1st day of Tokyo orientation

After 3 hours sleep I begin to find the intense orientation a bit hectic and take myself for a walk around Tokyo.

Admittedly, I only went down the road to the post office, here I finally get to start trying to practice a little Japanese at the post office, whilst converting the last of my currency into yen. But I felt glad that 

I had managed to break away from the large group and find some time to myself.

At the post office:

The days lectures have been useful but also very long. There was a buffet and drinks thing in evening- very smart and nice but I missed most of it because my predecessor Will turned up to talk to me and give me some last final hints about my apartment and job. He reassured me that my supervisor Yoshikawa will meet me when I get to Ibaraki and will help set up everything with me such as a bank account, car insurance, how to get to school etc. I am saying this all now because It will be hard for me to access the Internet for a while once I get to Ibaraki.

Monday night my new friend Gina; who I met at London orientation, has a couple friends come meet her to go out. I drag along and realise I've made the right decision. It was really great to talk to people outside of JET (the orientation was incredibly intense with I think about 700 or so people). It's great meeting people who live in Tokyo and other parts of Japan whilst I'm in Tokyo, I assume that once I'm settled into my placement The chances to do so will diminish.

In piss alley- Gina and Xan are friends from Uni:

I spent last night with these guys:

Xan had to throw a spear into a balloon in order to determine what free food we would get:

We got intestines, liver, oesophagus and other animal parts. All of which we grilled and enjoyed. For the record I tried everything:

 

I got back at about 11pm- but again couldn't fall asleep until 3.30/4. Woke up at 7.30. So, I really haven't slept in a very long time. I tried to let myself sleep-in, but couldn't fall back to sleep this morning. So I'm just letting myself sit in bed and chill. I read somewhere that each night you overcome a time zone - so adjusting one hour at a time. 

I'm hoping that by this weekend I would have adjusted much better. Having said this I know the jet lag might take me a couple of weeks or more to fully get over. I'm very tired right now- but maybe I just have to force myself awake- it's just hard to cope with only 3 hours of sleep a night. 

I think once I've actually settled into my apartment I might start to chill a little more. I'm not anxious or upset- I've been having a really great time and I'm massively excited to be here- it's just that I'm very jet lagged and that's making things difficult. I'm also very sleep deprived.