Sutorenjaa In Japan

The Road to Fukui

(again to see it with picts email me)
On day 3 (Wednesday), we left the hotel and headed out to our prefecture. I think there are about 20 of us in this group (Group A arrivals) and then a few more coming the week after us. The Japanese countryside is really pretty and reminds me a lot of Hong Kong but there are also a lot of differences too. I think it’s a bit less jungle-y and there are LOTS more rice patties. OMG.. RICE PATTIES EVERYWHERE! Kind of interesting thought as I don’t think I have ever seen one up close so that was “an experience” (this will be my key word when things get rough.. so be prepared to see a lot of it). This is Hiyadeh and Chris  fellow Fukui JETs. So, it is as it appears… the bus ride was pretty entertaining. I think lots of people were more excited than tired and jet-lagged. I was a bit tired but it’s a lost cause to try to sleep when your bus mates are quoting Monty Python’s Holy Grail and Space Balls! ;) We had about 3 stops on our 8 HOUR fantastic voyage and the bus stops here are pretty damn cool. All these little gift shop stuff to buy and presents to take back to your friends and co-workers. Gift giving is a very big thing here so all the places are set up for it. I guess whenever you go somewhere you’re supposed to bring something back for your friends and co-workers. Its not really an obligation and they are not expecting it but that’s just what you do. So, they have lots of food items all ready to go and wrapped up for you to buy. Its so convenient!!! And SO cute!!! I also learned that each city has some sort of mascot (I think Fukui’s is a crab?) and they make Hello Kitty key chains/ phone charms of that mascot (i.e. Hello Kitty dressed up as the mascot). So, some people try to collect the kitties from all the cities that they have visited. I think I have found my new quest and purpose in Japan. Forget the kids. Forget learning Japanese. I know what my true calling is and it calls to me in the form of a tiny cute pink cat.
On one of our stops I found these...
CUTE little pancake bears! Why must everything in this country be so adorable and well packaged! It was almost hard to eat something so cute but the first arm was so delicious….
We also saw Mt. Fuji on our way. It was HUGE. A bit ominous, but picturesque with the clouds. The JETs in Fukui (here after referred to as FJETs) are planning a hike to the top. I’d like to go but $$ and scheduling are a bit tight so I may have to forego it this round. But mark my words… “Mountain/ Active Volcano … you shall be conquered!”.
OK well, we finally go to our hotel and let me say that is definitely not the Keio Plaza in Tokyo… (regarde the size of my room!) BUT I did get free wireless for a bit. It still wasn’t enough time to update this thing but I did get to talk to some folks and email a little (you know who you are!). :D There were lots more workshops for the next 2 days but it was more relevant to our situations so that was good. I think that most of our questions were just about how to get started with stuff (e.g. phone lines, cell phones, internet, garbage, bills, etc.). If I have learned nothing else from this trip so far it’s that starting off on your own (especially in a foreign country) can be CRAZY expensive and complicated. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but in case anyone is thinking about doing JET, start saving cause you’ll need at least a couple of grand to start you off (the school may be able to help you some, but as they love to say “every situation is different” so its best to plan ahead). I’m not saying this is a huge downfall of this program (its still probably the best of its kind out there now), but I was caught a little off guard. Maybe I was just a little naive. Anyway, the orientation went well and the other good thing of it was that we got to meet a lot of the re-contracting JETs in the area. True, most of them happened to live in “the big city” AKA Fukui City (which is a short train ride away from me), but they seemed like nice enough people (Mom & Dad can vouch for that). It still felt a bit high schoolish though as my group is a pretty outgoing group and folks seemed to be having fun checking out all us newbies. I’ll see how things go in the coming weeks/ months…
Another nice thing was that our first night in Fukui, the re-con JETs (that can be the distinguishing title for now) took us out to dinner and then to a local pub. The restaurant was AMAZING. It served traditional Japanese food in a sort of traditional Japanese style (i.e. we sat a tatami- straw floors with cusions, left our shoes at the door and at low tables). There were a lot of fried items like tofu and tempura but they also had sashimi!!  It was the best sashimi I have ever had. I think the squid and prawns were my fave (I won’t go into details too much for all you veggies and non-raw meat eaters). I must also add that it seems almost all the food here is served so beautifully. I think that it must just be a part of the cuisine. So dinner was great and I got to talk to new people more, and then we headed off to this pub. It was very cute and almost more like a café that served alcohol instead and it was completely empty before we came. Kind of interesting though is that the pub is on this street, Katamachi, where there are lots of bars and some clubs. Not quite as glitzy as Hollywood and Sunset but not seedey either. BUT there are LOTS of escort type bars… I’m not sure if they’re strip clubs per se (sorry guys but I don’t think I’m ready to tackle that aspect of ‘research’ for this blog yet), but apparently you can have female escorts hang out with you at these sorts of places. Some even have pictures so that you can ‘window shop’ before you go in. It was a bit strange to see that there isn’t really zoning like they have in the states, so these places were mixed with bars (that are really nice) and nice restaurants, convenience stores, and apartments. Come to think of it though, maybe its not so different from the valley. Anyway, we had fun but I was pretty tired and turned in pretty early, though I heard some others went to a different bar later and then went for karaoke. More to come…

posted by KidBach @ 1:43 PM