Tokyo Orientation

After about 3 hours at the airport, 12 hours on a plane on which I wasted my time watching Big Bang Theory (terrible), the Office (great), Be Kind Rewind (also great) and Hitch (better than expected....maybe it`s just Eva Mendes) and playing backgammon, I landed in Tokyo. As soon as I hit the airplane dor, the humidity hit me like a ton of wet, sticky bricks. In all my wisdom, I was wearing black pants and a grey button down, ensuring that not only would I be sweaty, but that people would likely be able to see it from miles away.

Customs, immigration, and all that jazz were pretty easy, with almost no questions of any kind. Taking the advice of previous JET friends, I basically spent the whole time talking to anyone and everyone in hopes of not only making friends but ensuring a spot to crash if I end up traveling the length of Japan eating ramen...which if you know me, is obviously my main goal. Some cool folks, some anime freaks, some japan-o-philes, but mostly just people also looking to meet as many people as possible.

Orientation itself was kind of a drag. Lengthy lectures held in overpacked rooms with insufficient A/C and amazingly uncomfortable chairs led to a whole lot of bitching and ditching. The speakers were mostly entertaining, however, and at times the meetings would fly by. Among the more useless workshops I attended were about saving money (common sense tactics), food (I eat it all the time, and there wasnt much cooking advice), and independent Japanese study (for beginners). Since I`ll be driving here, though, that workshop was helpful, as was the one on travel. The threw us in rooms with 3 beds basically side by side in an otherwise fairly swanky hotel and provided us with vegetarian lunches consisting of bread, rice, and a soy meat substitute.

Nighttime is the right time...to party, as they say. Lots of drinking with folks that I just met led to some fairly entertaining moments, like me passing out on the ground or folks being surprised by the button used to summon a waitress. Beer, chu-hai, and lots of food.

At different points in the 3 days, we ended up eating Tenkaippin (a ramen chain) at 2 am, hitting Tokyo Tower, getting caught in crazy rain, drinking at a bar in Roppongi, wandering around Shinjuku with 40 people, looking for a bar to accomodate us, and drinking on the sidewalk, talking to every person who walked by. Good times, and a great way to jump off what promises to be an interesting year.