My First Couple Of Weeks In Japan
So I moved.
In fact, I left the UK a couple of weeks ago, having only planned to do so a couple of months prior. When most people decide it's time to move out of their parent's house and start their independent lives, they don't necessarily feel that they need to travel nearly 6000 miles to do so.
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| Not a bad backdrop to have when all you're used to is low rolling hills. |
Like many other recent graduates yearning for something entirely different to do with their lives, I had been looking into teaching English as a foreign language for some time, though my target destination had flipped between China, South Korea and various other countries before I decided on Japan. Why Japan? A combination of having visited last February, it being a developed and connected country (as opposed to rural China for example) and not needing a TEFL certification pretty much cemented Japan as the place to go.
Just before the new year, I decided to apply for a job as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher, a Language Instructor who works alongside a Japanese Teacher of English, or JTE) with Interac. Needless to say at this point, but after a quick application and interview process I got the job, and after couple of trips to The Embassy of Japan in London I was ready to go.
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After a 26 hour flight via New Delhi, after all who doesn't love a 10 hour layover, I made it to Narita International Airport, where I would spend a week training before heading to my placement location. After long days of lectures and workshops, meeting other ALTs from around the globe and going out drinking at a British Pub of all places, I almost welcomed the three hour coach journey to my new city of Nasushiobara.
Nasushiobara lies around 100 miles to the North of Tokyo in a mountainous area in the North of Tochigi prefecture. Despite a population of around 120,000, Nasushiobara has very little in the way of high-rise buildings or a dense urban centre, with the much of the area feeling either suburban or like the countryside.
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| Despite moving from a village to a city, farms still surround me. |
After being chauffeured around town by the Interac staff to sort out my residence documents, bank account, bicycle, household essentials and phone amongst a slew of other things, I made it to my apartment. Although more student flat than traditional Japanese household, the compact living space surprisingly didn't feel overly cramped. Being able to close the bathroom door and fit in the shower was a noticeable step up from some of my holiday accommodation from last year.
Disappointed that I wouldn't be sleeping in a cramped corner of the floor, instead my futon would be on a raised bed frame, I set about deciphering the appliance instructions which I would no doubt need to use before too long. About a minute later I decided I could wing it, a decision that thus far hasn't come back to bite me yet. How hard could it be to work a washing machine or bathroom fan?
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| Appliance corner - Japanese smart toilets are fantastic (if you can remember how to use them). |
I realised at this point that I would have to buy a number of appliances and furniture items from either the electronics store or Amazon, which led me to my next thought: a functional adult like I allegedly now was should probably go food shopping in addition to picking up all the household necessities I had forgotten on my first visit to the 100 yen store (seriously, who actually NEEDS cooking/washing up equipment?).
Nearby my apartment was a convenience store, fresh vegetable seller, a host of restaurants and izakaya (Japanese pubs), a dry-cleaners, a post office, and luckily the school I would be working at. What I had failed to notice was that the nearest supermarket was at least a half hour walk away, and as much as I would like to I couldn't rely solely on eating convenience store snacks/ready meals and out at restaurants for the duration of my stay. That's where the bike came in.
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| Behold: the height of style and sophistication, the "mamachari". |
There was a reason that, despite living within walking distance of my workplace, I had been assigned a "bicycle" position. Not only were the supermarket, 100 yen store and other large shops at least half an hour away by foot, but so too was the train station, my means of getting to the rest of Japan. Contrary to it's appearance however, my bike rode about as well as any other I'd owned before, and despite being surrounded by mountains Nasushiobara was mercifully flat city.
Thus commenced a few days of cycling, shopping, praising the basket on my basket, and cursing my memory once I got home and realised the obvious item I'd somehow forgotten. All this shopping, ordering items online and packaging from convenience store food when I was too lazy to cook added up to a lot of rubbish and recycling, which leads to the fun little schedule below.
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The less said about this the better, from what I've been told it's in your best interests not to overlap any of the dozen categories of waste or recycling. It's essentially considered treason. This also ties into the nationwide lack of public bins, which somehow actually leads to there being less litter in general. What it does lead to however is a large stack of cardboard that you're hesitant to do anything with. Japan is possibly turning me into a hoarder.
With my local training week yet to begin, and the actual start of my job as a teacher to follow, it's hard not to get the feeling that this first week after my initial training is closer to a holiday than the new normal. On the complete opposite hand, though it would make sense not to feel like you'd moved to the other side of the world when you're spending all day in a hotel, as was the case with the initial training week, I don't think the realisation has quite hit me even now. One day I'm sure I'll get to grips with this whole reality thing.
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| It's the miserable grey skies and rain that makes Japan feel just like home. Majestic. |
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