BOEING 777 and Tokyo

So today our flight was scheduled for departure at 12.50 Chicago time. We were early and checkin was uneventful. We went into the concourse and had mexican food for lunch. Steak quesadilla!!! Yeah!

When we got to the gate, the plane was a BOEING 777!!! This is the sexiest thing ever invented by man... I had to take a picture. Of course my camera battery decided to die right then. Great timing!

The inside of the plane is even cooler. The overhead bins pull down instead of just opening. And every one has their own personal tv screen and can select movies, tv shows, etc to watch or you can track the flight onscreen in real time. Somehow in the 12 hour flight I only slept half hour. Oh, and we crossed the International Date line and lost a day. Way cool.

I love Narita Airport. Its really organised and the lines have signs to tell you how long you should expect to wait in Immigration. When we came out of Customs, as expected there were like 8 million people in bright yellow shirts marked JET, directing us, smiling and waving. It was fairly embarrasing quite frankly, especially combined with the fact that we had on large white stickers marked JET. We went outside, mailed our luggage and waited for the bus. Tokyo is deathly hot. 35 degrees today with ridiculous humidity. Our Tokyo Orientation Assistant (TOA) on the bus was Allan, a Trini. He gave us lots of info about orientation and Japan. Then he told us it was alright to sleep. And I didn't hear a word after that. Apparently they played games and stuff on the bus, but I was out cold.

Keio plaza is a way cool hotel. I have so many pics. I'll be putting them on my facebook soon. We registered, got our JET Id's and room keys and headed in. Then we went back down to change money and go out to eat. It's amazing how organised the hotel staff are. We went to Subway but it was closed despite what the sign said, so we walked the other way to Sizzler. Our waitress spoke no English and I was the only body at the table who had bothered to study Japanese. It was interesting. I even had to ask where the bathroom was for someone. I think I did it in perfect Japanese too.

After lots of bowing and thanking we went back to the hotel and bought international cards for callin home since the phone that Cable and Wireless said would roam isn't. The room is so cool, but I'll describe tomorrow- I hope. Loving Japan so far. And I am wearing a complimentary KIMONO!!!

MIA defeated- at last

Today was the second leg of the trip. My cell phone had a spasm and woke us up a n hour early at 2. We left the hotel at 3.30 and got to the airport before 4 for our 7.15 flight. For some reason they put me on standby. Barely got on the flight. We watched the Spiderwick chronicles and Penelope on board. I love Penelope. I mean it is really stereotypical hollywood but I loved it.

Miami was hell. We took forever through immigration but they opened new lines and I got through. Then luggage pickup, customs, hand in luggage and security. But since I was on standby they didn't ticket me for Chicago and they sent me back to the check in. It was 1.00 and the flight was 1.15 so I schowed this crewmember and she told me to do a self service check in at a machine. Since I live in Barbados I had no idea how to use the machine. Then my passport wouldn't read. Luckily the thing they gave me in T n T had on the E ticket number and I used that. Also got to put in my AA number that I suddenly remembered.

The gate was so far. I barely made it in time. The travel agent with us was already making flight arrangements on another flight when I got there. Four JETs missed the flight and the travel agent stayed with them.

But I made it. For the first time in my life I got out of Miami at the time I was scheduled to on the plane I was supposed to be on. Turns out they had set up the plane for transcontinental travel so we got free earphoones. The movie was 21 but the audio was poor.

When we got into Chicago some fo the luggage was missing so some of us waited for the luggage and the remaining JETs and some went shopping. When the JETs came we found out how they had all missed the flight. One girl\s immigration agent decide to make oodles of small talk with her, the guy was mistaken for a criminal because he shared a name and birthday with one, another girl went to the bathroom.

The bags that were missing didn't come on that flight so the girl filed for lost luggage and the AA lady ASSURED her it would be here before we leave for Japan in the morning. Finally we came to the hotel. The others were already at the mall. And we had dinner at the Italian Steakhouse. 23 oz Porterhouse Steak. WHOOOOOO!!!

Hmmm. Tomorrow, Japan!

Trinidad and Tobago- the first leg

Well, I left my wonderful home in Barbados this morning aty 9. No tears at the airport, but I felt funny. My Mom, Dad, son, boyfriend and ex-boyfriend saw me off. My girlfriend slept at my place and said her goodbyes before heading out to work. I spent the whole night cleaning my room and didn't go to sleep til 4 am.

The flight to Trinidad was pretty uneventful. I slept most of the way through it. We split the taxi fare five ways so it only cost like $12 US for a 40 minute ride. Had something called Chicke Marsala for lunch. The highlight of the day however was finally meeting the Trini JETs. I feel like I already know some of them. We've gone back and forth so much on facebook. Since I was the only Bajan on for so long, everybody came and said " You're the Bajans. Who's Claire?" Laurence even remembered to bring me the copy of a Japanese learning software that I asked for. And Adele invited us all up to Hokkaido for Snow Festival. Yay!!!

There was a reception at the ambassador's house. All the press was there. One guy took a pic of me eating with my chopsticks. Lol! There was sushi there. I tried some, but now my skin itches. No more sushi for me :(

Tomorrow we leave for Miami. Flight is 7.15, check-in is 4.15. We leave the hotel at 3.30. Ick! I am going to sleep. Between the itchy skin, the lack of sleep last night, the early flight and the fact that my allergies are acting up, I have no desire to be up at all. Hopefully when I get to Chicago there'll be an opportunity to post a bit.

And the Japanese public relations officer asked me a question and I answered in Japanese. Granted the answer was "seven" or "shichi" but he was quite shocked, as was the Japanese travel agent, and I am proud. It seems I have mastered more Japanese than the rest of the Bajans. 3-kyu in December, anyone?
I'm off to conquer the world!

Not so last minute preparations

So the travel agent’s finally told us when we leave for Trinidad. (Have to stop over there before I make my way to Japan.) On July 31st at some ungodly hour of morning I will be at the airport. Between the early morning check-ins and the jet lag, I think they trying to kill me. Then the million hour Tokyo Marathon – um I mean Orientation at the end??? “I say a likkle prayer for me!”

Right now I am trying to get prepped. I was on track and then I got a job marking papers for CXC- which is the Caribbean’s equivalent of SAT or Cambridge exams. It’s only til the end of the week, but when you only have 2 weeks and a few days, a week is a long time. Plus considering I have known where I was going and what I would need since May, I really should be completely ready and packed at this stage. I am not! I have thrown some stuff in my suitcase- underwear and about 2 T-shirts, deoderant, cream, and toothpaste. Clearly that is not all I need to survive a year in Japan.

So today I went and bought some cloth to make a suit and a dress - for a grand total of 2 suits and 1 dress. Lol! Yeah, I know I really making progress towards a whole year of clothing right? I got some stickers for my kids too, because my predecessor on the program said that the kids love it when they get stickers for stuff. I have 2 packs of 270, maybe I should get more. On the upside I really don’t need to buy that much stuff. I am sure I am mostly covered clotheswise, if I would actually take the time to go through my closet. I don’t want to take too much summer clothes, since my town is fall and winter 10 months of the year.

I also need to pick up my hello presents for my Supervisor and my Principal. It seems that this is a time-honoured JET tradition born out of a perversion of Japanese culture. But since it’s been done by my predecessor, heaven forbid I turn up as the only new JET since Adam with no hello presents. I want to get a combination of something nice out of mahogany, a bottle of Mount Gay (which is a Barbadian Rum and also the oldest brand in the world) and a Rihanna CD (also Bajan). For the teachers I’ll work with I am thinking sugar cakes and guava cheese (Bajan sweets) but I want to wait til a later closer to the time to get food stuffs. Oh and I have to get something nfor the neighbours. Probably some snacks as well but I'd like to get them something of substance too.

Despite the fact that I am pretty prepared, I still somehow feel a bit- um stressed??? Like I’ll run out of time or something. It’s hard to believe I’ll only have a week to say goodbye to friends and family. This JET programme is harder on the mind than anything else.

Oriented!!!

So we had our "informal" talk on Tuesday. The Consul General and wife hosted, and we were "informed" by the first JET from my country. We haven't been in the programme very long. The funny thing is I am on the JET programme forum, on Ithinkimlost, on a Caribbean JET facebook group, and I have a couple friends currently on JET. So while this talk may have been news to some, it was just a recap to me. The great thing about it is that it's the first time that all the Barbados JETs have been in the same place at the same time and it was an excellent opportunity to lime (socialise) and find out some more about one another. Funnily enough, I already know all 4 other JETs from different places. But it was still good to talk to them. There are some experiences that your friends will never understand and only the other people in the same situation can identify. JET is one of those things.

Now it occurs to me that I still have a pre-departure orientation to attend at the Embassy in Trinidad and the Tokyo Orientation. But there isn't really any general JET information that anyone can offer me that will be news to me. I really just want to get to my prefectural meeting and orientation. So right now I am feeling a bit over-oriented and there is more to come.

Oh, and we just got the orientation schedule for Tokyo. 9.00/9.30 until 8.00 at night. Hmmm, one day after I've spent 3 days in planes and crossed 9 time zones! Does this seem like the best idea to anyone else? I have the best of intentions, but if I am awake 50% of the time it will be some sort of miracle!

Disaster -- Naturally

So there was an earthquake last month in Japan. And it was in Iwate, my soon to be prefecture! It wasn't exceptionally deadly as earthquakes go, but still it WAS and earthquake, right where I am headed.

I mean going to Japan you have to expect these things. It is on the biggest fault line in the world. But even thinking about earthquakes is difficult for me.

Let me put it into context. I am from Barbados, in the Caribbean. We don't get earthquakes. Which is some sort of amazing, considering we are right above a fault line as well. In fact the whole Caribbean chain was created by movements of the Atlantic and Caribbean plates. All the other islands were made by divergence and volcanoes. Barbados is the only made by convergence, i.e. Earthquakes. Our neighbour to the South, Trinidad, gets Earthquakes all the time. No one can explain why we don't.

In fact, people are constantly joking that God is a Bajan (slang for Barbadian) because we never get natural disasters. Not even the scourge of the Caribbean- hurricanes. Islands and countries and states get devasted every year and somehow the last time Barbados had a direct hit from a hurricane was Hurricane Janet in 1955!!!

As a result, Barbadians may quite possibly be the most disaster-retarded people of the world. I remember a stopry told to me by a friend from another island, St Kitts. He had just come to Barbados to study at the university here and we had a hurricane warning in effect for Ivan. Hurricane warning means that the Met office predicts that there will be hurricane conditions in less than 24 hours. In Dominica and St Kitts and St Lucia and St Vincent, people were running into stores trying to get last minute supplies and barricading windows. His landlord, here in Barbados, decided that since he had the day off it would be a good idea to paint the house!

Last year Barbados had its first earthquake in memory. It happened on November 29th, the day before our Independence. I think it was like a 5 on the Richter at the epicenter in Martinique and did some serious damage there and in Dominica. Here in Barbados we felt a 3. To show you how weak that is, I was driving in a car and didn't even know anything was wrong until all the radio stations went off air, and all the telephone networks jammed. (Another silly Barbadian habit, as soon as something happens, everyone picks up the phone.) Most people had no idea it was an earthquake at first, they just felt disoriented and woozy. When they did realise what it was everyone freaked out, got in their cars and went home, at like 3 in the afternoon. The media was ridiculous about it too. You know how you see those post-hurricane scenes with people being interviewed about how they were affected and stuff, Yep they did that. Another friend from St Kitts laughed at us for weeks. All of them had just come out of the buildings and gone back in afterwards. The following day was a Friday and a holiday but some Barbadians didn't even bother with work the Monday because they were so traumatised.

There was a small aftershock in St Lucia the next week and some one called in a hoax at the radio station WITH A TIME!!! Come on people, no one can say at 10 o' clock, there will be an earthquake at 2.30!!! Nonetheless, the disaster-retarded responded and wide spread panic set in. I was working at a school at the time and some one called their mother from the pay phone to ask them something and found out about it, and suddenly the whole school was in an uproar: kids having panic attacks, asthma attacks, throwing up. Parents turning up for their kids and the teachers running around trying to control the scene like headless chickens. Clearly, lessons were done for the day since the children wouldn't go near the buildings.

So all of that is to say this, while I don't consider myself disaster-retarded, I have never been through a full force hurricane and the only earthquake I've ever been in I didn't even feel! I am going into this thing completely blind. I'll just have to err on the side of caution. Make up an earthquake kit with all the stuff advised and do as I am told. And pray that God really is a Bajan and will watch over me in Iwate-ken, Japan.

Culture Shock

So I keep hearing about the horrors of culture shock and the truth is that no matter how close or far you may think you are with the target culture, you will still experience culture shock.

For example, I am from Barbados, a little island in the Caribbean and I think that I'll have more in common with Japanes than the mainstream US, UK and Canada types. For example, I think that we are more conservative when it comes to voicing opinions for example. I think we are also more into the group mentality, but time will tell.

Even though it's called culture shock, it also has some ties with homesickness. So it's a combination of "if one more person bows at me I am gonna slap them" and "I miss my Mommy"!

I've lived away from home for two years already and here are some of my suggestions about dealing with culture shock.

1. Bring your comfort stuff.

You may not be too eager to admit that you sleep with a stuffed bunny in public, but that same stuffed bunny will help you get through the dark "OMG-what the hell am I doing in Japan" nights. For me it's a favourite lounge-at-home/sleep-in T-shirt.

2. Bring things you're used to at home.

For example, you might want to bring up a box of your favourite cereal, or some ingredients that you won't be able to get in Japan to make your favourite food. We Bajans (Barbadians is the proper term) always walk with our own seasonings.

3. Music.

Even if you don't think that you're all that much of a music fan, you may want to get some CD's of some familiar stuff so that when it all starts to get to you, you can turn to something familiar. In my case, my country is associated with a very specific type of music difficult to find outside of the Caribbean. So I'll be bringing my own. On the upside, you don't have to travel with physical CD's if you're bringing a laptop or an ipod, just upload it all.

4. Make Japanese friends

Here I mean people in Japan, whether or not, they are natives of Japan or fellow gaijins (foreigners). They won't replace your friends and family at home, but culture shock feeds on loneliness. So the less lonely you are the better off you'll be. Plus you'll save lots on phonecalls.

5. Find an activity

By the same token, if you find an activity that gets you out of the house and interacting with others, you will spend less time thinking about the fact that you're not at home.

6. Break it down

When you think of it as a whole year it seems really long and it seems like you've got this huge mountain to climb. But a week is not so bad. Try not to count down how much more time you have left until you can go home. It really does nothing but depress and when you spend all your time worrying about time, it moves slower than ever. A friend of mine used to say, "The days take forever, but the weeks fly by." It's kind of like how in December you're like "Wow, can you believe it was just January?"

7. Routine

Establish a routine. It doesn't have to be anythign set in stone, but when you have hours upon hours just lounging around, it's easier to think about the issue at hand. Make appointments with yourself to study your Japanese, watch a favourite show, read a book, listen to music, learn something new about Japan, etc.

8. Reward yourself

Treat yourself when you accomplish milestones. If you go through a day at the office where you suddenly understand most of the Japanese you heard or if you finish your study by your personal deadline or complete all your lesson plans, take yourself out for a drink or buy yourself something new. Even a well-deserved break can serve as a reward. When you concentrate on the positive, it's harder for the negative to creep in.

9. Attitude, attitude, attitude

Try to stay positive. About 10% of our lives is what actually happened and the other 90% is how we feel about it. Don't think of it as 6 more months til I can escape Japan and see my family, think of it as 6 months to improve my Japanese, or turn around X at my school, or really make an impact on the ninansei (2nd years) etc. Always see the glass as half full. Misery is a snowball rolling downhill. There is just no stopping it and before you know it, you're dealing with an avalanche.

10. Communicate

No one can be a substitute for the mom and dad, kids, boyfriend/girlfriend, best friend, friends and even acquaintances you leave behind. So as soon as possible get yourself online. Write a blog, download messenger, sign up for Skype. Stay in touch with the people back at home as a support not a crutch.

Well, those are my thoughts on culture shock and how to minimise it. Come August 3rd, I'll be looking back here to make sure I do everything in my power not to succumb to it. Good luck to all of you who are just starting out as well.

One month til orientation! Yatta!