Episode 2 - Attack of the Gaijin
Hundreds of foreigners are about to descend on this sleepy town...
Oh yeah, we took over the Keio Plaza hotel for the 4 days we were there. It was AWESOME. And by take over I mean they put a sign at the lift lobby on every floor that said, "we apologize for the inconvenience, but the elevators will be extremely congested at these hours:"... below it was listed our entire orientation schedule. But since everyone came in at staggered hours, things were still manageable when we got in. We dropped our bags, then dived into the bowels of Shinjuku for dinner.
...but first, KITTENS :D
Oh yeah, and we managed to pick up a stray Mimi on the way out to the lobby.
Me: Say hi Mimi! Mimi: Uhh.... what..? *FLASH*
We had some dietary issues to deal with (sushi is fish), as well as some monetary issues (sushi is expensive), so we went for a bowl of 700 yen ramen instead. The sketchy yaki-niku (grilled meat skewers for you non-Japanese speakers) alley was going to be the backup, but we found the ramen shop first. More like the cook found US cuz he chased us halfway down the street before we let him drag us in. The noodles were great though, and watching Katie trying to slurp was possibly the cutest thing I'd seen on the trip, after the kittens. (the more noise you make when eating ramen, the more you are enjoying it. and finish the soup - they spend all day brewing it)
Scot, Lenny and I had already finished (loudly) at this point. And these guys got their food FIRST too. Also, Nolan's trying really hard not to laugh.
Shortly after dinner at the pad.
Monday started with free breakfast in the conference room (and complaints all round about the scrambled eggs, the presence of salad and french fries. That's not all we eat over there you know... o.O) And a series of introductory speeches from various JET people and important government personnel. A morning of relative boredom, in short. Except where they told us about the deadly culture shock PHASE TWO, where you supposedly start hating Japan after the euphoria of it all wears off. It was scary, but useful to know I guess. All I was thinking at that point was "oh shit, seriously? I'm gonna have to go through that my entire life!" because, you know, I'm not going back to HK anytime soon, so I'm gonna get culture shock wherever I go >.<> Kyle told me to skip anything that didn't have mandatory attendance (basically everything that afternoon) but I could find anyone to leave with (read: chickened out) at the end and stayed. Upside was I got to hang out with Atlanta JETs, and we shared in each other's pain - it was a moment of bonding.
Thankfully there were 6-7 tables like this one.
Dinner was a banquet, but really it was just for networking, as we soon put together a nice 20 person karaoke group. You probably don't really care who was in it, but I got us lost for a bit before finding a nice place. Karaoke in Japan is cheap, and doing it with 20 people is a crap load more fun than usual. :D It's karaoke. You have to do it to experience it.
"Dude this kid has no idea where he's taking us, does he?"
Success! See how everyone's SMILING at me?
Um. Yeah. So. Karaoke, booze, and bed. In short. Nothing worth noting during the day except for the fact that we were being paid to attend orientation. NICE.
legit. bro. i want to come visit
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