Passport, Tickets and a Suitcase: Japan: Day 1

The good news is that I arrived today, the bad news is that school starts tomorrow. I just found out I am with the 3-4 year olds, called the Panda Class. No time for resting really, or even organising what I am doing with the class. End of complaining.

This place feels so familiar but so different at the same time. Is that possible?

I arrived at the airport with no clue if someone is meeting me or if I had to get to Shizuoka myself. It has been 6 years since I was last in Japan and I wasn’t sure if I was going to remember how to get there at all. I guess it is lucky, that there was a sense of familiarity because I was not at all shy about asking strangers for help, in really bad Japanese, very much broken, and a lot of pointing and arm waving.

After finding my way to Shizuoka, I still had no idea at this point where I would be living, but I hopped into a taxi at the station. 6 years ago, I could simply tell the taxi driver kita (North) and he would head in the right direction. No such luck. Interesting situation. With no written address anywhere, I had to once again call the Principal of the Kindy and ask her to talk to the taxi driver.

We get to my neighbourhood, and I then have to direct him using, left (hidari), right (migi), straight (massugu) and please stop here please (koko de tomatte kudasai). Seems simple enough, except that in the last 6 years, things have changed. Buildings have appeared and buildings have disappeared. I did however see my beloved supermarket and that was somehow reassuring. We took a couple of wrong turns, but got there in the end. Arrived at the apartment, which was supposed to be unlocked, but when I got there, it was locked and so I had to leave my bags outside the apartment and walk to the kindy to collect them. Something generally you would never do in Australia, leave your bags, containing expensive cameras and a laptop, outside. Finally got inside and it is identical to the apartment I was in 6 years ago.

There is another teacher from the kindy, Shawna, who is just lovely. We met when I tried to get into her apartment, which I guess she may have thought I was someone trying to break in, the poor girl. I was told I was going to be in my old apartment, so I trekked upstairs with my heavy bags and turns out, I was trying to move into the wrong apartment and I was in the apartment on the ground floor, oops. Despite my scary plane hair and the bags under my eyes, she greeted me with a smile and helped carry my bags back downstairs. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful but I did take some great photos.

Tokyo Station

My apartment is basically 3 rooms. The Bathroom, Dining table and Kitchen are in the main room that you walk into from the front door. The shower is just one room that then opens up into the main room, and then the toilet is next to the shower. There is a lounge room and a bedroom. It is quite nice but bare. As you will see in the next photo, there is nowhere to sit in the lounge room, so I will have to buy a few things.