Well Jason and I have been here for a week now, and it has probably been the busiest week we have had in years. Jason arrived on Thursday night last week and was able to settle himself into a hotel before I arrived on Saturday night.
On Sunday morning we made the big trek from Ueno to Shinyurigaoka, two trains packed with weekend sightseers. We got there in one piece with all of our bags and found our hotel with no problems. The school had booked us in for three nights, with the cost of a single room covered, us paying the difference between a single and a double room. Once we were checked in, we spent most of the day wandering around the department stores before getting into our massively oversized king size bed for the night.
Monday was the first day of work for me, but luckily not the first day of classes. I was met at the station near the school by the two IB co-ordinators and we walked to the school together. The school grounds are massive, and house not just a K-12 campus, but also a university. The grounds have several big buildings like auditoriums, gymnasiums, a museum, a stadium, and a new cafeteria and leisure area is under construction.
The really special thing about the grounds of the school is the sakura. When I arrived, the cherry blossoms had not blossomed, they were still buds. As of yesterday (Friday), they were all either in bloom or half blooming, and they create the most amazing avenue to walk along. The picture I've included I took on my way back from school yesterday, it's such a treat to have something that beautiful to walk next to.
On Monday night Jason and I were accompanied by the IB admin assistant who has been filling me in on all of the details about the position, and we went to visit some apartments. We visited three altogether, the first two were not really our style, but the last was, and we put in an application. The process of visiting and putting in the application took over two hours, so we all went out for dinner together straight afterwards.
I'm not going to write this as a day-by-day blow-by-blow description because I'll be here forever and it will get dead boring very quickly, so here's some highlights:
There was a typhoon on Tuesday and so we all got sent home early, although I left a little later than everyone else and was walking to the station just as the wind was really starting to pick up and the rain was starting. Got back to the hotel with no problems though, and we made a mad dash for dinner, deciding on McDonalds because we didn't have to go very far. The wind was incredible, and we saw a lot of people whose umbrellas had been completely destroyed by gusts of wind, some holding only the metal frame remaining.
Jason contacted a recruitment agency, met with them, and has a job interview scheduled for next week.
I started teaching my classes on Thursday, and my year 11s are great to work with. My year 9s, are year 9s. I'm going to have to delve deep into my brain to remember all my classroom management strategies again, not to control the class, but to engage them and get them on task. I haven't met my year 7s yet, they start classes on Monday. The first two days are orientation, so I won't be going through any English content with them until Wednesday.
We got approved for the apartment we applied for on Thursday, paid the deposit, key money, first month's rent and associated fees last night. We can pick up the keys today!
We also applied for our alien registration cards last night and got a certificate stating that we have a fixed address so that we can open a bank account and buy a mobile phone. There's a lot of administrative things that need to be done just to get by every day, but we're getting there.
We are going shopping today and tomorrow, so that we can live and sleep in our apartment. We have a long weekend ahead of us I think, but we've made real headway.
