Gitta Across the Globe

I Went to a Castle!

Greetings readers! I cannot believe that it has already been one month since I arrived in Japan! Is that crazy or what!? Time sure has flown by here. Though I haven’t done anything crazy exciting, I have done a few cool things outside of my school life, which is what these series of posts will be dedicated to.

Adventure #1: A Trip to Matsumoto Castle

On my second weekend in Ikusaka I decided to adventure down to Matsumoto to go see the castle with an ALT friend of mine from Australia. It was my first time taking the train into Matsumoto by myself, so I was a bit nervous, but it all worked out fine. We met by the train station and found a bus that went over to the castle, which saved us around a twenty minute walk in the blistering heat. Thankfully we arrived relatively early, so the lines weren’t too long to get into the castle. We first had to buy our tickets, which were only ¥600, which is about $6. Once we got into the castle grounds, we had to go line up to get into the castle. Thankfully, they had benches to sit on under some tents so people wouldn’t die in the sun. We waited around 30 minutes, during which I slightly eavesdropped on a French family behind me (finally, a foreign language I could actually understand!).

The castle itself was pretty cool. You have to take your shoes off and put them in a bag while you are in the castle, so I’m glad that I decided to wear socks that day otherwise I would have felt so gross. There isn’t too much to look at inside the castle, as only the structure itself was preserved. However, once you got to the top, you had some pretty nice views of the city and the surrounding mountains. I worked up the courage to talk to the French family walking behind us, which resulted in a nice little conversation. It is honestly so nice to actually be able to communicate with non-English speakers in a language I can understand. I honestly I never been so quiet in my life because I cannot communicate with most people here. I am definitely grateful that I have made some English speaking friends here or I would not be doing well.

Anyways, after exiting the castle we took some nice pictures of the exterior, then walked over to the large mall to do some shopping and get some food. The return trip to my village, however, was not as fun. Instead of putting in Matsumoto as my departure station, I put the station I was going to as my departure point, so I mixed up my train times. I already had been waiting 45 minutes for the next train, and did not realize my mistake until after the train had already left. I then had to wait another hour for the next train, which then caused me to have to wait another hour for the next bus into my village. What should have been a 45 minute trip turned into over 3 hours. It sucked, but I thankfully was still able to catch the last bus into my village. I would have been freaking out if I had missed that bus, because I would have had no other way to get back to my village.

Overall, it was a nice little adventure, even though I had the little transportation hiccup. It was cool to see something historical, and the castle itself was very beautiful. I hope that I get to see many more cool historical sights while I am here! I will leave y’all with a nice little photo gallery from my trip, and stay tuned for the next post!

My First Few Days and Life at School

So far, things have been going pretty great for me here in Japan. And, as I predicted, I have fallen a bit behind in my blog posts. Oops. Well, let’s do a quick catch up with a focus on my school related life, because aside from a few small adventures I’ll share in another post, my out of school life is pretty uneventful.

Let’s start off with my first week here in Ikusaka, which was pretty just a week of introductions and adjustments. The day after I arrived, they allowed me some time to sleep in and start unpacking before they picked me up to go to the village hall to register as a resident. When we got to the office, they took me to meet the mayor, which was pretty cool. However, it again involved people just sitting there talking about me in Japanese. Honestly, my motto here has been “smile and bow” because I understand nothing. I hope that by the time I leave Japan, I’ll be able to understand a lot more. After meeting the mayor Kyoto-sensei (the Vice-Principal) introduced me to all the staff in the village hall, which involved me just standing there smiling while she talked about me in Japanese. A little embarrassing, but definitely not the worst thing I have been through. After registering me they dropped me back off at my house and I had the rest of the day to myself.

The next day was my first day at the school. When I arrived my JTE, Minemura-sensei, showed me around the junior high school, which is the primary school I will be at. I thankfully remembered to grab one of my pairs of indoor shoes. In Japan, it is very common that you have to take off your “outside” shoes and put on a pair of shoes that you only wear indoors. If you are just a visitor, they have little slippers for visitors to wear. I recommend wearing socks because you don’t know who has been wearing those slippers before you. I made the mistake of wearing flats without socks my first few days. Let me tell you, that was not fun. In a few words, summer = heat = sweat. Enough said. Bring socks. You definitely won’t stand out because I’ve seen so many Japanese people wear socks with sandals here, so you shall not be judged.

Here’s a photo of me in front of the junior high school

Anyway, the tour around the school was nice. It’s a pretty nice looking school, and its pretty large for only having 30 students. It’s bigger than the Catholic middle/high school I went to. After the tour I was introduced to the wonderful thing known as desk-warming. Unlike in the U.S., when the students have summer break the teachers still have to come into school. For us ALTs who often don’t have much to do, especially as a new arrival who has no idea what is going on, it can be pretty boring. I’ve been using the time to work on my Japanese and look up some activity ideas, but it is definitely a struggle. Thankfully, today was my last day of that since school starts up again tomorrow. It is, however, not the start of the school year. The school year actually starts in April here, and I believe the summer break is much shorter. They for sure don’t have school in August.

Most of my time at school has been desk-warming, but I’ve done a few cool things with the teachers. The first was going to see the school’s brass band perform in a competition in Matsumoto, the closest city to Ikusaka. Kyoto-sensei invited me to come along with her, so I jumped at the opportunity to see some of my students perform. She even introduced me to some of them, which was nice. The competition was very nice and I was pretty floored because all the bands were so darn good! They sounded better than any high school band I’ve gone to see. They take activities very seriously here.

After our school performed we went into Matsumoto to go to the mall so I could do a little shopping for some stuff I needed around my apartment and to get some groceries. It was really nice to hang out with Kyoto-sensei because she’s so energetic and nice. I seriously love her. Even though we have to communicate with Google Translate, she is always so helpful and nice to me. She got me a really cute gift at the mall, which I did not expect at all. Today she got me baking soda because I said I wanted to bake for the teachers but couldn’t find baking soda. She definitely goes the extra mile to make sure that I am enjoying my time here and I am so grateful for her.

Another really cool thing I got to do with her was to do some singing. I told her and some other teachers a couple days before that I love to sing and I pointed out some songs that I liked that were in the textbook. Kyoto-sensei used to be a music teacher, so she also loves music. She had the music teacher photocopy some of the songs I said I liked, then unexpectedly took me to one of the school’s pianos the next day to sing them. It was so much fun. I love getting to sing along with someone playing the piano, so it was an awesome time. We sang We Are The World, The Sound of Silence, and Take Me Home, Country Road. She also taught me a Japanese song, which was also really cool to sing along to. I really hope we get to do it again because it is so therapeutic for me.

Finally, one other nice thing that I have gotten to do with the teachers happened this past Friday. It was a day with a variety of activities, and I started off by tagging along to CPR training with the other teachers. Though I didn’t understand what was being said since it was all in Japanese, I understood the basics from watching. I’ve never done life saving training, so it was good to have a rough idea of what to do. After the training I helped the teachers do some school cleaning, which wasn’t too bad. After that the elementary school teachers came to the junior high school for a meeting, so I was introduced to them. I had to give a little self-introduction in Japanese, which I think went pretty well.

Thankfully, they didn’t make me stick around for the rest of the meeting, because I wouldn’t have understood anything anyways. Once they finished their meeting it was time for some friendly competition between teachers. I signed up to play badminton with about half the teachers, with the other half playing table tennis. It was a lot of fun, and definitely a good workout. The school has a badminton club, so I am going to see if I can play with them.

After the sports activity it was time for the barbecue, which was a really nice time. Even though I can’t fully communicate with most of the teachers, it was still fun. By now most of the teachers definitely know about my aversion to vegetables, but I actually tried something I hadn’t eaten in years: watermelon. And it wasn’t too terrible actually. I think if I tried eating it enough times I would start to like it. Bet you’re real proud of me Mom!

Overall, I am really enjoying my time here in Ikusaka. The people I work with are really nice, and the students I have met so far are really nice as well. I think it is going to be a good experience for me. There are certainly challenges ahead, but thankfully I have a great crew of teachers around me to help if I need it. The beautiful mountains surrounding the village also help. Stay tuned for more posts! And feel free to leave any feedback or post requests in the comments!

Off to Ikusaka!

Finally, the day I had been waiting for for so long finally arrived! It was time for me to head to my teaching placement and get to see where I would be living for the next year. Orientation wrapped up with one last breakfast for us before we set off for our placements. Some people had flights to catch, like my friend Emily, but my group was taking a bus because our prefecture is only around 3 hours away from Tokyo.

At around 8:30 I headed downstairs and checked out of my hotel room, then went to meet up with my prefecture group to wait to load the bus. We got a quick picture of all us new JET’s, then headed off to board the bus. Once we were on the bus, they gave us a little while to just relax as we drove out of Tokyo. After a bit, our Prefectural Advisors went through an arrival handbook with us to give us some general information. After that, they gave us another little break, then went through another packet of information on life in Japan and Nagano.

After absorbing all that information, we stopped for a short bathroom break, then got back on the bus and drove for a bit longer. Thankfully, our next stop was lunch. They gave us about an hour to get some food, then had us change into our formal clothes. We took a picture at the scenic overlook of the lake by the rest stop, then once again boarded the bus and continued our journey. I was getting more and more exciting to meet my caretaker and to finally arrive in Ikusaka.

After about 45 minutes we arrived in Matsumoto, which is the second biggest city in Nagano, and the closest city to me. After I got off the bus I spotted two men who were holding a welcome sign with my name on it. I went up to greet them…and promptly forgot any Japanese I knew. I wanted to impress them with the introduction I had memorized, but I was so nervous that I ended up being too scared to really say much. They presented me with their meishi (business cards), and I thankfully remembered the etiquette to receive it with both hands and to bow. It is very common in Japan to give people these cards when you are introduced. Thankfully, one more person joined us, and she was able to speak English. She told me that they were going to go take me to lunch, which I wish I had known about because I wouldn’t have eaten. Oh well.

The cute little welcome sign they made me

They loaded up my carry on and backpack (thankfully my large luggage was sent ahead) and we set off to go get food. At the restaurant they told me it was ok to just have a dessert, so I ended up getting a really yummy sundae. Though we basically had to speak with one person acting as interpreter, it was a really nice lunch. Once we finished eating, they took me to pick up my hanko, which is the stamp I would use as my official seal, my inkan. In Japan these are what you use as your official signature. It was nice that they already had it made for me, so I didn’t have to worry about getting that done.

Next, they took me to go grocery shopping. I was told to get groceries for about the next 3 days, which would be covered by the Board of Education. I was pretty shocked at that because I wasn’t expecting for them to pay for my groceries. I’m not sure if the cost might end up coming out of my paycheck, but it was still nice. I was able to find most of the basic foods I ate in the US, though cereal options were very limited because it is not commonly eaten here.

After getting groceries, it was finally time for me to arrive in Ikusaka. The drive to the village was very nice. Nagano is a very mountainous region and there were some very nice views. Ikusaka is a small village of around 2,000 people that sits right in a mountain river valley. The river is a gorgeous blue-green color, and the mountain views are fantastic. I was immediately in love with the scenery. I knew right away that the surrounding nature was going to make me like living in Ikusaka.

They took me right away to my apartment, which I was super excited to see. My predecessor was very helpful in preparing me for life in Ikusaka, but she hadn’t sent my any pictures of the apartment, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was definitely pleasantly surprised. The apartment is pretty spacious and was in excellent condition. It is part of two small buildings that host four apartments, which are specifically designated for teachers to use. As a teacher in Japan, you get moved to a different school every few years or so, so schools often provide housing for the teachers to live in during the week. Many teachers then go home to their families on weekends.

The welcome message left by my predecessor in my apartment

Honestly, the apartment probably could have not been as nice and I still would have been happy because it has one crucial thing: an air conditioner. I honestly would be dying without it because it is very hot and very humid here, so I am so glad that I got one. Another plus of my apartment is that the rent is very cheap, which should help me save money or pay more on my student loans because of the lower cost of living.

After they got my gas turned on and showed me how the stove works (it’s a gas stove) and how to adjust the water temperature and such, they took me to the school so I could meet some of the teachers. I got to meet Kyoto-sensei (the vice principal) and my JTE (the English teacher). The meeting was pretty much just me sitting there while everyone talked about me in Japanese, with someone occasionally translating for me, but it was fine. Everyone seemed pretty nice, which was a relief. We only hung at the school for a little bit, then they dropped me off at my house to have the evening to myself.

However, another ALT in the area offered to pick me and the other new ALT close to us up for dinner at her place, which was really nice. The drive up to her village, however, was not. I thought roads in Europe were narrow, but here they are even worse. Sometimes you have to stop on a narrow part of the road to let another car squeak past you. The roads were also super curvy, so it was just a nerve wracking drive. Aside from the drive, it was a nice evening, and it was great to meet the other ALT’s who are going to be near to me.

Overall, it was a pretty nice day. Everyone was so nice and welcoming, and even though there is a language barrier, it worked out fine. I had a very nice first impression of my village, and I was excited for the upcoming days of getting to know the village and the people I would be working with. Hope y’all enjoyed this post and stay tuned for my next post on my first week in Ikusaka!

Orientation

Before arriving, I had heard how crazy and exhausting Post-Arrival Orientation in Tokyo could be, but honestly it wasn’t that bad. It was mostly exhausting because I was jet lagged and they were giving us so much information. However, the fact that the JET Programme had everything organized and provided our breakfast and lunch every day made it much better. The orientation was scheduled to last two days, from around 9 a.m. until around 5 p.m. There were a variety of sessions, from teaching seminars to general safety information. I really enjoyed the teaching seminars because they gave us many ideas of how we could teach. Some of the other sessions were more difficult because they gave a lot of information in a short time. It made it very difficult for people to stay awake because of jet lag, but I actually did pretty well. And the meals they provided us with were pretty yummy, so that gave me the fuel to get through it.

At the end of the first day they had a welcome reception for us, which was pretty nice. They grouped us at the start at tables with people that were placed in the same prefectures (their version of states), so I got to meet people in Nagano like me. I think I was the only one from the Chicago departure group who was placed in Nagano, so I was itching to meet the others. The reception began with the kanpai, or the toast. Some people from important government offices or embassies gave short speeches; one of them was from the US Embassy and had been a JET participant. I think it was the Minister of Education maybe who led us in the kanpai. In Japanese culture, you are not supposed to eat or drink anything until they do the toast, but they didn’t start pouring beer for us until the later part of the speeches. After the kanpai they unleashed us onto the food buffet, which was pretty nice. The desserts were pretty yummy, especially the nice tiramisu they had. I spent much of the reception chatting with Monique, an Aussie placed in my prefecture. We got along really well and I was happy that I probably made a friend who would be close to me geographically.

After the recpetion, my friend Emily from the flight and I went in search of ice cream. For the past five years I worked at Cold Stone Creamery, and I discovered that Japan actually has some Cold Stones. I wanted to see the difference, so we ventured out in the evening in search of the ice cream. After getting temporarily misplaced in the large train station there, we finally found it. Their menu had many of the usual signatures like in the US, but with some different ones, like matcha ice cream (yuck in my opinion). I got one of my favorite signatures, the Founder’s Favorite, which was good, but definitely different. Their Sweet Cream ice cream is a bit different in flavor, but it was still yummy. I probably will go to another Cold Stone here whenever I find one.

That adventure concluded our first day of orientation. The next day was mostly focused on teaching seminars. It was also tiring, but not as bad as the first day because I was less jet lagged. At the end of the day we had prefectural meetings, so we got to meet our PA’s (prefectural advisors). At this meeting they invited us to go with them to get dinner in Tokyo, which I gladly signed up for. We went to get okonomiyaki, which is kind of like a savory pancake and basically translates to mean “how you like”. You can choose from a variety of flavors, from pork, shrimp, to kimchi, and you cook it yourself on a griddle built into the table. It was pretty nifty, but unfortunately I did not like it. My only problem with it was the cabbage in it. I really don’t like cabbage, so that ruined it for me. I am proud of myself for trying it though, because as some of my readers know, I am a very picky eater. If I go visit Hiroshima I want to try their version of okonomiyaki, which is made with noodles instead of cabbage.

This dinner pretty much served as the conclusion for orientation, as the next day was the day we would get sent off to our placements. Orientation was tiring and I was super excited to finally get to the place I would be living in for the next year. Stay tuned for my next post, where I’ll talk about my arrival in Ikusaka! 🙂

Arriving In Japan

I am thankful that my departure for Japan wasn’t the first time that I had been abroad for an extended period, because I definitely would have been freaking out much more about going to live in a country very different from my own. My semester in Scotland with my sister and my semester/summer in France and Germany helped prepare me for life abroad thankfully. I knew though that this experience abroad was going to be much different from the last two. First, I was actually going to be working in that country; I wasn’t just a student/tourist. Second, and probably the most crucial difficulty I knew I was going to face, is the fact that I speak virtually no Japanese. Zilch, nada. Oh, boy. Japan was going to be a whole different beast, and I was definitely nervous about that language gap when I departed the U.S. a week ago. I was also worried because Japan has a very different culture from the U.S. I was, and still am, super nervous about committing some sort of faux pas. Thankfully, I have a wonderful support network from the JET Program. They really know their stuff after doing this for about 33 years. Thank goodness for everything they organized, because I totally would have been lost without them taking care of my arrival in Japan. So here’s the story of my journey to Japan and my first few days there.

First stop: Chicago O’Hare International Airport. A little shoutout must first go to the lady who checked me in for my flight. My two large checked bags were definitely overweight, and that kind soul just asked me to stuff a few things in my carry-on to lighten one of my suitcases, then sent my bags on their merry way to the plane. She’s seriously my hero because I just couldn’t get my bags underweight with a year’s worth of stuff to take with me. A second shoutout goes to my mom for driving to Wisconsin to take me to the airport. I am glad I had someone in my family to send me off. Thanks Mom!

After going through security (before which I definitely shed a few tears) it was time for the flight! The thing I had been dreading for a while because of it’s length. Almost 13 hours on a plane? What the heck was I going to do with myself? It actually turned out to be pretty good! I luckily got seated next to someone on my program who I had made friends with at our pre-departure orientation, so I had a friend for the flight.

The food on the flight was actually pretty good, and probably the largest portion of food I’ve ever gotten on a flight, so props to Japan Airlines. And it was pretty yummy (aside from the veggies that I don’t like). Thankfully I was able to keep myself fairly entertained on the flight. I pretty much spent the flight reading, playing games on my iPad, listening to music, chatting, or watching movies. They had a nice selection of movies, so I ended up watching Captain Marvel and Aquaman (superhero movies are my fav). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get any sleep, even though it was an overnight flight, but that’s normal for me. It for sure made for a long trip of being awake for around 30 hours. All in all, though, it was a decent flight.

Once we arrived at Narita Airport, I was even more grateful I came to Japan with a program that had everything organized for us ahead of time. At every stage of the airport they had people there to direct us what to do or where to go. With their guidance, we made it pretty easily through immigration. It was definitely the fastest I’ve ever gone through immigration for a long-term stay. After that they directed us where to go to get our luggage and go through customs. After customs, we were directed outside to the bus, where we dropped off our big luggage to be forwarded to where we would be living, then boarded the bus to head to the hotel. I am glad we didn’t have to stand outside for too long, because what I had heard about the Japanese summer was true. It was hot and it was humid. I would have been dying being outside for a long time.

The bus ride was about an hour and a half to the hotel. Once we arrived they ushered us into a room for a short introduction to orientation, then sent us to get checked into our rooms, which were assigned alphabetically by last name. Before I went to my room I was able to pick up the SIM card for my phone, which I had pre-ordered. I am so glad I did that, because it gave me a working phone right from the start. After getting my SIM, I went to my room on the seventeenth floor. Our hotel was big, but it was super nice. In my room, I was very tempted to just pass out, because it was around 3 a.m. my time (around 5 p.m. in Tokyo). However, I was starving, so I wanted food. I didn’t want to venture out on my own, so I ended up tagging along with some other Americans on my program in search of food.

Our quest for food took us on a twenty minute walk to a delicious ramen place called Ichiran. I was pretty excited to try authentic ramen, and this place was a good place to start. You can customize your ramen by selecting options on a machine, such as selecting the size or extra ingredients. You then are given a sheet of paper where you can select how you want your noodles cooked, how much garlic you want in it, and more. You then go into this little individual “booth” and hand the cook your paper. They then cook it and bring it back to you, then shut the curtain to the kitchen and let you eat. It was pretty sweet and the ramen did not disappoint. Definitely better than the grocery store kind. My first taste of real Japanese food was excellent, and as I write this I am really craving that ramen again.

So I will wrap up this post here before it gets too long. I had a pretty positive experience arriving in Japan, which thankfully made the beginning stage of transitioning to life in Japan much easier. Stay tuned for more posts and thanks for reading!

Welcome to My Blog!

Greetings reader and welcome to my blog! Chances are, you are probably only my mom and maybe some of my closest friends, but if not, thanks for reading and an extra welcome to you! Just in case someone who doesn’t know me happens upon this blog, my name is Brigitta Kaiser and I’m a foreign language enthusiast, travel bug, bookworm, cheese lovin’ Wisconsinite.This blog is going to be about my life living abroad in Japan and working in Japanese schools as a member of the JET Programme. You can read all about this awesome program here if you want to know more, but the gist of this program is that it brings people from all over the world to teach foreign languages in schools across Japan. I am what is called an ALT, or an Assistant Language Teacher, and my job here is to assist a Japanese Teacher of English (or JTE for short). I am also to serve as a sort of cultural ambassador to Japan for the US by being a representative of my country. As part of the JET Programme, I am helping to build connections between Japan and the US at the grassroots level. Cool, huh? Anyway, if you want to follow the story of my adventures, and most likely struggles, of living abroad, you can read all about it here! If you want to make me feel important, you can even subscribe to receive updates on my posts in your email (*cough, cough* you better subscribe Mom). It’s going to be a fun ride folks!