Doin' the New-fun-go-go: Part #1

Now begins the somewhat abridged summary of my trip to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Day #1:

I arrived at St. John's near midnight local time. After some delicious homemade chicken paprikash, I went to bed. I woke up at about noon-ish, still feeling a little groggy from the flight. This gave me my first chance to see my sister Naomi's house in the daylight:

Dis is what we do up in Airport Heights

My apologies for the delay. I've spent the last five days visiting my sister in St. John's, Newfoundland ("and Labrador," I guess. . .) and am now sitting in Ottawa airport on a four hour layover, eagerly awaiting my forty minute flight to Montreal and yet another four hour layover.

I'll be updating the blog with travel stories, pictures, and whatnot soon enough. For now, though, I'll just be uploading pics to my Facebook. But to give you preview of my adventures in North America's Oldest White-person City, I'll direct you to this: Screeching in.

I did that.

Things I still need to find out, part #1 of one assumes several

When I started this blog, I set myself the goal of publishing something new every one or two days. I figure that if I want to be any kind of professional writer, I'd better learn to meet a deadline, even if its self-imposed. Part of the problem with this is that sometimes I just feel like I don't have anything all that interesting to write about; other times, I have ideas that turn out to be too big for a single blog post, or that can't be properly developed in a single twenty-or-so-minute burst of typing. My hope is that I can learn to pace myself well enough so that I can have a regular stream of properly developed "big posts" with a few relatively smaller posts to keep things on moving.

With that in mind, here's quick list I wrote up today of things I still have to find out about living in Japan.

1) How should I go about getting a mobile phone? 

I want to get an iPhone 4s, to go along with the MacBook Pro I'm hoping to buy sometime this summer. From what I know, the only telecomm company in Japan that carries iPhones is SoftBank. Can I buy a unit here in Canada and bring it Japan, or will I have to buy the phone in Japan from SoftBank? Will I need to go to a big city like Koriyama to get an iPhone, or can I get one in Shirakawa? (if these questions seem a little naive, it's probably because I've never been on a smartphone plan before. . .)

2) How do I get around in Shirakawa? 

What's public transit like in Shirakawa? Can I get a bike in Japan which will support a 6'7" frame? Will I need to drive to get around the district?

Answer: It looks like I'll need to buy a car. I've been told that the Shirakawa Board of Education might help me out with finding a car to purchase. This will be pretty cool, since driving in Japan is itself an new and alien experience.

They drive on the left side.

It's a completely different kind of driving!

3) Student Loans

How will I arrange for my student loans to keep getting paid? I probably find out more about this once I get my bank account set up, but it might not hurt to ask if anyone in JET paid their student loans while in Japan. I might also have to talk to the Canada student loan office.

4) Science!™ ?

I know that many ALTs take part in volunteer activities not directly connected with their duties as English teachers. Are there any science-related activities, like science fairs, science/physics clubs, etc. that I could take part in? Are there any other JETs with scientific background?

I'll try asking these questions to some of the JET folks who've contacted me. Then, maybe, I'll post the answers I get, either in this post or a new one.

Also, if anyone here has answers, feel free to comment!

I didn't know just how good JET would be for my social life. . .

In the past two or three days I've received about a dozen friend requests and a handful of welcome messages from ALT's living in Fukushima. I've been invited to two Facebook groups, one for Fukushima prefecture ALTs, and a more exclusive group for ALTs in my part of Fukushima. It's like I've joined some kind of supportive community of something.

I'm starting to think this Zuckerberg fellow was on to something. . .

The Narrow, Cracked Road to the North

As you may know (or should, if you read this blog's inaugural post) I've been placed in the "City of Shirakawa" in Fukushima prefecture to work as a JET ALT. Naturally, I've been poking around the Googles to learn a bit more about my future hometown.

There's actually not a sizable of info on Shirakawa.¹ This isn't too surprising, given that Shirakawa has a population of roughly sixty-six thousand (Prince George, by comparison, has a population of around seventy-seven thousand). So far, I've found a page on Wikipedia, another page on Wikitravel, a Youtube channel belonging to a Shirakawa local, a couple of videos highlighting earthquake damage (see below), and a few scattered images of Komine castle, which I'll get to later.²



What's weirder is that info on Fukushima prefecture as a whole also appears to be pretty sparse-- besides the glowing green elephant in the room, I mean. The Wikipedia page has a few fairly brief sections on history, geography, culture, and tourism in Fukushima, along with the obligatory sections dedicated to the Tohoku Earthquake and its aftermath, but otherwise it's mostly just padded out with boring old lists of cities, rail-lines, and universities. Almost makes me wonder what Wikipedia's page on Kiev Province looks like. . .

But again, the information available in Japanese probably vastly outweighs that which is available in English, so just I'll just chalk it up to laziness on my part.

Anyway, here's what I've found out about Shirakawa so far:

The "City" of Shirakawa

"County" or "District" would probably be a better word. From what I can tell from Google Earth and a couple of other sources, the region known as Shirakawa is a collection of small-to-medium sized towns, with large patches of countryside. It looks to be quite pretty in the summertime, from what I've seen so far.

Komine Castle

Shirakawa's only landmark, if Google Images is to be trusted. Meaning "small peak castle," it was originally built in 1340, was destroyed in 1868, and rebuilt between 1991 and 1994.

Ramen  

Shirakawa is famous for it's Ramen noodles. I am so there.

Basho

The famous Japanese poet Basho wrote about his travels through Shirakawa as part of his classic poem The Narrow Road to the North.  

Daruma

Dolls. That's all I know. They're dolls. I guess I'll learn more once I'm there.

Radiation

Based on information provided by my Japanese teacher, the highest radiation levels in Shirakawa are just a little higher than that found on a high-altitude flight, so I'm not too worried.


So, yeah. That's what I know of Shirakawa thus far. Not much. Buy hey, suspense!

Until next time. 

1 In English, anyway. What, you expect me to read Japanese? Pssh.^↩
2 I also found a blog called Stephanie's Adventures in Japan which, disturbingly, was last updated in February of 2011. . .^↩

Yookoso!

Welcome to Doin' the Nihon-Go-Go, my new blog about Life, Japan, and everything that happens when those two things collide. Expect a new post every one or two days, because damn it, this time I'm gonna keep up.

If you're interested, you can visit my old blog, Kyle Took a Bullet for Me.

Also, Japanese!

こんにちは！僕の新しいブログにようこそ！それが「Doin' the Nihon-Go-Go」と言います。そのブログに日本の生活に書きます。そして、僕は日本語を練習するつもりです。