The night before

Well here I sit at the hotel in Chicago, pre-departure orientation is over.  All that is left is to do is get some sleep, wake up in the morning, get on the plane and fly to Tokyo!  

The orientation today was nice and all, but basically just covered all of the information we had all read and re-read in our email updates and handbooks.  Nothing new other than getting back our passports, visas, and tickets for tomorrow.

We had dinner up in the penthouse at the end of the shindig.  Pretty standard boring american food... chicken, beans, sausage and potatoes, that sort of thing.  We had a speech from the Consulate General of Japan in Chicago, a few others and the rest of the time was Q&A and meeting your fellow JETs from your prefecture.  

Everything is arranged for us tomorrow... 6:30 am breakfast, load bags in the cargo truck, hop on the chartered bus and leave for the airport at 9:15 am sharp.  That should leave us with three hours to check in and get through security before our plane departs.  Somehow I am thinking it will take us most of that time to get through things...there are a lot of us flying out tomorrow, and everyone has multiple large bags to check.  There is guaranteed to be lots of standing around in line.

After talking with the other JETs who are going to Nagasaki prefecture, I think I got a pretty sweet placement. First of all, many of them had only been contacted by their predecessors very recently... a day ago for one guy!   I have been in contact with both my predecessor as well as my main supervisor for over a month.   I also know my address, most of the others do not.

As far as the Nagasaki folks leaving from Chicago go, I am the only one heading off to an island. In fact, I am the only one at the hotel I've found so far who is placed on an island. I am sure there are more, but it seems to be a fairly rare placement.   I am pretty excited about that, I really think I am going to get some authentic Japanese experience out there. I know there will be drawbacks to it of course, but it is very much what I had hoped for when applying to this position. I didn't want go to Japan to live in the city and just hit up the bars after work every night... I could do that at home. That's not what this trip is about for me. 

Thats not to say I won't sample my share of sake when I have the chance...

Or make a winter visit to Sapporo for some beer... I'm looking your way on this one Dawkins if you are reading this!

Next post from Tokyo, take care everyone!

Ninja