Day 1 and 2 in Kobe,

Ok so I arrived into Kobe yesterday. It was kinda nice that mine and Cheryl's stop was the 2nd on the train and we only had a 30 min ride to get to our final destination. Some of the other NETs had a 4-5 hour journey until they got to their respective cities.

So Cheryl and I get off at our stop and we were told, if no one is there, just wait because the managers might be running late, and they will be showing up soon. We'll 15 secs later, I see 2 japanese ladies literally running up, waving. I turned to Cheryl and said I think they are our managers :) And that is my first introduction to my new manager.

So we all walk a bit through the subways until the 2 parties split up. I say my goodbyes to Cheryl and her manager, and now we are off. Manager tells me her motto at the school is that teachers must work hard, but also must have fun. If the teachers are having fun, then the students will also have fun... I'm loving my placement already. So talk about the other teachers a for a bit, she gives me a brief run down of my co-NET Perry, who so far is a pretty good guy but I'll get to him a little later.

We get off the subway and meet up with Perry (my co-NET), and Alex (my outgoing NET) and go straight to my apartment, which is literally 5 steps from the subway. I go up take a look, change out of my suit, and we all head to the school, where I met Rikako a JT (Japanese teacher) and then we head to lunch. We had ....okonomiyaki.....?... It's kind of a pancake, made with random ingredients like peppers, onions, pork, noodles, or anything else that you want to put in. So you basically get an omelette/ pancake hybrid.. if that makes any more sense. Anyway it's good!

So we go back to the school after that and I pick up my remaining suitcase that was shipped off, and Alex takes me back to the apartment to give me the basic run-down. She gives me a brief tour of it all, heads off to an internet cafe for 45 mins to allow me to decompress a bit, and then we head off to a giant beach party in Kobe (Perry is already there). Up until this point, my experience in Japan has been the stated 99% Japanese and 1% other. Well this party seems to be the Gaikokujin (foreigner) hotspot. It was about a 1:1 ratio of Japanese to Gaikokujin, and this place was packed. It felt kinda weird cause it felt like I was back in good old multi cultured Toronto, but really I was on a beach in Japan.

So as the day became night, and my sobriety quickly dwindled, more and more NETs and other ESL teachers from other companies came, I was able to meet a lot of new people, all very cool, all with their own stories, and all very friendly and welcoming. So overall it was a very very good first day.

And now day 2

Day 2 was a much slower day. Alex had told me she had made plans to go to Kyoto, so she wasn't going to be around, and I wasn't really sure what Perry was up to. So I spent the majority of the morning just arranging my room, seeing how much space I had to put things where, and such. Perry knocked on my door at about 3 and asked if I wanted to go for food, so we walked a bit and went to a sushi place, that serves your food conveyer belt style. It was fun, I was adventurous with my food and had some raw foods I'm unable to identify.

After lunch we had head to a going away for a couple, it was at a waterfall, stream thing down by the subway, behind a parking lot, very random, but very cool. I had more food there, as well as more beer, and had another good day.