well it wasn’t today but i was reminded of that day today hehe
today, august 22 2019, would’ve marked a 3 year anniversary of moving to Toronto but instead im celebrating my first day of work in Japan
to be more specific, the countryside of Japan where my workplace only has ONE western toilet, the humidity is 85% on a daily basis and it takes a solid 8h workday to apply for a bank card.
how did I get here?
meh a long story for another time (ezcuse the dramatic vibes today but we r talking NOSTALGIC MONSOON MEMORIES over hur!!) i can give u the rundown from the minute the wheels hit tarmac at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. JOKES THAT STORY IS STILL TOO LONG. U alrdy kno if u let me talk too long, u’ll end up with 17.5 stories u didn’t ask for so….
how did I get here? [from Tokyo to Toyooka]
^likely what a normal person would name their first blog post
click here for the TL;DR (as short n sweet as u’ll ever get from me but nowhere near as fun. ur loss tho. c ya)
and keep reading if it’s a slow day at work or maybe u jus feel like it (HELL I AINT UR MOM. DO WHATEVER U LIKE FREN)
after 3 days of being known as the sick girl at orientation and no one knowing what the bottom half of my face looked like, my guide Yuki-san1 {read notes for enriched learning fun at the end of this post} escorted me from the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo to Shinjuku Station where I had my first eki-ben2, onto the bullet train to Kobe, and to the Hyogo Board of Education office where I was passed onto the Head of BOE and Prefectural Advisor for a quik orientation (when I say quik I mean they condensed 2 days of info into 1 hour) and then passed onto two English speaking coworkers from my school who drove 3hours through the countryside to take me to my new place in Toyooka. I’ll dub them Brock n Eddie (I can’t b name dropping for privacy reasons n also Japanese names r hella long so hello ez fake names so u can follow along U WELCOM.) U’ll notice the Japanese do a lot of passing on for any duty which I’ll sum up with this: it took me 8 hours to just APPLY for a bank card which included 2 trips to city hall, 3 trips to the bank, 3 times back home and twice to the school. Luckily it’s a small town to drive around in and my chauffeur for the day, Ono, didn’t mind helping me fill out forms over a conveyor belt sushi lunch. At this point, my passport n ID have passed through so many hands I give em a month before the whole town knows there’s a new gaijin3 in town. After finishing my day and leaving with “Otsukaresama deshita4,” my neighbor n fellow teacher, Mike, kindly gave me a ride back home.
I did a bit of life contemplation over what I’d learned on my first day as I stared out the window from my futon depression session:
- my school only has one western toilet.. on the other side of the school.. in the student wing
- the humidity in Toyooka is at least 80% on any given day of the year
- id have to borrow Mike’s bike [side story: does anyone remember Mike on a bike in London, ON?] and cycle through said humidity for 30 minutes to get to work
- also: my house is at least 30 years old, consistently smells like barn, and only has AC in one room but spiders in every corner.
This East Van princess was ready to get on the next flight out (they don’t call me princess for nothing.)
But I forced myself off the tatami mats in pursuit of acquiring a towel and hairdryer for my depression shower and also dinner (#sustenance #important.) Buckling on my fanny pack and heading off for an adventure stroll, I managed to make it before closing time and secure the goods with my limited Japanese and the help of Google Translate. Then I stopped at SushiRo (ya that same conveyor belt sushi resto bc i aint know where else to go) where I enjoyed 6 plates of fresh af sashimi n dessert for a spicy ¥842 (8 bucks in an attempt to satiate my sadness) but it wasn’t until it started raining while I was walking home while listening to my favourite Studio Ghibli movies that I was reminded of all the good things that come with moving by urself to a foreign country.
so that time I walked home in a monsoon.
Singapore 2016. The first time I moved to a foreign country alone. A place where a freak rainstorm can drop for 2 hours at any given point. When I say freak rainstorm I mean buckets pouring so hard, PONDS OVERFLOW. I got lucky finishing my $4 Hainan chikin noodle lunch at the dorm hawker before it started downpouring. I tried running.. I tried using the trees for shelter but as the pellets started soaking into my socks, I just stopped and let em. Grade 8 me would’ve been so proud I finally got to live out the quote “Don’t wait for the storm to pass. Go dance in the rain.” It’s a weird thing remembering a thought. But I remember thinking FUCK YES. FREE SHOWER!! and ALSO that if this isn’t the kind of thing I moved across the world to experience, I don’t know what is. And I guess today just reminded me to keep dancing in the rain. #thankumonsoon
So how did I get here? in Toyooka, the beautiful countryside of Japan
Because I wanted it. And I got it. So now I gotta enjoy it. Every squat-toilet, every ¥100 plate of sushi and every spider in my ¥9300 rent/month tatami house minute of it.
TL;DR if u feeling sad after u move to a new country by urself, go for a walk, preferably in the rain. Let the moment take u n literally soak it all in.
That’s all for today folks,
A
I m out here living life n also passin on Japanese terms as I learn em. U WELCOM
1san add suffix to a name to address someone or be considered a rude bish
2eki-ben eki= train station. train station bento box
3gaijin = foreigner
4Otsukaresama deshita said when leaving at the end of the work day. Translates to “excuse me for leaving before u”
anntanya 