| A day of yawn inducing orientation(not the organizer's fault). Pass. 13 hour plane ride after 2 (1 of which was delay) hour connecting flight. PASS! 3 days in a SWEET plaza in Tokyo, full of, um, how do you say?...distractions. Sign me up. Twice. I think I love Japan. It's hot, but the people are incredible. And I tried Miso soup, which is tasty, and sundry fish, also tasty, and one unfortunate incident where ''Diet Coke'' was heard to be ''Coke lime'' and turned out to be ''Coke sour.'' Watered down alcohol, rum, lime, and regular coke. For a kid who doesn't drink. Even the lushes said it was nasty, so I don't feel too bad about the retarded face I made. When I got to the Yamaguchi after the hour plane ride, I had an afternoon/evening consisting of:
2 hours drive to my city
Introductions in business attire in 95-100 degree weather
Said introductions in Japanese
Running around to get my foreign registration card, curtains, passport photos (hot+sweaty. Yay. And I had to do it twice!), groceries for my apartment, and difficult instructions for how to work appliances in my as yet non-air conditioned apartment
Dinner with my supervisor
A precious few hours to sleep before leaving at 6 in the morning, again in business attire, to go for a 2 hour drive for a two day orientation, starting at 9 with a ceremony that was filmed for TV, that was basically repeating what we had done the two prior orientations
And scattered amongst the ridiculousness that is this Japanese business, I had to, starting in Tokyo, somehow fit in the important things in life--karoake, all you can eat/drink parties, drinking parties, and making friends with people I'll probably never see again. Life is rough, kiddos. Life is rough. |
