Catch Up Part 1: Induction Course September 11th, 2006
Because the school LAN is crazy, I can’t get any of my photos online yet. Bear with me.
Our flight left London Heathrow at about 5am UK time, and touched down in Copenhagen two hours later, where we sat in the departure lounge for a full six hours before sitting in a cramped plane for 11 more hours. Apparently Scandinavian Airlines are big on minimalism, as I spent most of the flight practically on top of the person sitting next to me. Needless to say, we got very little sleep on the plane. This would have been fine had it not been 9am in Tokyo when we arrived, and the group of students waiting to meet us had planned out two of the most exhausting days imaginable. Still, I made a good friend on the plane, Shintaro, who’s parents own a bar in Roppongi.
The first activity was cookin. The four volunteers took two of the volunteer native students each and we each prepared a different traditional Japanese dish - Sushi, Onigari, Octopus and Ramen. For those of you who haven’t tried octopus, it’s probably worth trying once but it certaintly won’t be taking up any space in my fridge. After destroying the entire meal in about thirty seconds, the volunteers took us to Karaoke. It should be mentioned here that Matt, the other volunter Project Trust send me with, is an amazing singer. It took him about thirty seconds to have all six of the native girls fawning over him, something only my height and blonde hair could compete with. Finally, we all went to the local park and set off fireworks. Koichi, the native boy who came with us, deemed it perfectly fine to set off fireworks with other lit fireworks. Where the hell is Blue Peter with their 12 steps to a safe bonfire night?!
Early on Sunday 10th, we visited an Earthquake centre. Here we practiced how to get under the table in an earthquake, how to turn on a fire extinguisher and how to crawl through a smoke filled room. It was painfully obvious, yet explained to us in excruciating detail. We were nearly lectured to death. Next we went to techie town Akihabara, where we were battered with techno, neon lights and seven foot inflatable anime characters. The whole place stank of geek. We climbed to about the sixth floor of a huge arcade to watch teenagers complete Dance Dance Revolution without so much as a casual glance at the screen, before taking group photos in little “Picture Party” machines, which spit out hundreds of tiny little stickers of you looking like an idiot. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a picture of them. They are not my finest hour.
On the final day of induction, we met some older students who took us to Harajuku shrine, followed by the “cheap street”. I wish I’d got some photos of the clothes people were wearing. Imagine if Barbie crashed into Marilyn Manson in here Barbie camper van full of explosives and pink paint.
Thus ended our first three days in Japan. When I get the time I’ll write about starting work and being the most popular kid in school. (”Holy Shit! Blonde Hair!”)
Make sure you go to Roppongi soon Mike. Once you’ve been there you’ll appreciate the lack of gaijin making us all look like idiots.
[...] I have. Actually, it was the very first photo I took in Japan, taken on the 9th of September, my first day in Japan. The reason I never posted it is because it looks rubbish. But I think it has a lot of [...]