Kesennuma 気仙沼

       Japan was the first step. Training in Sendai was neat, now I am finally in my city. In a hotel... but in my city. Kesennuma. Home for the next year. Kesennuma is a fishing city, a huge chunk is employed in the fishery. I was given a bus ticket. Told when to get off the bus, and that a taxi would most likely be in the area. I had a picture of Japanese text on my phone to show the driver. The ride up through the countryside was pleasant since my first cross country trip by bullet train had been at night and didn't deign to allow me a view. The hills are so steep. It's a flat plain and suddenly it's steep hills. The part of North America I've spent most of my life was covered in Glaciers 10,000 years ago and they made the hills soft and rolling. Anything sticking up higher is a solid chunk of rock back home. I'm quite excited to explore the bamboo and cedar? forests. I got a few glimpses of the coast as well. I'm anticipating many days hanging out on a rocky beach looking at mollusks and starfish and inter-tidal zone critters.

(The kanji for my city. 気-ke　仙-sen　沼-numa. If you saw any pictures with signs from the city I did training in perhaps you saw 仙台 for Sendai.  See the first kanji for Sen!)

 (Bunch of pictures I took on the bus ride)

       First trip outside of the sheltered world of training where all questions and troubles can be immediately solved by the experienced trainers. A bus ride from Sendai to my city of Kesennuma. The head trainer guy, who is crazily born in the city of Bangor I had been living in a month ago, sets me up with a bus ticket and gives me the rundown on getting to my hotel. Nice ride through the countryside and I absorbed it all with my eyes. After a couple hours start seeing my town. Its not what I expected. The satellite images show a city but there are so many hills! It's hard to get my barrings because the hills reduce how far you can see.  The bus comes up to the stop and I ask the driver if this is city hall and with the affirmative, disembark. Now... to find a taxi. Supposedly they are frequently in the area and I can show a picture of Japanese words and magically get to my hotel. Don't see taxi's though. Try to call the company guy for guidance. No answer. Call another number for the company. They ask me what I want and then say they'll call me back. Now this is where I THRIVE people. Waiting. Senegal(my Peace Corps country) has made me a connoisseur of the art of waiting. I can wait so good. This time is only a 15 minute wait though, and then they tell me... "20 min walk, you can do it?" "Uh, yeah sure." I also have 45 lbs of bags and don't know the name of the hotel at all. The writing I have is Japanese and I can't read the kanji phonetically yet. So I'm on google translate trying to look at the words I have. I find 'hotel rajenta' within the text. More googling of 'rajenta'. Nothing. Switch over and look for "hotels near me". Too many, unhelpful. Although one that says it's a half hour walk from me is called "La Gent"(french-ish for the gentleman?). Probably my hotel since rajenta~la gent. Start getting my big bag ready and adjusting the strap which had broken. Call comes in from the first guy I called. He says he'll set up a taxi. OK! Taxi to the hotel. Then the fun part where I go to the grocery store just down the road. You guys... one of my favorite things in the world is to walk around a grocery store. It's partially because I like to cook and love food, but also because I love the potential. When you walk around a grocery store you can look at every item and think about ALL the other items that would go with it to make a fantastic dish. Maybe also from my time in my village where the options weren't too varried? Anyway, walking around a JAPANESE grocery store... whole new level. Here's some pictures.

(Right here is like 23.4% of the reason I wanted to come to Japan. The food. And LOOK at the cost. Converting to U.S. dollars is moving the decimal point two to the left. Most of this stuff is 4 dollars! These are meals! Like GOOD MEALS!)

(Kitto Katsu in Japanese means roughly "you will surely win". Combined with a cultural practice of bringing small gifts "omiyage" back to co-workers and friends from places you travel that are best if they can be shared among a larger number of people, means Kit Kats have thrived here. There are 200+ flavors with many seasonal and regional specialties.)

(I bought all this for my dinner/breakfast in the hotel. It was.... 15 dollars total. In the U.S. the sushi by itself would have been 15 dollars.)

       The next morning a local lady from the company came and picked me up. She was my translator and organizer for setting up bank account and registering at city hall and stuff. We had a good morning and went to lunch before heading to my apartment. While waiting at the bank I showed her what moose were and she looked up pictures and laughed and commented for a good 5 minutes on their size. It was fun. In my apartment I was pretty impressed with how much space there was. Place seems really nice. I may even be able to practice some Karate kata in the center room. 

 (I have the bottom floor. The car belongs to the translator. I made sure to take the picture to include the moon!) Here is a link to Google Maps should you want to look at where my apt is

 Tom's Japan Apt

(Rental furniture includes! Desk and chair.)

(The view out the window! Considering there are MANY other options in this city I'm quite happy to be able to see the woods.)

 (Rental furniture also includes! Bed/bedding.)

(Soft rental blanket that I would have picked out myself for the excellent color.)

       All I really did was set up the bed and take a short nap waiting for my car to arrive. Went to bed around 10pm. P.S. this is my bed.

 (And if you think it looks thin. Let me tell you right now. You are correct.)

(Very lightweight though. I fold it and put it away during the daytime. Also the room with the desk has the heater so I'm setting the bed up in that room and closing the door so as to conserve heat.)

       Wake up and there's a neat white car outside my door! Mother would like to video chat first however. So video chat with siblings and Mum. Then try to figure out where to take my car first. Looking up stores is rough because saying "Hey google show me nearest grocery stores" doesn't really work that well. I have to first ask google what 'grocery store'[or whatever I'm looking for] is in Japanese. Then I have to switch my typing thing over to Japanese and type the Japanese into google. And theeeennnnnn it finds me what I'm looking for. A fun way to learn kinda, but a bit slow. Then the white car drives away...? I was maybe 10 minutes from walking out and inspecting it. A half hour later another car pulls in, Black. Dude in a delivery outfit with a clipboard comes to my door and says the car is for me. YAY car! It looks like this almost.

       Recall that driving in Japan is one of my biggest worries. Thankfully my street is pretty sparsely populated and out of the way. Before driving there's a giant box of snow tires in the back that I take out. Then I remember the international drivers permit AND emergency contact info card I need to have in the car when driving. I went in and out of my Apt like 5 times before I was ready to drive for the first time. Also gotta take your shoes off in the apt so each of the five times was shoes on and off. I did a loop around the block and then drove to a hardware store down the street. Quite fun actually. Driving has become a repetitive thing I've been doing for 16 years but now I need to concentrate because its all switched around. They gave me the car on empty so I gotta get gas too. The hardware store is like 3/4 hardware and 1/4 food? But has most of the items I want to set up in my apt. Minus a chair because I only brought 200 dollars. Back to the apt, grab some cash and look up as much info as I can find on how to get gas in Japan. Turns out it was pretty easy. Drive up, say "Genkin"=cash, then say "mantan"=full tank. They give you a little rag to clean off your dashboard. All gassed up I head BACK to the hardware store to get the chair I wanted and some poles to hang my laundry on. Then I decide to drive down to the High School I'm supposed to teach at on Monday. About 20 minute drive and I'm getting the hang of not crashing, still unsettling when another car comes around a corner and feels like it's on the wrong side and is about to crash into you. Stop by a grocery store on my way back home and then start unpacking all my new crap and making some food. I bought a rice cooker! Directions aren't the easiest to follow, but tasty rice and you can even cook whole(rice based) dishes right in the pot! AND you can have it wait to start cooking until a specific time! So I can make dinner in the morning and then tell the rice cooker to start it an hour before I get home. BOOM! Come home to a nice meal. Well that's it. I'm settled and can drive around and search for stuff in Japanese. Start teaching at the schools and I'll have a routine and can settle into my life in Japan for a year.

 (You couldn't possibly think I would move to Japan, buy a single bowl to eat all my meals out of[I didn't think to buy a plate...] and not have that bowl have DRAGONS on it)

 (The Induction heat burner which works by running electricity through the pan and needs special pans, and my new rice cooker! and a pineapple for dessert .)

(This is the main road right outside my apt. The sign is for a liquor store/dollar store called Yamaya. The sides of the store are separate but you pay at one set of registers. My apt is about where that truck is in the distance.)

       I need to prep some materials and lesson stuff as well as practice my Japanese greeting for when I meet the teachers. That's my plan for tomorrow. Continue to unpack some stuff and study Japanese and catch up on a bit of paperwork that needs to be done for Interac(my employer). Oh and for anyone wondering about Covid-19. We are required to take our temperature every morning and report it. All schools are requiring anyone entering to have been monitoring their health condition. Things are shifting around a lot and it's more region specific precautions within the country at this point. We are asked to wear the medical masks and limit travel to essential stuff. I set up my apt but probably won't be going on too many adventures soon. Thanks for tuning in. I hope it helps allay'all not be too bored.