10 Months in Japan: 2 Weeks In

See bottom for lots of pics!

Once again, a LOT has happened in the past week. Where do I begin.

First and foremost, I GOT A JOB!

Starting October 1st, I will be teaching business English for the company Linguage, an unpredictable combination of the words "link" and "language" (yes, I guess linguistics too).
I had only applied to a couple jobs before I started getting emails back from the companies, and I set up an interview for Thursday with one of them. Their office is in Shinjuku, about 25 minutes by subway, and then a nice 10 minute walk through a very crowded downtown shopping district. I was about 15 minutes early for the interview but I was greeted as soon as I walked in by the supervisor of instruction, Tomas Fuji. His english ability was incredible and the fact that he was so nice and easy to talk to made the whole process easier. The interview was pretty straight forward. After the usual questions, I was given the chance to do a demo lesson, where I had 10 minutes to prepare a class for 2 beginners, and it was my goal to teach them the difference between words like "usually" and "sometimes" and so on. I was nervous and stumbled a few times but overall the lesson went great, and Mr. Fuji welcomed me to the team shortly there after. I was ecstatic.

I figured everything would fall into place once I got a job, but it turns out I'm still in Japan, and everyone speaks Japanese. This was made especially apparent when I tried to open a bank account that same day. The man at City bank was not as proficient as Mr Fuji at english, so our google-translate guided conversation led me to realize I needed to get an Inkan (a stamp with my name on it). Conveniently enough, that was already on my list of things to do, so I went to the nearest Inkan-ya and picked up my very own stamp (a day later of course).
The banks were closed until Tuesday so I had some time to relax before opening an account for my NEW JOB!

I decided to celebrate by going out every single night that weekend (I probably would have felt guilty if I didn't get the job, since all the plans were made ahead of time haha, but for once I got lucky).

Friday night I went out with Simon and the rest of the Borderless House to an Indian food restaurant. Cultures were colliding over drinks and foods and conversation from all over the world. Even with 2 native Japanese speakers, we still managed to accidentally order way to much food, but good times were had and the atmosphere was great.

On Saturday I met up with another English enthusiast over drinks in Jinbocho. We went to a pretty famous Takoyaki restaurant (deep fried octopus balls), and ordered lots of beer and balls. Unfortunately my first experience with Japanese takoyaki, as delicious as it was, was a traumatic one. The insides of these Takoyaki were a mixture of octopus, sauce, bread, and liquid hot magma. I can still feel the burn to this day... But I had a lot of fun with Yoshi as she laughed at my misfortune. I learned a lot of things that day, including apologizing for my lateness and getting lost, the proper use of "yonin" (so that) and most importantly, about Izakayas, which are eating and drinking establishments with a possibility for an all-you-can-drink option for 1000 yen (10$). Needless to say, we made arrangements to go on the next available date.

Sunday was a much more sight-seeing filled day with a conversation exchange friend of mine. I took the train to Asakusa, and waited patiently at the 1A exit for Mio to arrive. Future goers beware that there is more than one 1A exit for Asakusa station. How cruel of them. Hour long delays aside, our first stop was a very authentic Katsu (pork cutlet) restaurant. We couldn't see in, we weren't allowed to wait inside, and when we finally received an invite, our shoes were not extended the same courtesy. But the wait was worth it. The atmosphere was some homely, and the ground level tables and pillow seats made the quaint shop almost worth the 25$ piece of meat. I had the cheese stuffed cutlet with miso soup and rice, which was very good, although I think it was just a one time experience for me. We then walked through the Asakusa shrine, past a lot of touristy shops and tents, to the main shrine, where I supposedly cleared myself of all illness by patting smoke on my head, SUGOI!

When Tuesday rolled around, I went back to the City bank, Inkan and translator phone in hand, and set up my very own Japanese bank account. Now all I have to do is count the days until I start making that yen.

Ganbarimasu!

On a side note, meeting all these language exchange students has been fun, but a lot of the time it didn't really feel natural, since we are both there to help each other get better at our language of choice, and not just to keep each other company. But yesterday I got to hang out with a half Austrailian, half Japanese gamer, and that was the most fun I've had since coming to Japan. We just talk about whatever, we walked around Shibuya and went for the best food I've had, possibly ever, at a really cool Izakaya. He knew the area inside and out, so he just kept suggesting things to do and I was like, hell ya, drinks and billiards, fro-yo, rhythm games at the arcade, lets do it. And he knew all the best places to go so the night was a lot more fruitful than my Asakusa adventure haha. I even learned some Japanese on the side. If you want the house's draft beer, you can just say the Japanese word for raw, which is "Nama". I love nama. I think it has replaced "atatamemimasu" (please heat it up) as my new favourite phrase.

Elevator to Linguage