Tokyo Orientation

The following day we started orientation, two days of seminars welcoming us to Japan and preparing us for the task ahead. This was comprised of the official welcome, presentations for ALTs on teaching foreign language in Japan and CIR (Coordinators of International Relations) daily life of a CIR in Japan. Later it broke into various workshops dealing with:

·         Elementary Education

·         Teaching multiple schools

·         Budgeting

·         pop culture in the classroom

·         teaching students with special needs

·         life in rural Japan & driving in Japan

·         Japanese etiquette and Japanese study

·          troubleshooting in the classroom

·         Team teaching

·         Adult language classes

·         Self introductions

·         Food, cooking and eating

·         Technology and other tools in the classroom

·         Effective lesson planning

·         ETC.

Unfortunately for me I lost my purse the morning of orientation and that put my first day of orientation into a tail spin and I spent the entire day looking for it as it had all my money and credit card in it. I have to say that was the most terrifying and stressful day of my trip, then add insane jetlag on top of that and you can begin to understand the hell I was in. Even though I was in a serious state of freaking out running round the city and throughout the hotel trying to find my belongings I have to say I was really impressed with the JET community and lengths they went to to help me find it. Before I could run to some people to ask for help, the word had already spread that I lost it and so many people were helping me look. Even people I hadn’t met before knew who I was and were asking if I found it and told me where they had already looked for it and were quick to offer me words of comfort. By the end of the day I found my purse and all was right with the world again and I thanked everyone for all their help, even after it was found so many people came to check in on me to see how I was feeling. At that point I felt privileged to now be a part of such a close-knit community.

Orientation ... can you find the Bajan flag?

The final day of orientation all the new JETs went to their respective embassy send off parties. As Barbados and Trinidad don’t have an embassy in Japan a Caribbean night had been planned but we were later invited to the British Embassy send off party. We all put on a brave face and continued to fight off jetlag and went and had a great night out with our British counterparts where we were entertained with taiko drumming before we all joined in.  It was a great distraction from all the anxiety we were feeling about being separated and going to our new prefectures the next day.

Crowd participation after the taiko performance

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Bittersweet goodbye

Bags packed, final breakfast devoured,  millions of hugs, kisses, handshakes and bows given, now it’s was time to get serious and head out to the respective groups. For many in the Caribbean group, we clinged to each other as our final connection to the comforts of home but as we all had different routes to our new prefectures many of us had to leave much earlier than some and didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. Some left by plane, others bus but my route was via shinkansen (bullet train).  I was excited to do that but I was slightly depressed to leave my new family, none of us felt we had only met a few days prior even though we were all acquainted from a Caribbean JET forum. It was time so we all went our separate ways and promised to meet up for a trip to South Korea which was a comforting thought.

The last group shot

OK, DEEP BREATH ...... FUKUSHIMA HERE I COME!!