Sakegawa

The train ride to my town was relatively short – only three and a half hours. Considering the distance is about from Northern California to Southern California, I was pleased it didn’t take longer. The scenery was breathtaking, and I may have been a little too camera happy, though I ended up taking only a few pictures, but a boat load of videos.

I was the last stop on the train, way up in little old Shinjo. It was strange to watch all of the friends I’d made in orientation depart one by one until, finally, I was the only one left. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. The orientation advisor was with me and there a but load of other people on the train, too, they just weren’t JETs. I practiced my self introduction, much to the amusement of the little old Japanese woman a few seats up, who periodically stifled her laughter into her hand at my abysmal pronunciation and sentence structure. To give you some perspective on what I sounded like, let me give you  the bones of my introduction.

Nice to meet you! I am Alyssa. I am American. I come from California. First time Japan. I like baking. I like reading. Nice to meet you!

Yeah. The fact that I sounded like an overeager five year old didn’t stop me from being ridiculously, inordinately proud of myself for managing even that much. Finally, we pulled into Shinjo station. Now, the rest of the JETs had been picked up by their supervisors or other city officials holding signs with their names on them. Being picked up by someone holding a sign has been a long held dream of mine, so I was pretty excited to see my sign. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I think that given the fact I was the only JET being picked up at Shinjo station that a sign would have been a bit superfluous. Ah well, it is a dream for another time.

My supervisor, head boss, and predecessor picked me up from the station. I decided not to give my self introduction just then as standing on a platform, holding my luggage and telling everyone that I like to bake and read might have been just a wee bit awkward. I got the royal treatment as I was taken from the station. Nice city car, front seat, people carried my bags. Awesome. There was a fair bit of awkward silence in the car as I tried to form sentences in Japanese that didn’t begin with “I like”. Thankfully, my predecessor Brianna was there to help out and make things a little less ridiculously tense. We spoke in snippets and I did my best to keep up and understand, Brianna filling in the gaps in my comprehension. There was a brief tour, the best ways in and out of Shinjo being pointed out as we rolled into Sakegawa.

Our first stop was the town hall where my luggage had been shipped. The office is quite nice, and the area of the office where I work has six other people. Upon entering, I gave my little self introduction and was greeted warmly, albeit a bit nervously by my new coworkers. They’d made a ‘guide book’ of sorts, filled with names and faces of the people in the office. Considering how bad I am with names and faces, it was much appreciated (and really freaking adorable). After exchanging pleasantries (as translated by Brianna) we lugged my bags to the car.

Finally it was time to see my house. I’d built it up in my head to be this awesome, roomy dwelling that would be perfect for my time in Japan. It did not disappoint. The house is, first of all, a house and very roomy by Japanese standards. It has two rooms (the bedroom/living room and a guest room/office), a kitchen, a bathroom, a laundry/vanity area, and a toilet room. There’s also a fairly large garage underneath the house accessible by a fairly treacherous stairwell. Hardwood floors plus socks do not an ideal combination make. Oh, did I mention the flat screen HDTV that they bought for the house? No? Well, they bought a flat screen HDTV for the house, much to my and my PS3’s delight. Am I bragging? Hell yes. It is my blog, I can brag if I damn well please.

The view outside of my bedroom window

My house from the outside

At that point I was told to relax for an hour or so, change into something more comfortable and then Brianna and her husband Gabriel would take me out to dinner. The first thing I did once everyone had gone their way was to crank the air conditioning. After wearing a suit in the middle of the Japanese summer, hot and heavy with humidity, this was like pure bliss.

After lounging a bit, Brianna and Gabe came by and it was off to Shinjo for shopping and dinner. Grocery shopping was overwhelming, made less so by having someone with me who understood all of the labels and knew where to find the food I wanted. Dinner came next, and oh man, was that a treat. Sushi and yakiniku (which is basically meat grilled on a little firepit at the table. Delicious.

Sated and verging on a food coma, it was time for bed and my first night sleeping on a futon. Wasn’t that bad, besides wrestling with the irrational fear of bugs crawling over me in the middle of the night. All in all, my first day in Sakegawa was a success and the rest of the week followed pretty much in the same vein. 

And now, here's a bit of photovomit, all off the gorgeous town of Sakegawa, my current home.