I’ve finally got the internet connected in my apartment and I’ve finally got some spare time so I thought I’d do a little update. I guess I’ll start from the start.

I left Melbourne on Saturday morning. The queue at the check-in was very slow, but one really pissed off Chinese guy kept everyone entertained. He was a tour leader for a small group of Chinese men, apparently the only one in the group who could speak English. While the other guys in the group waited in line, he kept on leaving the line to pester the check-in staff. He was whining, shouting at the top of his voice and complaining because it was taking too long. Finally, the check-in staff called the cops who came and escorted him away. Probably missed his plane too. Ha ha.

My check-in lady was a bit nasty, especially with the whole “excess baggage” thing. I chose QANTAS because they have this deal where a snowboard bag only counts as 3kg of excess baggage, which equated to about $70. But she wanted to charge me much more because I put my snowboard jacket, gloves and pants in the bag too (apparently, you’re only allowed to put boots and a board in there). After about 10 minutes on the phone she let me go with only 3kg of excess baggage to pay (seeing as all my other stuff was under 20kg). So, I went off to pay that, change some money, go through immigration and arrived in time to walk straight onto the plane.

Unfortunately, the plane was pretty old, especially by today’s standards. Every plane I’ve been on in the last few years has had a personal entertainment system for each seat, but this plane only had one big tv at the front (and two little ones on the ceiling) for everyone in the cabin. I didn’t help that I was assigned the absolute back seat of the plane. 55D, or something like that. Also, it really didn’t help that my armrest audio was broken. For some reason it picked up the Japanese audio channel, but not the English one. This meant that if I wanted to watch RV, Ice Age 2, MI3 and some wussy Antonio Banderas dancing movie, I had to watch them in Japanese. I showed it to the flight attendant, who passed me on to his boss, who passed me on to his boss. He offered to move me to a different seat, but then realized that the plane was completely full, so instead he offered to “compensate me in another way” (those were his words). Usually I’d be pretty concerned if a male flight attendant offered to “compensate me”, but in this case it turned out to be a $50 duty free voucher, so it was ok. In the end I watched the movies in Japanese for practice (not the Banderas one…. that was awful).

So, I arrived in Tokyo, met up with my friend and spent two days trying to relax a little. It was hard though, due mostly to the temperature. It’s summer here, so it was mid-30’s during the day and high-20’s at night. I’d almost forgotten what summer is like. Anyway, I’m going to skip over Tokyo and move on to my journey north.

On Tuesday, I made my way by bus from Tokyo to Oarai, a port about 2 hours north of Tokyo. The bus went past Tsukuba where I used to live, so I got to see a few of the old sights. On arriving at Oarai, I went to the ferry terminal reception, told them I had a reservation and my name was “Jenkins”. The guy checked his computer but found no reservation. I showed him my reservation number, the booking confirmation and the confirmation that I had paid by credit card. He checked his computer again, couldn’t find my booking, checked with his supervisor (who also couldn’t find the booking), suggested that I might have booked with a different company (I’m not that much of an idiot), suggested that I might have booked under someone else’s name (What..?), and then looked at me blankly when he couldn’t come up with a resolution. Finally, the supervisor’s supervisor wanders in, asks what’s going on, checks the computer and finds my booking in about 2 seconds. Turns out it had been put under my first name instead of my surname. Of course, nobody thought of looking under my full name. Uhh.

I boarded the ferry (which was much like the Abel Tasman, just a little smaller) and spent a nice 26 hours out on the open sea. I had my own little bunk nook in the far corner of the ship, and seeing as the ship was only about half full I had a very peaceful time. Actually, I think I spent about 16 hours sleeping like a baby (plus a few hours studying… gee I’m studious). On Wednesday afternoon, the ferry arrived in Tomakomai, the main port in Hokkaido. From there I caught a 2 hour bus to Sapporo, the capital. I went to the tourist center wanting to check into a hotel, but it turns out that most of them were full. The best I could get was a youth hostel. I hadn’t stayed in a hostel before so I figured it would be a good experience. Wrong. Don’t stay in a Japanese youth hostel in summer. Boiling hot rooms with no air-conditioning, bunks that are too short, noisy European tourists that come in to the room in the middle of the night. Basically, it sucked. I was happy to get out of there early the next morning and board a train bound for Takikawa, the city where my company is located.

The train ride was only about 1 hour, but it was nice to finally leave the hustle and bustle behind and head into the countryside. It was nice to get into the farms, fields and mountains that are what make Hokkaido life great. Along the way I crossed an invisible border and entered “Japanese Land”, the land where the English language doesn’t exist (outside schools of course). Before now I’d been using only Japanese anyway, so it wasn’t much of a problem, but in the big cities there are always people who can speak English if I get into a problem. From here, it was Japanese only.

I arrived in Takikawa at around midday, called my new boss (who had said he would come and pick me up from the station), but got no answer. Seeing as it was a nice day, I decided to walk. I checked out a map, found out where the office was, strapped on my gear and set off. Takikawa is a relatively small town (around 40,000 people I’d say), and it had a bit of a ghost town feeling to it. There were shops open and a few people around, but basically it was quiet and peaceful. After about 10 minutes walking I found the company office, just as the boss pulled up in his car. He was very apologetic, but also very surprised that I’d managed to find my way all by myself (navigation in Japan can be a problem). We went into the office, had a drink, introduced ourselves and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting (in Japanese of course… he doesn’t speak English until he’s had a few drinks and the Dutch courage kicks in). He’s a pretty cool guy, very similar to my last boss (in fact, they’re good mates, which helped land me the job). He runs about 10 juku type schools (private after-school education) around Hokkiado. He also employs four foreign teachers to work for the board of education in various towns (that’s what I’m doing). Unlike many businesses in Japan, my first impression was that business is good for him. That’s a good sign.

Later on he took me round the corner and checked me into a hotel. We went out for dinner and then went to a snack bar after that. A snack is a kind of bar where you pay for a few hours of drinks and service from some young Japanese ladies. By “service”, I mean just talking about stuff and basically having them pay attention to you (no dirty stuff, of course). It’s a popular way for Japanese to unwind after work. It was a good night, plenty of alcohol was consumed.

The next day I met one of the other foreign teachers, an American guy. He’s been in Japan for ages, is married and has 2 kids. We get along well, but I don’t know how much time I’ll spend with him as he (and the other 2 guys) are working in towns that are hours away from where I am. The rest of the day was spent doing administrative stuff such as trying to organize my phone, my apartment, a car etc. I crashed back in the hotel that night and slept for about 10 hours.

The next day (Saturday) was the first day of our company meeting. It was in the private room in the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel. I met the two other foreign teachers and two of the Japanese staff. The meeting took most of the afternoon and was entirely in Japanese (again), but surprisingly I had no problems. After the meeting we had dinner, then at about 7:00pm we went off for some drinking at that same snack bar. Lots more alcohol was consumed, karaoke was sung, fun was had. At about 3:30am we finally left the bar, had a bowl of ramen noodles, then went back to the hotel. The next day was supposed to be day 2 of our company meeting but pretty much everyone was in bad shape and almost everything had been done the previous day, so the planned 4 hours was cut down to about 20 minutes. In the afternoon, the boss was going to drop off one of the teachers in Asahikawa (the second biggest city in Hokkaido), so he could catch a bus to where he lives (about 3 hours north of Asahikawa). I went along for the ride so I could get a good look at Asahikawa. I’m living about 40 minutes away from Asahikawa, so if I ever need to go shopping, watch a movie or eat McDonalds, that’s where I’ll be going.

The next day (Monday), we finally left for my town, Horokanai. Horokanai is about 75 mins north of Takikawa, and about 40 minutes north-east of Asahikawa. It’s a small town nestled in the mountains, surrounded by farms, fields and rolling hills. It’s very picturesque, but also very isolated. There are no convenience stores, only one tiny little supermarket and very few people. It’s a wild country. In fact, it’s so wild that I wouldn’t be surprised if I ran into the Marlboro man while I was here. But, it’s also the most peaceful inhabited place I’ve ever been too. It’s like time moves at about a quarter of the regular pace.

I think I’ll talk more about my town and my apartment later. For now, I’ll move one.

After dropping my stuff off at my apartment, I got changed into suit and tie and went off to do an aisatsu greeting (traditional Japanese meet and greet) in Wassamu, the other town I’ll be working at. It’s about 30 kilometers east of Horokanai, over a mountain pass. Basically, because money is tight in Japan, the Horokanai and Wassamu Boards of Education can not afford to have a full time foreign teacher in each town. Instead, they decided to share me. I go to Wassamu on Mondays and Tuesdays, and stay here in Horokanai on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. So, on Monday, my boss took me around and introduced me to the Wassamu BOE superintendent and staff, the High School principal and staff, the junior high school principal and staff and the elementary school principal and staff. I bowed a lot, spoke very humbly and everyone was impressed and relieved. Everyone had been concerned because there are very few people who speak English (maybe one JH teacher and one HS teacher), so they were worried about communicating with me. When I opened my mouth and Japanese came just about everyone I met during the day mentioned how relieved they were. Overall, the Wassamu schools are a little bigger than the Horokanai schools (I’d guess there are around 100 ES students, 60 JHS students and about 40 HS students), and it’ll be a bonus spending 2 days a week in a town that has a convenience store (people from Horokanai have already told me they’ll give me a list of stuff to buy for them and bring back on Mondays and Tuesdays).

Tuesday was the day to tour Horokanai. This time I went with my Horokanai BOE supervisor instead of my company boss. We basically did the same things, starting with a visit to the mayor, the deputy-mayor, then the schools in the area. There is a high school, a junior high school and an elementary school within about 2 minutes drive of my apartment (actually the elementary school is about 1 minute walk from my door). All these schools are similar (but a little smaller) than the Wassamu schools. There are also 2 other schools that are a bit of a drive away, but still technically part of the town (so I have to visit them). These schools are more interesting. The first is in Shumarinai, on the edge of Lake Shumarinai (the largest man made lake in Japan). It’s about 30 kilometers north of Horokanai. It has a decent sized sports ground, about 10 classrooms, a hall, 3 teachers and … only 6 students. But wait, there’s one more school I visit, about half way between Horokanai and Shumarinai. It has about 6 classrooms, a sports ground, 3 teachers and … 4 students! And, the students come from only two families, a brother/sister and a brother/brother. In fact, this school is going to close next year, so the students are going to move to Horokanai. Anyway, this should be fun (I have a whole day dedicated to teaching 4 students!).

On Tuesday night I had my official welcome party, my semi-official welcome party, and my unofficial welcome party. The first was in a conference room at city hall. I arrived at 4:30 and was ushered into my own private waiting room. I spent half an hour in there watching the paint peel, then was ushered into the party room. Everybody was applauding as I walked in and I was told to go sit at the dignitaries table (mayor, vice-mayor, important people), beside the mayor. In Japan, all this kind of stuff has meaning. The fact that I was at the table closest to the front, sitting next to the highest ranking guy meant that it was a real honour. Various people made speeches and toasts welcoming me, then I was told I had to make a speech (something everyone had forgot to tell me). I stumbled though, got a few laughs and claps, then went back to my table. Next, dinner and drinks (beer) started. In Japan there is an etiquette involved in drinking. It is important that 1) everyone’s glass is always full, 2) you never pour for yourself and 3) people who are lower in rank pour for people who are higher in rank. As I was the man of the moment, everyone was pouring for me. As soon as I had taken a mouthful of beer, someone was waiting to fill my glass up. And, of course, it’s polite to take another sip after your glass has been topped up. Unfortunately, this means that someone else will come along to fill up your glass again, whereby you have to have another mouthful. An endless (and dangerous) cycle. Furthermore, it’s customary for everyone important to come and introduce themselves again (even if you’ve met them before) one at a time, at which time we both share a drink. Needless to say, at 7:00pm when the final speeches were done and I was applauded out of the room, I had ingested a fair amount of beer. I wandered off to the toilet to relieve myself. After exiting the toilet I met up with my supervisor who told me it was time to head off to the BOE welcome party, a more private and relaxed party at a local restaurant (one of about 3 in the town). At this party there were about 10 of us, just the staff who worked at the BOE. We spent a few more hours drinking and eating, then when the older staff members decided it was time to go home we stumbled off. It turns out the next destination was the unofficial welcome party for the younger members of the BOE, and the location was … my apartment. I told them that I had no glasses, no drinks and no food, but this wasn’t a problem. They borrowed a tray of glasses, some food and a crate of beer from the restaurant, then we all headed off to my place. There were two other guys and two girls, all aged between 22 and 32. It turns out that four of us live in the same building (which isn’t really a surprise seeing as it’s the council’s building). This makes it convenient for popping around and having a few drinks at any time of the day (I think my liver is going to take a pounding while I’m here). Of course, it also makes it convenient if I ever have any problems or need to borrow anything. We had a few more drinks, then at around 11:00 they all left. They had work the next day, I had Wednesday and Thursday off..

So far, everyone has been really nice and welcoming, and the experience has been great. I hope it continues this way.