The Long and the Short of It

We're expecting a typhoon sometime this evening. The wind has picked up, and a light rain has started to fall. Today has been the first cloudy day I've seen here in Shimane since I arrived. I've been here only since Wednesday, but I'm told that the weather is usually sunny in the summertime.

From Syracuse to Shimane: The short version

Pack Pack Pack Sleep
Wake
Pack Pack Pack Pack Mail Drive Drive Drive Drive Drive Hotel Subway Run Broadway Subway Hotel Sleep
Wake
Drive Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Stop Drive Drive Hotel Subway Rain Reception Rain Katie Club Subway Hotel Sleep
Wake
Shuttle Airport Airport Food Airport Airport Boarding Runway Runway Fly Fly Meal Fly Fly Fly Fly Fly Claustrophobia Fly Fly Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Snack Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Meal Fly Fly Airport Customs Bus Bus Tokyo Hotel Books Books Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Ironing Crowd Meeting Meeting Boredom Pain Lunch Meeting Meeting Dinner Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Breakfast Meeting Meeting Lunch Meeting Meeting Repack Cocoa Subway Mexican Subway Hotel Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake Sleep
Wake
Bus Airport Fly Airport Shimane!

The long version

Tokyo is a blur. Our flight from NYC was delayed two hours, and on top of that we sat on the runway for another hour and a half. When we finally taxied to the runway, applause broke out in the cabin. The flight was 13 hours (and 1 minute, to be exact). We were served dinner, a midnight snack, and breakfast. I read the first hundred pages of the book I'd bought in the airport (Code to Zero, by Ken Follett, Aunt Christiane's favorite author), but I was getting a bit claustrophobic in the small seat, and most of my leg room was taken up by my enormous laptop backpack, so I tried to sleep to retain my sanity. Got about 5 hours in, though I woke up a few times. Customs was pretty simple. Before getting on the bus to the hotel, I sent two suitcases ahead to Nita. The heat was oppressive, but the bus was air-conditioned, which was good cos the ride was two hours long. A few hundred people stayed at the Hilton, but most of us were put up in the Keio Plaza Hotel, where the orientation was held. I got into my room at 11pm, hoping I wouldn't wake my roommate, who had almost certainly arrived before I. But the room was empty. Two minutes later, in walked the very same girl I'd sat next to on the bus—Tamanna is her name. She's from the Bronx. She's been placed in Okayama, a nearby prefecture (not Okinawa, which I'd first thought).

(The rain is falling a bit more heavily, and it smells now of wet asphalt. The wind hasn't changed, but the clouds seem to be moving quickly. I can't find a news-broadcasting station right now (I get about five channels on the TV), so I don't know yet what the updated trajectory is. But it's approaching from the Pacific, and has to cross a fair bit of land before it reaches us, so that should weaken it.)

(The bugs and birds here are louder than I'm used to. Yesterday I was out with Abe-san, my supervisor in Yokota, and we passed by three children playing. There were a few cicadas on some nearby trees, and one boy was picking them off, collecting them in his hand. They were very chirpy on the trees, but they made quite the row all bunched together in his fist. One got away and flew straight into my face, clinging there for a second before I pried it off. When the boy had picked off all the cicadas he could find, he threw them up into the air, and they scattered, screaming like mad as they flew away.)

So Tokyo, like I said, is a blur. They handed us several books when we arrived, and we got shovelfuls of papers, pamphlets, and brochures during the remainder of our stay. Sessions, sessions, sessions, broken up by meals (some Western food, some Japanese food). By Monday afternoon, I had partially regained the ability to sit for any respectable period of time. Tuesday's dinner was the only meal for which we had to fend for ourselves. About half of the JETs there had embassy parties, but there were too many of us Americans, so we didn't get one. <pout>

About ten of us from Shimane got together and went to a Mexican restaurant in Tokyo. "There aren't any Mexican restaurants in Shimane," Marcie, our Prefectural Advisor, told us. Tons of food, served in courses, and I didn't pace myself properly. One of the appetizers served was a plate of big jalapeno peppers, each stuffed with cream cheese, and covered with mozzarella. I had one, and it was tasty, but my mouth was a bed of coals for the next ten minutes.

Wednesday morning we flew to Shimane. By this point everyone was very eager to leave the hotel and get on with our lives. Four Shimane people flew to the Iwami airport, in the southwest, while the remaining 20 of us flew to Izumo, in the northeast.

But I am tired of writing, and you are tired of reading, so I'll quit now and pick up again some other time.