No, I didn’t just go insane and write a title that makes no sense. This phrase is one of the classic phrases we saw written on some guys t-shirt in Sunshine City. It brought a smile to our faces, I hope it now has brought a smile to yours too. Now my initial blogs are over I’m going to go back to the standard blog post of writing my little story and putting the pictures at the end. Please feel free to just scroll to the pictures if you don’t wana hear my rambles. If at any point we do a bunch of things and I don’t have the capacity to sit and write one of these blog posts, I may adopt the old structure on occasion. For now though, I’m happier going back to my standard chit chat style posts. I hope that’s okay with you guys!
So what has been happening since I started work? First off I had training in Shinjuku for a week. The hours were long, and yet we still felt so scared and unprepared starting our first shift the week after. I guess that’s how everyone feels when they start a new job though. Luckily, we get plenty of practice in no time and the only real draw back to the “thrown-in-at-the-deep-end” approach is that it feels incredibly scary to you as an individual. In terms of practice though, it gets you working right away and you settle in no time, usually. I still haven’t quite found my equilibrium, but it’s coming to me. Give me another week or so and I’m sure I’ll feel much more settled.
When it comes to the job itself, I honestly couldn’t be happier! One hour I could be teaching 3 year olds, the next possibly an 88 year old retiree, the next a 9 year old super whiz, the next a 30 year old business person who only started learning English a month ago when they started their new job. No day is ever the same and it makes our job really dynamic and fun. Also, of course, it makes the starter period harder because of the amount of material and different class styles we have to learn, but I think the pros massively outweigh the cons, especially since you get used to the sessions pretty quickly.
My weekly schedule is amazing – big shout out to my manager Joseph for that – and all three schools that I work at are pretty close to where I live. Two out of the three of them I can literally walk to, from my house, within 15-20mins. The third school is a bit further, but only in the way that I walk to one of my other schools and then catch a literal 4 minute train to 2 stops down. All the schools are right by the train stations too so, if it is ever too rainy or too hot, I can get to any of them without walking. Most of teh time though, I want to try walk in the hopes of keeping fit. (Maybe some other time I’ll blog about the other things I’m doing to stay active, fit and healthy…maybe I won’t… idk we’ll see how I feel. If you really want me to do something like that though, let me know and I’ll get it done.) Some days though, I definitely won’t be able to walk as I am in a suit every day and in Japan the humidity is intense. Even a 15 minute walk would make me sweaty and gross for the rest of the day in the summer, so I will not be afraid to jump on a train/tram/subway when needed. A gal gotta do what a gal gotta do, you know?
Anyway, after a weeks training and a week at work, I was very fortunate to get some time off again. This is because the first week of May is Golden Week in Japan. For all of you that don’t know, Golden Week is one of the busiest national holidays in Japan. Other than New Year, there isn’t much chance to get an extended period of time off with your friends and loved-ones, so Golden Week is pretty special. The week is made up of four national holidays: Showa Day, Constitution Day, Green Day and Children’s Day. This year was a bit odd because all of Golden Week didn’t fall together. This is very unusual at least 4 of the 5 weekdays of one week are given for the holiday and, considering that connects the 4 day holiday to a weekend, usually people get 6 consecutive days off. This year though, Showa Day fell on the Friday of the week before, so most people were still at work, and then Constitution day wasn’t until the Tuesday, so in fact the holiday was Tuesday-Thursday this year (meaning we’re all back at work on the Friday and Golden Week became more like “Golden three days” for most people. Three days off though is still pretty nice, so nobody is really complaining. My schedule meant I got 5 days off, because I don’t work Sundays or Mondays, so I’m especially not complaining because I got pretty much the best case scenario. During these five days, Sam and I did the following:
Day 1 (Sunday): we rested at home, tidied the house, did some laundry and did some good cooking and baking. Later on, we went for a night-time walk to explore Ikebukuro some more.
Day 2 (Monday): we went to Sensoji Temple, where there were many food stalls set up for Golden week, and then we went to the Kameido Tenjin shrine. By teh shrine, we saw the wisteria frames, lots of little turtles and many many many huge koi. It was beautiful! We will definitely return there often.
Day 3 (Tuesday): our dear friend Nana came to visit us from Kobe! We showed her our home, Sam cooked us all lunch, and then we all went shopping for the afternoon. We got a nice summer throw and a cushion cover and nice insert for our sofa as well as some nice hand towels. We also got me some new mascara and window shopped for what other cosmetics I may want by the time my birthday comes around in a few weeks.
Day 4 (Wednesday): we went to Ichinomiya beach in Chiba! It was honestly perfect. We went for a nice walk from the nearest town, through the fields to get to the sand. We ran through the water and had a picnic by the rocks. I made a face sculpture in the sand as we watched the surfers in the sea. Then we walked down to the pier and sat on there for a while, watching the surfers on the other beach to the north that time. Then we headed back to Tokyo and went on the train that passed Tokyo Disneyland!
Day 5 (Thursday): we went shopping for food, did a lot of meal prep and then tidied the house and did laundry. That evening we watched a film together and then played some videogames side by side on our new laptop trays.
The Friday I returned to work!
I also forgot to mention but, before Golden Week, another dear friend visited us from Kyoto. Mei and I have known each other since we were in junior school, and being reunited after 15 years of not physically seeing each other in person was so exciting! (We went for lunch at a lovely Indian in the center of Tokyo, which catered for our dietary needs wonderfully! The food was fresh, the staff were friendly and we will definitely return soon.) Spending time with Mei in-person and not through a screen felt like a dream. It reminded me why our friendship has lasted all this time – we have so much in common it just feels so easy to talk and hang out. I cannot wait until Sam and I can return to Kyoto and we can explore a different part of Japan, all of us, together.
With that, I think we come to the next of this blog post. I’ll drop all the photos below, for those of you that want to see them. To anyone who keeps reading my blogs, and to everyone who sends us well wishes and wonderful messages – Thank you so so much! We appreciate every single one of you and send you all of our love from across the pond. Hope to catch up with you soon!
-Alice
