Day Eleven

5th January 2007

We had an orientation day today. This was to meet our teaching buddy and to be taken to our school. When we arrived in the meeting room we were told that we had to give a little introductory speech preferably in Japanese. So much for a bit of warning….I was so nervous because I had no idea and had not prepared but everyone was in the same boat except for Steve of course because he could rattle off something decent. I managed to say something very small – but at least it was something! My teaching buddy was really nice. He is only 27 so that is good – at least he is on my wave length. He can speak reasonable English which is good for me. He took me to my school by train. The school looks very American. The staff room is very weird and there are just all desks in them and peoples stuff just everywhere. It is weird no having your own classroom to sit in. After school we were taken to the bank to open up our bank account. This was a very long winded process and again I had no idea what was going on. It is very difficult to communicate with people when you do not speak their language. Mr Izuka speaks English quite well so he was there to guide us through this process.
After all the important things were done we went to a shopping centre called Max Value. This is a supermarket and a clothes/shoe store and on the third level there is a 100 yen store where everything in it is $1.00. Here you can buy many different things such as cleaning products, sponges, cutlery, plates, towels etc. I suppose it is not the best quality but for what we need it is fantastic! We spent around 3000 yen which is about $30 and got quite a lot of things. I think this is a store that we will visit frequently. It is walking and riding distance which is good.