Leaving Training
After a rather intense week of learning to be a teacher, things kept that same intensity as I ramped up for my first work week.
In my “so you managed to get through training” materials I was given my apartment information. This included a move in date of March 5th, which would be at the beginning my first days of work/training at my branch school, Sakae school. So, that morning as I was leaving to get some breakfast before finishing packing, I quickly checked by the hotel desk.
And got a surprise…
When I sort of chatted with the front desk clerk (my ten words of Japanese and his 20 of English) I found out I wasn’t checking out. In fact, I had four more days at the hotel. Not such a big deal in most cases… However, when you are depending on your company to arrange your life and you have to start life from ground zero in a new country this sort of thing is big. I was pissed, I had pretty much packed everything I owned again, and was trying to prepare myself for beginning work the next day. So the fact that AEON didn’t bother to call and let me know my moving date had changed was suddenly a big deal.
Not only that but I had no way of instantly calling in anger. The instructions for every phone were securely in Japanese. And it was not as simple as just hitting 9, especially when the format of regular phone numbers is different and you have made a grand total of zero other phone calls except for room to room dialing. This was probably a good thing. I had a scheduled meeting time at Honbu (head school) where I could ask Andy and find out what was going on. So by the time I made it there I was irritated, but no longer irate.
Andy also had no idea my moving date had changed… All that was arranged by someone else in the office. That woman was also less than helpful, and pretty much only offered a “yeah, tough” response in very polite terms. So the start of my day for introduction to my branch school was less than ideal.
So I waited in the break room and chatted with Erin from my training group who was also stranded at Honbu because high winds had canceled her train to Kanagawa. The person I was waiting for was also late, but that didn’t bother me much.
When my new guide did show up I got a small surprise. He was sweating, looked tired, and I was slightly worried for his health. This was Moss, one of the other teachers at Sakae and also from the USA. As it turns out, Moss just sweats quite a bit when its hot or he has to run someplace quickly. He was (most likely) late meeting me because he had to be my guide during his break time between classes. I’m also not sure how much notice he got about having to do any of this before that day.
So as quickly as we met we were rushing to the subway station and toward Sakae. Moss also made sure to check several times that I knew how to get from Nagoya station back to Sakae so that I would actually make it to work on time. I was able to assure him yes.
Once we make it to Sakae it was a quick run out to exit 8 of the station. This was the closest exit to our office. So we turned at the nearby corner and started walking. This walk lasted about 30 seconds until we made it to our door. The walk through the subway station is longer than the walk to our building once outside. However, our door was perhaps the only nondescript part of the building and not easy to see if you don’t have any idea what you are looking for. Once again, lucky I had a guide. Our office also happens to be on the fourth floor.
I then had a very quick introduction to the staff that was working that day. Meaning I met Yamaguchi-san, our assistant manager and Kayoko-sensei one of the native Japanese teachers. Both were very nice. I got a quick run through the office and then it was back outside. Moss gave me a quick tour of the area (about 2-3 block in each direction from our office) above ground and the underground shopping area that was connected to the Sakae station. It was a good tour, with stops to point out “Central Park”, a couple of foreign food stores, a look at the robot museum, and many checks on “could you find your way back from here?” and “do you have any idea where you are?” Those stops were probably some of the most useful things in my first two weeks in Japan. I was able to use Moss’ method of where am I now to do quite a bit of walking around the downtown area later in my stay without ever becoming more than a little lost.
After that Moss departed back for the school. And then I was alone in Sakae… I decided to walk back to the Nagoya station area where my hotel was. It took much longer than it should have… Close to 45 minutes. But when you have no idea where you are you tend to make any trip longer. It was a nice day out anyway, so the walk was good. I also got to see a few very nice little parks and some of the random residential areas nearby. I didn’t exactly stick to main streets so it was a bit stressful finding my way through some places, but overall a much more peaceful walk.
Then I was back “home” with all my stuff that I had to unpack for another four days in my very tiny hotel room.
