Random thoughts - out of the 22 people who are absent from ichi-nensei today to attend the judo and kendo interschool games, 8 of them have a surname ending in the same kanji (moto). Very amusing!! :)

I just found out that some students got blasted for parking their bikes in the wrong place, haha. I know that each class has a certain bike rack to put their bikes in, but I was really surprised that students would get yelled at for putting their bikes somewhere else. I mean, it seems a little trivial to me, as it's not like there isn't enough room - the school was designed for 1,300 students and we only have 950 or so. Sometimes this school is so strict that even I, Mr Anally Retentive, am taken aback, hehe.

It's exactly one year today since I touched down at Narita airport at the beginning of my JET career. Throughout the year I've reflected often about my experiences here, so I'm not going to write a big essay about thoughts from a year in. However, I do have a few words I'd like to say.

My friend Brandon challenged me to think about my goals on the JET Program and why I was staying for another year. Although it wasn't something I had sat down to deliberately spend some decent time thinking about, I do think about it on and off and so it was relatively easy for me to put my thoughts into words. There are many, many reasons, but the main ones I think are that I enjoy life here (much more than life in Perth) and that there is still so much more for me to achieve here. Digging a little deeper, I enjoy teaching and the difference I can make both at school and in the community. I have room to improve as a teacher and I want to take that opportunity and make JET work for me - I have a feeling the skills will come in useful in the future. I also made a promise to myself to become fluent at Japanese before leaving Japan, and that plays a big part in the decision. A lot of Japan is still a mystery to me because of the language barrier, and the challenge to smash through that and understand is something I relish and that is very rewarding for me.

On another front, the end of the JET year brings with it a whole heap of new JETs and the departure of a lot of old JETs. Some good friends are leaving this year and that's something that I am dealing with for the first time. Thankfully none of the people were best friends or people that I saw a lot, but I still feel their absence. I can't call them up any more at random points in time and just head out with them for a random dinner in Kobe. Does it bother me? Well, yes and no. I've become used to this kind of thing over the years so I get over it pretty fast, and with communications the way they are, people are never really that far away if you really put in some effort.

I also spoke to Brandon recently about this yearly cycle of JET. He's going into his third year so he's had two years of changes. The point he made was an interesting one and was brought up in a larger conversation about Japanese vs gaijin friends. We both agreed one of our goals was to make more friends in the local community, and Brandon was quick to point out that they're less likely to leave every year, hehe. So to sum up this rather random yearly reflection, I have absolutely no regrets about coming, I'm excited about the year ahead, I'm keen to learn more Japanese, improve my teaching skills and meet a lot more local people, and I haven't decided exactly how long I'm going to stay. I'll worry about that when the recontracting letter arrives in January :)

The craziness of the past few weeks continued as I barely had time to recover from Tokyo before I was off again to Nagoya. My close friend Junko and I had been pretty stressed out during the school term and as we hadn't seen each other for a while, decided to go on a holiday to a few beautiful places near Nagoya to catch up and relax. I shot up to Nagoya on the shinkansen and met her early Friday evening, and we grabbed a quick dinner at the famous Yamachan in Nagoya city. They do all kinds of interesting foods, including some amazing Nagoya foods. I don't know why Nagoya food is so different, but it is, and most of it is pretty delicious.

After dinner we caught the train up to Inuyama, a fairly unknown little inaka place up in the mountains towards Gifu prefecture. We stayed at the Youth Hostel there, but by the time we got there it was dark and we were so tired that we ended up just going straight to sleep, hehe. On Saturday we headed out to the Inuyama Ayumatsuri, which celebrates the little fish that the locals use trained cormorants to catch. We had to walk along a dangerous road with no footpath to get there, which was quite an adventure. The festival itself was small but interesting. We got to eat one of the famous Ayu, and also checked out the horrible Momotaro shrine that was there. It really was tacky, hehe, with lots of brightly painted demon and Momotaro statues everywhere. Why Momotaro was even in Inuyama I don't know, as he originates from Okayama prefecture.

Anyway, after that we wandered through a park and down to the river for a while, but it was so oppressively hot and humid that we had to retreat to a cafe and have some kakigori (shaved ice dessert), hehe. After that we walked all the way to Inuyama-jou, a beautiful castle high on a cliff overlooking the river. From there we grabbed a late lunch and caught the train to Okazaki, our final destination. I don't know what Okazaki is famous for but on Saturday night it had an enormous firework festival with over 20,000 fireworks over 2 hours. Being a summer festival, there were of course thousands of people around, many dressed in yukata. Junko and I had brought ours with us and so we wore them out. Junko looked amazing in hers and was even able to do her own obi. I, the heathen gaijin I am, hehe, had forgotten how to tie my obi so had to get on the computer in the hotel reception and find some instructions. With Junko's help I was eventually able to get it done ok.

On the way to the festival we grabbed some food and beer at a konbini and then some yakitori from a handy stall just outside the main festival area. The woman at the stall saw me and told Junko I looked very handsome and that she was lucky, haha. It never ceases to amaze me what Japanese people will assume (that I can't speak Japanese and that I'm the boyfriend of any girl I am with) and say. Anyway, I gladly took the compliment :P From there we very enjoyed ridiculous amounts of fireworks until the festival ended around 9pm. After that we went back to the hotel to shower and recover - the yukatas are very warm despite being summer garments, and we were both very tired and probably a bit dehydrated from a day of walking around in the sun. About 10:30 we went down to a yakitori izakaya and grabbed a bit more food before heading back to the hotel and crashing out about midnight.

We were both really tired and didn't wake up until nearly 9:30, just enough time to shower before checking out of the hotel. We were still tired so we decided to head straight back to Nagoya and head home from there. I think I got on the train home at around noon and was back in Ako by 2pm, so not too bad at all! Nagoya is actually quite convenient, by shinkansen anyway hehe. Despite being already tired and the weekend being tiring as well, it was a lot of fun and I had a really good time. Junko is one of the few really good Japanese friends I've made (her nearly perfect English helped a lot here!) so I was very happy to spend some time hanging out with her. Hopefully I can see her again soon :)

Tokyo Orientation was absolutely massive, and a pretty awesome (but extremely tiring) experience. Thanks to being in Banshu Ako and therefore theoretically being unable to make it to Shinjuku for the first meeting on Saturday, I was given an extra night in the amazing Keio Plaza hotel on the Friday. Which made Friday a pretty busy day, hehe. I left Oscar's at around 10am and raced back to Ako, where I packed my bag and quickly jumped on the train to Himeji. My poor friend Amanda had recovered from climbing Fuji only to get struck down with appendicitis, so she had been rushed to hospital on the Tuesday. I promised her I'd visit her so I raced out there on the bus and chatted to her for an hour or so. Some of her teachers had come to see her as well, and one of them offered me a lift back to the station when she found out I needed to go to Tokyo. Japanese kindness never ceases to amaze me :)

At the station I quickly grabbed a ticket to Tokyo on the next Nozomi, grabbing dinner at an amazing vending machine restaurant in the meantime. It was some of the best soba and tempuradon I've ever had, which just goes to show, don't underestimate vending machine restaurants! I finally got onto the train and spent most of the time reading a very interesting book on body language (check it out - Body Language by Julius Fast). I got in to Shinagawa at around 10:30 (it takes almost exactly 3 hours to get there from Himeji ... pretty amazing!) and was in Shinjuku by just before 11. I got a little lost but eventually found my bearings and got to the hotel. I was going to go out and explore but was really tired from being crazy busy lately, so I decided an early night would be a good idea.

I woke up at around 7am when my room mate, a friendly guy called William who is the president of Tottori AJET this year, wandered in from a party, haha. He had some friends who were doing a hotel room party somewhere - talk about the Tokyo lifestyle :P Crazy, action packed and no breaks, not even for sleep, haha. I went down to grab a cheeky late breakfast before the orientation orientation meeting started. It was a pretty good day - really laid back. We packed some welcome bags, found out what our duties were and generally knocked the orientation out of the park :) At night I headed out for dinner with my friend Brandon, and we ended up at a really nice izakaya. It wasn't so nice when the bill came and we were up for $45 each, but we'd been rather overpaid for our travel expenses so we didn't particularly mind.

From there it was out to a hotel at Narita airport to prepare for the arrival of the JETs the next day. I had to get up ridiculously early as I was meeting the very first plane of JETs (from Australia) that was scheduled to arrive at just before 7am. Thanks to only getting to the hotel after 10pm and then having things to do until after midnight, I didn't get much sleep - maybe 5 hours. Thankfully the excitement of the new JETs arriving and a cheeky coffee snagged from Starbucks at the airport the instant it opened, I was ok though. After a strangely tense wait, we finally got to jump and cavort around as the very first 2008/09 JETs entered the country! Although they were from Australia and hence had no jet lag, they had come up on the night flight so most of them were pretty tired. We tried to genk them up as much as we could, and finally got them all safely onto the buses and on the way to Shinjuku.

I was lucky enough to be a bus leader, so I was in charge of one of the buses. It was really good fun as I got to play tour guide and tell the group all of the things they needed to know about orientation as we travelled to the hotel. And I have to admit, it was awesome to be with a big group Australians - their accents were music to my ears :D Thanks to being so tired they were a bit of a tough crowd, but I didn't take it personally. It was kind of like teaching some of my classes actually, haha. I tried to keep everything short so they could sleep and read their orientation books, and then I wandered up and down talking to everyone and getting their story, where they were going in Japan and taking any questions they had.

We arrived at the hotel just before 10am, and I jumped in to help out with various things throughout the hotel. About 11:30 I went for a Starbucks run and in the afternoon I managed to sneak in a bit of time for a nap. I didn't manage to sleep but just lying down and taking it easy really helped. I had a Hospitality Centre shift from 6 - 8 which wasn't ideal, but it could have been much worse. After that I went out for dinner with a couple of the new JETs, introducing them to their first izakaya and Japanese cultural experiences. It was funny to watch their awestruck faces as I explained to them about taking their shoes off etc, and as I ordered in Japanese and helped them to order in Japanese too.

After dinner I went out with Brandon to check out Kabuki-cho, the 'dodgiest' place in Japan. It was good fun as naturally, we're not dumb tourists wandering around just waiting to be dragged into a yakuza snack bar trap. We kept to clean places (like the crazy izakaya very appropriately called 'Mysterious') before calling it a night just after midnight. Back at the hotel, Brandon pulled out his DS so we ended up playing multiplayer games until much later than we should have, haha. It was awesome fun, beating the crap out of each other in New Super Mario Brothers.

Monday was the real start of orientation, at the lovely hour of 8:30am. Brandon and I ran the prefectural meeting for Hyogo, which basically consisted of shouting over the top of everyone else to try to make sure everyone was there, give them their school information and then tell them what they needed to do at orientation. After that we were free for the day, so we wandered around Shinjuku for lunch and then did some printing for the Hyogo AJET Welcome Packs at a convenient Fedex Kinkos. The staff bordered on assholes, surprisingly, but we got there in the end.

Back at the hotel I had another hospitality centre shift from 4 to 6 and then the Welcome Reception from 6:30pm. That went really well and I got to chat to some of the new Hyogo JETs in more depth. We continued this on to the Hyogo AJET Night Out at the Watami izakaya closest to the hotel. Hokkaido was there too, and between us, we booked out nearly an entire floor, haha. I also bumped into Vanessa, one of the few Perth JETs who didn't get placed in Hyogo. I hadn't seen her for almost a year so it was great to catch up. Unfortunately I had to call it a night very early as I had a 6am shift on the hospitality centre the next day.

Getting up at 5am after another relatively late night and a couple of nights of bad sleep wasn't particularly enjoyable, but I fought through it and got through my shift in genki style. I was on with interesting people, too, which made the time fly by. After we'd finished our shift, I went for breakfast with them and we had a good chat. I wasn't required until the early afternoon, so I went to sleep again and woke up feeling marginally better. We had our prefectural meeting where I met Oouchi-sensei again, and he let us hand out our Hyogo AJET Welcome Packs. He's really pro-HAJET for some reason, which really helps a lot.

After that I played games with Brandon until it was time for the final helpers meeting at around 5pm. Many of us were heading to embassies, so we went downstairs to prepare for that. There wasn't a bad turnout for the Australian embassy event, which was encouraging. The event was identical to last year, featuring boring speeches, a plea to help sell Australian education and then some mediocre food :P Still, never look a gift horse in the mouth, right? When we came out of the embassy, to our surprise there was an enormous storm going on outside. As we ran to the subway a giant flash of lightning actually blinded me and from the fact the thunder came almost at the same time, I realised it was far too close for comfort - probably about 300 metres away. Needless to say we ran like hell underground, haha.

Back at the hotel I changed and headed out with Brandon to Kabukicho again. We grabbed some beer and yakitori at a great little place we'd seen the night before, and Brandon insisted on ordering raw horse heart. I tried some, but it didn't do much for me hehe. We were eventually joined by one of the new JETs who had spotted me as he walked by, and he tagged along for the rest of the night. We grabbed one more beer in a club called Tokyo Loose, but it was empty except for a few very skanky looking gaijin, so we left very quickly. Back at the hotel it was another night of DS before finally getting some more inadequate sleep in preparation for the long trip home.

The departure meeting was at 8:45am and we rolled into the buses around 9:30am. At Tokyo station we jumped on the Nozomi and shot down to Shin-Osaka. Brandon and I played more DS on the way - hooray for bluetooth, as we were sitting far apart. The guy behind me on the train must have thought I was insane as I kept turning around to make signs at him whenever I killed him or vice versa. Around noon we cruised into Shin-Osaka and had a little bit of time to do some shopping before getting on the final buses to take us to the Yashiro Training Centre. Here the same whirlwind that hit me last year happened again this year, with the kids being rushed to the meeting room and almost immediately spirited away by their teachers.

I was a bit stuck once I got to Yashiro, as I didn't have a teacher coming to pick me up and there were no Ako JETs. Thankfully, Oouchi-sensei had my back and sent me packing with a Himeji JET. It was a slightly awkward situation as I didn't want to intrude on the JET getting to know his teachers, so I just stayed quiet. We finally got to Himeji and they very kindly dropped me off at the train station, and I jetted home to collapse into a sleep of much exhaustion :P

Overall, I felt kinda proud of the new group, I have to say. Sounds a bit silly, but as a helper, they were absolutely awesome to help. The Hyogo bunch was extremely impressive, in particular - they struck me as really enthusiastic, intelligent and mature. I'm looking forward to seeing more of them at HAJET events this year and continuing to help them out.