Flying from Denver to Tokyo was excruciating. I felt like tuna in a can. Not sardines, which I understand are the normal aquatic creature that is used in the simile, I felt like chopped up meat, cramped into a space with barely enough room for me and the 70% water in my body. I can only hope that a Japanese scientist comes up with a teleportation technique before I return to America.
I slept a lot on the plane. I didn't sleep much the night before in Denver. My excitement and my thoughts were keeping me up, both my roommate and myself sat on our computers the whole night. The pre-dawn ride to the airport was really strange, I wasn't scared of the plane trip but I was becoming cognizant that this was my last time on American soil. It felt like going through the line on a roller coaster, there is an exit for people who have reached the front of the line but get scared at the last moment. The ride to the airport was like this, I knew that I could bail, but like those people in line for a roller coaster, I had gotten this far and I just needed to make those last few steps.
I snored on the plane, but I was assured that I didn't do it obnoxiously. After waking up every few hours I would read a little of my Kerouac book, but I could not get comfortable enough to read. Mainly, I fidgeted and fell asleep, over and over again for hours. I spoke with many of my compatriots, we all seemed apprehensive, and we all were unsure about what the coming year would hold for us.
Every few hours the flight attendants would walk by with drinks and what can only be described as foodish substances, I'm not positive if the products were ever meat or vegetables at any time in their existence. I was thinking on the plane that these are hours of my life that I will never get back. On my death bed I will have been robbed of 20 hours or so, and I will hold my fist in the air and scream, "god-damned air plane ride from hell." Or, possibly, the objects that I masticated on the plane would kill me, before my life had been lived to the fullest. It could have been worse, we didn't crash and I didn't have to sit in the middle section. Those souls that were placed in the seven seats in the middle of the plane were almost like another breed of people; you didn't speak with them or look towards their direction because you might catch whatever disease had placed them in this quarantine.
When we arrived at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo, we checked in at the specific JET check-in area and we moved on to our rooms. I was in a room with two other guys, and thankfully I was the first one in the room so I called one of the beds. The fold-out couch did not seem like a sound choice after the wretched plane ride. On the plane I kept saying that I was going to spend all of my time exploring Tokyo, and I might not even sleep. I did not know the extreme of the jet lag that I would experience over the next few days. I ended up hooking up my computer to check my mail and Facebook and after those tasks were accomplished I laid down and fell asleep.
The next day was the first day of orientation. Our group was the first of three and our group had the majority of the newly arriving JETs, Group A had a couple thousand participants and we were all packed into a large ballroom. We were stuck for the next three hours listening to state speeches and JET accounts of living in Japan. I waited patiently for each person to exit the stage, after each persons exit I would jump up for a standing ovation, not because of any desire to show appreciation but only to stand and stretch my legs.
Lunch was served after this long meeting. The food that we were served everyday was very interesting, I have since had a lot of Japanese food but many of the things that we had for lunch at the Tokyo Orientation did not seem very Japanese. They were an amalgam of both Japanese and vegetarian, which is not heard of in Japan. The meals were not disgusting or inedible, only indiscernible. After this brief pause in the boredom, the ALTs (Assistant Language Teacher) returned to the same hall for another two hour panel discussion. Similar to the first gathering, there were too many people. The CIRs (Coordinator for International Relations), which only make up tens of the newly arrived JETs, went to a separate room. We had a ten minute break until the workshops started, so I went upstairs to my room and checked my e-mail.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in different workshops and panel discussions. The first workshop I attended was about how to use the JET program for professional development. This panel discussion was pretty informative for me. The two gentlemen who conducted the panel, were not very helpful in giving information about how to use the JET program, but were really there to pimp their own job fair in Tokyo. They were both JET alums, so they created a job fair for JETs that would help them get jobs in Japan with very prominent Japanese companies. Most of the information was about getting jobs in financial institutions or large Japanese corporations. The information that most interesting me though was related to video games, two of the names that they dropped were SEGA and Square-Enix, two very prominent Japanese video game developers. So, this first panel discussion was not a total wash.
The second panel discussion was about travel as a JET, which I didn't find very informative. It was all general information, and most of it we received at an event after lunch that had lots of information about travel and humanitarian work. I left early and went to my room to check my mail and my Facebook. I was beginning to feel run down.
The third panel was about Japanese pop culture. Now, I love Japanese video games, but I am afraid that I don't know very much about Japanese pop culture outside of that frame of reference. I learned a lot about Japanese music, and about popular Japanese comedians and TV. Even some Manga (comic books) and Anime (cartoons) that was discussed I hadn't even heard of before that day. I had, for the first time, realized that I was among peers and I wasn't the "dorkiest" guy in the room.
After this workshop, we all had a half an hour to get ready for the very formal Welcome Reception. At a Japanese business dinner, like any of their events, it is very formal. The first difference is that when a toast is to be given, you do not drink from your glass until all toasts are given. The second difference is there is no eating, hors d'oeuvres or otherwise, until after toasts are given. I ate, I drank (a lot in a short amount of time), and I left early to go to bed. I was completely exhausted, and one of the Japanese gentlemen who works in my prefecture found out that I like scotch and he kept bringing me more scotch and waters. After three shots of scotch and a wine bottle sized bottle of beer, I needed sleep. I got on Facebook and also checked my e-mail when I got to my room, but just crashed quickly.
I met a lot of people in a short amount of time. I tried to stay close to people from Denver, because I had gotten to know them while at the Denver orientation. But, everybody had become so scattered and I only had two girls from Denver in my prefecture, that we all started to come disjointed. I did meet a guy from Scotland on my first day, we talked about Wii and DS, so I knew that I had found somebody in my area that liked video games. Chris has since become a good friend. It is really astounding how relationships form when there is so much distance between yourself and your home.
