Arriving in Urasa

I left Tokyo for Niigata Prefecture with some 30 other JETs by shinkansen. Arrive in my town, Urasa, after about 1.5 hrs. It’s a pretty little town surrounded by mountains and rice fields. Niigata famed for its rice throughout Japan.

Yoshida-sensei from Kokusai Joho High School, which will be my base school, received me at the station and drove me to a nice restaurant for lunch. (I say base school because I'll have to visit a school in another town every Monday morning) I ordered this cold soba dish at his recommendation. He explains that this is a summer dish. Ahh, there are actually ice-cubes placed under the soba so they are nice and cold when you eat it. An apt dish for the sweltering summer indeed! And the pieces of cha-shu, seaweed etc are yummy too! He asked me the weirdest questions during lunch: do you eat rice? Do you know how to use chopsticks? *scratch head* Don't I look Chinese, I wonder?

Then, we went to the Town Hall to register for my gaijin (foreigner) card. He was happy to see my Hello Kitty passport cover and exclaimed Kitty-chan! The officer attending to me kept speaking Japanese to me and handed me brochures of the town and information on garbage sorting and disposal schedules in Japanese!! Hello?! I’m registering for a gaijin card leh! Don't they have these basic stuff in English for gaijins?

We then headed off to the school where I was introduced to the principal who kept bowing and speaking to me in Japanese. My check-in bags were supposed to be sent to the school from Narita airport but only one bag arrived. Urghs! And most of my essentials are in the bigger bag which is now missing… Yoshida-sensei helped me call the baggage delivery company to report loss of my luggage. Hope they find it soon.

Yoshida-sensei then drove me to my apartment, which looks like a good 20-30 min walk away. Luckily, my predecessor left me a bike (although the tyres are quite flat). This is what the Japs call a mama-chari – it’s the standard bike housewives use since there’s a basket in front to hold their stuff. Here's my bike in my parking lot under the apartment building.


My apartment is pretty nice. It has a living room, a decent-size tatami bedroom, kitchen and toilet. I spent the afternoon vacuuming the place. Then the gas guy came to turn on the gas and showed me how to operate the stove and the hot water taps (?! yes, i know that I get hot water when I swivel the handle to the red side and when I turn on the tap marked in red...does he think I'm some country bumpkin?!). I decided to cycle to the supermarket to buy food and fruits since the fridge was empty. Urghs…my cycling skills were very rusty. I was very wobbly so I cycled slowly…very embarrassing, especially when little kids on their small bikes were overtaking me. Nevermind…that’s better than falling down and making a fool of myself right? ;P

So my first dinner consisted of a bento sushi set that was going for half-price at the supermarket. Bought loads of fruits – apples, peaches (in season now!) and bananas. I threw the whole bag in the fridge, forgetting about the bananas and inside. When I went to take an apple at night, the bananas had hardened and turned a strange brown colour. I took them out to warm them up but they turned blacker and blacker and some juice was seeping out…gross! So I threw them away…luckily they cost only 100+ yen.

Tried to iron my clothes for the rest of the week. Stupid ironing board is so small and only like 1 foot from the floor. How do you keep the ironed parts straight when you iron the other parts??