Orientation in Nagano City

All right folks, here’s yet another little adventure for y’all!

Due to Obon (a festival) and another national holiday, I was given off a whole week in August. I thought about going somewhere, but decided against spending the money or adventuring somewhere by myself, so I ended up spending the week mostly cooped up in my house watching Netflix, reading, and enjoying the heck out of my air conditioner. So nothing really exciting there. However, on August 16, I ventured to Nagano City for a mandatory orientation.

The orientation itself wasn’t too exciting, but it did give us some useful information. I got to meet the other ALTs who had arrived in Group B, so that was pretty cool. I also got to meet Nagano City’s mascot. That is one cute thing about Japan: everywhere pretty much has its own mascot, and they are usually pretty cute. Arukuma was no exception.

After the orientation was where the real fun began. All the new JETs were invited to come meet all the other JETs and even some non-JETs (like direct hires) at an all-you-can-eat-and-drink restaurant. And when I say all you can drink, that includes a pretty good selection of alcohol. For about $30 you could feast and drink to your heart’s content, which I thought was pretty nifty. The food was pretty good, and they had a nice selection of sake and other alcohol. It was nice to meet some other pretty cool people, too.

Once we finished eating, a bunch of us decided to go do some karaoke. Finally, the thing I had really looked forward to doing in Japan. Karaoke here is famous, so I was excited to finally do it. For my readers who may not know, I love to sing, so karaoke is right down my alley. We were able to get one karaoke room for the lot of us, which was about 20 people. Though the room was loud and crowded, it was an awesome time. Me and one girl did a pretty darn good duet on “A Whole New World”. I definitely hope to do it again, because it was a hilarious and fun time, and really not too expensive.

I ended up spending the night in Nagano City with some other JETs at on of their apartments, which made my life so much easier. I would not have been able to go to the dinner otherwise, because the buses to my village stop running after 7:40. Thankfully, on the following Monday I bought a car from an ALT heading back to Australia, and it has made my life so much easier. It has given me the mobility to be able to do things with people until later in the day without worrying about making it back to the last bus to my village.

Overall, it was a pretty fun weekend. I made some new friends, which has made my experience here so much more enjoyable. I will hopefully be doing some more fun stuff with them in the future, so stay tuned for those posts!