First day of training! YIKES!

Hey guys,

Ok so today was the first day of actual training, and its seems like the vacation is over. We started at 10am, but in Japanese time, that is really 9:45am. Myself and Derek, the other NET in training got there a little early just to be safe, and we found an empty lobby room with shelves of indoor slippers, all bright aqua blue, or sea green, the perfect compliment to any black suit. Anyway the girls showed up shortly after, we all waited maybe a minute or 2 and then our trainer Rachael came down to greet us.

And then it began...

So Personally I didn't find training day1 too bad. We are supposed to be overwhelmed, we are supposed to make mistakes and we are supposed to fuck it up. So I tried to keep a calm head about it and take it all in, and go from there. Basically for the first day we found ourselves learning the basic body of the lesson, how to prepare, and whats expected during. We learnt and sang songs, and there are songs for everything! "Up up up up up stand up!" and the other most common, "Down down down down down Sit Down!"

Anyway the day went on, we were given chances to practice each section of the lesson ourselves with feedback from the trainers. The material itself isn't the hard part because that's already provided, it's the conviewing of it in the order that we are supposed to that is probably the hardest, But that will come with practice because it seems every lesson section follows a pretty simple formula. And I assume that all the other lessens for the other age groups with be somewhat similar. That being said, lesson planning that's a long long time to do, especially when you've never really done it. This I think is where most of us will feel the actual stress. But hey, others have gotten through and so will we. :)

Anyway That's my update.

(PS go to the flickr so see pictures of Okayama castle, from the day before)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/swongken/

 Hey everyone,


Before I get started, I have just made a Flickr Account so you can see some pictures to go along with what does and doesn't get put into the blog. Said Flickr account can be seen here: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/swongken/


So today started out with a group consensus in going out and seeing some of the neighbouring areas. We decided on and went to Kurashiki. A very nice old town, with some very beautiful temples and shrines. A fair bit of shops and food stores as well as some touristy things like museums and tours. A very very nice trip for my first day in Japan. The majority of the photos from that trip can be found again here.


The rest of the day included me taking photos of novel but interesting things... like my toilet seat, the vending machines that are scattered EVERYWHERE throughout Japan and some bikes, that they don't lock up here.  


When it came to diner, we all went grocery shopping.... I bought Cup Noodles, spaghetti, and a corn dog. Woot woot!. Needless to say, I went to dinner at a nice small Japanese restaurant, where the owner/chef/waiter cooked fresh dumplins, and cooked real fresh food. It was nice.


We  ended up at Karaoke that night, and that was a lot of fun. The place we went to has a all you can drink for the time you reserve, and you can't really get much better than that.. Oh wait you can, they serve beef soup from a nescafe vending machine, free! I thought that was awesome.

First Entry, Getting here

Hey Everyone,

So I've made a blog, first time ever, to try and record and share some of the experiences I'll have while here in Japan. I'm new to the whole blogging thing so I'll probably end up ranting a bit, but thats what blogs are all about aren't they?

So as a first post, I guess I should talk a bit about the journey over here. Well as I'm writing this, I'm 29, Canadian and about to become a NET (Native English Teacher) for a company called AMITY, which is a branch off school of AEON. I had my interview on April 23, 2012, and received an offer which has me here about to work in a city called Itayado, which is a suburb of Kobe. Right now I'm writing from my hotel room during training week, so I have not yet had the chance to go my new apartment or meet my fellow staff. Who I have met, are the other 11 departees who all came from various places over the US and Canada. Everyone seems very nice and interesting and we are all excited to get our Japan on!

So yesterday (or 2 days ago/ friday) was the beginning of it all, with myself having a 3am wakeup to head to the airport in Toronto. My flight was a 7am to San Francisco, which as far as US airports go, is really really nice... (looking at you Miami). I met up with the only other Canadian on the trip, in TO and we were off. The flight was 5 hours westbound so we lost 3 hours and arrived shortly after 9am. Our transfer wasnt until 11:50 so it gave us time to wait for the other 4 recruits who were also connecting in San Fran, eat, drink and relax a bit. The flight following was the 11hour heading to Osaka Japan. The flight was huge, but suprisingly we were fed 3 times, had a large selection of movies, and television programs to watch, and overall wasn't that bad. Again we went west, so we lost hours until we time travelled into tomorrow (saturday). We landed at about 3:30 and had a 2 hour wait for the rest of the recruitees and our trainer to arrive at the airport before we departed on another 2hour ride to the training facility.

We arrive in Okayama roughly around 7ish PM, are given a brief tour of where to be for training  and where we are living and  told to have a good rested weekend, cause training starts on tuesday! I have the larget manual in the world to read :( sad face. Anyway as a plus, because the training group is so large this time, myself and Derek, the only other male in my group, are being housed in a Hotel 5 mins from the girls (who are in the normal Dorms). Because we are in a hotel, we have our own rooms/bathrooms, free wifi (in our rooms) an complimentary breakfast YEAH! :) happy face.

On discovery of the wifi I skype call my mom, and tell her I'm safe..... and realise her time (-1 EST) its 7am saturday morning, and I've been up at that point for 27 hours and counting. It wasnt bed time yet, because we were meeting up to grab some food and explore a bit. Both goals accomplished. I had a bowl of rice and some delicious beef for dinner probably around 9-10pm JP time, and was ready to crash. we all got back to our respective rooms and called it a night.

Which leads me to today, and the now... I have started my first rambling blog, I hope it does the job of keeping everyone up-to-date and informed of my travels, and that you all get sooooo super jealous and come visit me while im here :)

-Steve-