t my fault!), so I’ll need to tape that together. Luckily there was still the handle on the side, as well as the rolling handle thingy so I can still get by. Just annoying.

Anyway, so myself and the other two girls in my group going to my town all have the same supervisor. He’s a really nice Japanese man a little older than middle aged, who doesn’t speak much English but tries very hard. Luckily of the three JETers of us, two of us (me and another girl) have about the same intermediate Japanese level. What was great though was that she knows words I don’t know, and I can get some grammar she can’t. So between the two of us we were able to figure out what our Supervisor was saying and then translate for the last girl, who has little to no Japanese ability (but is already starting to learn!)

We all ate lunch and chatted about our plans for the next day, the houses, and the rest of the travel plans. We were to take a bus to Nagasaki city proper, about maybe an hour, maybe a bit less, from the airport. There we would catch the boat to the island. The bus ride was very nice and relaxing. Nagasaki prefecture is absolutely beautiful, with rolling forested hills and lovely ocean views. Then we got into the city.

And I almost burst with pure excitement! I totally recognized most everywhere we were going from my internship. And I was excitedly pointing all the differnet landmarks and places to go to my JET-mates, who bore with me quite well despite the bounces and wild pointing.

We got to the mall that’s right next to the wharf (both of which I know quite well), and to all us JETs surprise, our Supervisor took us right into the mall, our baggage and all, to look at microwaves for me, and cameras for a JET-mate. We had mentioned earlier that we would like to someday purchase said commodities (my apartment doesn’t have a microwave and she doesn’t have a camera), and since we had the time apparentely, our supervisor decided to take us to the main mall to take a look, which was really very ncie of him! If a little awkward for us, standing in the middle of the electronics section of the mall, with our luggage and overly filled carryons.

I found a nice microwave oven that has settings I can understand in simple Japanese, and was on sale for about 200 dollars (19800 yen). Then the store called up their sister store on our island, and after much rapid slurred Japanese speaking between my supervisor and the clerk (none of which I understood), I was told I should get the microwave in about two days. So woot desu!

Finally we headed to the ferry. We didn’t seats with windows, which was a shame, but it was still loads of fun. And by fun I mean Mom will hate it. It was about 3 hours long (I’ve been told there are ferries that can get there faster but for whatever reason this was the one we took) and H.O.L.Y. C.R.A.P. This was no casual ferry ride. This was a freak’n roller coaster. We were hitting waves and bouncing like no body’s business, and there were several times when I was pretty sure we were flying. Or we were just hitting whales (read: speed bumps). Either way I got a little sea sick, and I normally don’t get motion sickness at all.

All three of us Jetters had been wondering why the seats of a ferry had seatbelts. Now we know.

When we landed on the island we were met by the other two new jets who had arrived a week before, my predecessor who was leaving the next day, a japanese woman, and a couple of young japanese men (I’m still not sure who they were exactly, but I do know the woman does the Tai Chi class). It was explained that we three newest Jetters would not be able to move into our respective homes yet, but would tomorrow. Instead the two of us who are staying on one side of the island would be staying in a hotel, and the one new Jetter who is on the opposite side of the island would be staying at someone’s house.

There we split up, the one jetter on the other side of the island (I need to think up nick names for these girls), was taken off by our supervisor, while me and the last Jetter (aka my neighbor when we get our houses), were taken to the hotel. After dropping stuff off in our respetive rooms, the two JETs who had been here a week already (they both live on my side of the island too), my predecessor, and the random Japanese people went out to eat.

It was a lot of fun, my predecessor told was greatly amusing stories of his time here, we tried food I didn’t know existed (like deep fried chicken cartilage), and all in all had a great time. I think we’re all going to get well.

Thursday (8-06) our supervisor is taking us newest jetds out to run errands and to move in. Exciting times!

And like 10 minutes before breakfast I realized the hotel room had Ethernet. Go me :P