Fri. Aug. 8 – Sat. Aug. 9 – Finding Fukushima City

I went into my school to help the girls with their speeches and skits. I can see why Tyler said ALTs have tons of free time… I spent most of my morning trying to get a good connection to my e-mail accounts, and checking out the online forums. It’s times like those that make me miss my ol’ cubicle at the government. I could take naps as I pleased... but here, my desk is basically in front of the VP. Durr.
Muto-san unexpectedly gave me a lift to the board of education from my school… Since I was going out-of-town for the night, I had to ask him to drop by my house so that I could change and grab my toothbrush, etc. I felt really bad for making him wait for me, so I kept apologizing and saying, “Ah, I’m such a girl!!” He politely laughed and smiled at me, but I doubt he knew what I was saying haha.
I finally signed my contract and saw my hanko (personal name stamp). I was hoping my hanko would be ridiculously cool, but it’s just my first name in romaji, lol.
We then headed to Fukushima-shi to hang out with the other area JETs. It’s about a 35-minute train ride, which isn’t too bad. I’d describe that city as very quiet, yet urban. We went to an izakaya, where we did the whole nomihodai deal again. There was a somewhat random Japanese dude who was hanging out with us. I dubbed him “Don Johnson,” due to his powder blue suit jacket rolled up to his elbows. What a character. We also went to a small bar for a bit, where they played some wack house music… My Tokyo Orientation roomie saved my bum, and graciously opened her apaato to me.
Meeting JETs from around the world has been great. It feels like I’m going through frosh week all over again, which has its pros and cons.
My supervisor is quite kind. He even picked Brian and I up from the train station today, then brought us out shopping. He knows I’m interested in getting a car, so we started looking around at a local dealership. Those cars were way out of my price range, though. I was drawn to a cute two-seater sports car, but I definitely can’t afford it as a broke university grad.