Mucus and asthma and pills, oh my!

Well, I'm finally getting a chance to update my blog after a very tiring flight and first night in Japan, but, humble reader, you will not get a chance to hear about that today. I'll be sure to do a more thorough job in a few days though, once I get settled in my new apartment.

So I have hopefully piqued some interest in you with my entry title. As some of you may know, last Tuesday I caught a cold. Well, considering my track record at Canadian Tire, it's probably not too surprising that I started my JET life with a cold.

This cold decided to migrate with me across the Pacific via Northwest Airlines, the king of all ghetto airlines, and landed in Tokyo at approximately 3:40 pm local time. Like the body, mind, and spirit of the person the cold inhabited, the 13 hour flight, with it's pressurized cabin and recycled air, the cold became a lot worse for wear. So that night, I managed to get a few hours of sleep (after a fun night of exploring the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, where my hotel is), but over night my asthma started to kick in. By morning, I was wheezing, and my head was at that time composed of some 78.3% mucus, some of which was expelled during a hot shower.

By the time 8 am rolled around, I realized that letting nature run its course was not going to work out. The woman at the hotel store where they sell some drugs told me to try the medical walk-in clinic on the 30th floor. I followed this advice, and so started my very first, official life-in-Japan function.

Its funny. The walk-in clinic was for the most part no different than the ones I went to in Toronto. I got in, talked to the lady at the counter, filled out a medical history and why I wanted to see a doctor, waited, saw the doctor who gave me a presciption for some meds, and was on my merry way to my first official JET function.

There were some key differences though. First was the speed at which all this happened. I was in and out of there in about 40 minutes, though being there first thing in the morning probably had much to do which that. More importantly though, the staff there was nice and polite! A far cry from the almost surly staff you normally find at Toronto medical facilities.

I'm still pretty ill. Because I didn't have time to wait for the injections (I would have needed 2, set 40 minutes apart, and at the time I was in danger of being late to my first JET conference), the doctor gave me a prescription for a multitude of pills. After my conference, I headed out to a pharmacy. Because I don't yet have my national health insurance card, I was forced to pay in both cases 100% of the fee. I was expecting my wallet to be at least a hundred dollars lighter, but in the end everything only cost me about 30 bucks. Not bad at all, and when I do get my card and fax the clinic and pharmacy my info, they'll reimburse me for the insured costs.

Well, I'll end this entry with 2 pictures. The first is the clinic I went to, and the second the drug cocktail I have to take for the next 3 days. Fun times at Keio Plaza Hotel!

Saying my goodbyes...

Well, it's come. In less than 10 hours, I will be on a plane headed to Detroit, and then to Japan. I think there was always a part of me that was convinced that I still had some more time--time to clean up my room, time to pack, time to get my affairs sorted, time to say my goodbyes. Yet here I stand at the threshold of what may indeed be a life altering adventure, the reality of what I am about to embark on ever-so-slowly starting to set in.

I look around my room, still in disarray, still filled with many of the relics of my life here. And yet there is a sense that it is no longer mine. Gone are the clothes that were piled up on the old and unused computer chair. Gone is the giant monitor and computer that once dominated my desk. The shelves that once held my treasures from childhood sit empty, their contents now dormant in grey or plastic storage boxes.

This strange sense of disconnection seems to have permeated my last night in Toronto. I gathered with some of my closest friends for a final dinner, and at times I felt a strange sense of separation from the conversations at the table, content instead to be a silent observer. I climbed the steps up to my front door, in a strange way no longer at home, knowing that my life was now packed in 2 suitcases, a knapsack, and a laptop bag.

It is the first time I have truly felt a sadness in my leaving for Japan. The time, I am sure, will fly by. And yet I will return to a Toronto, to a Canada, to a life here that's changed forever.

It's hard not to sound melodramatic, hard not to let this odd sense of melancholy twinge my writing, hard not to sound emo. I wasn't really sure how I felt tonight until my dog Dana poked her head into my room, and just looked at me with her big dark eyes. When I called her, she plodded over and lay down at my feet, content to let me scratch her back. It is not too much of a conceit to say that my puppy knew that I was leaving. I'll confess, dogs are a weakness of mine, and I am more greatly affected by them than I would care to admit.

Be good Dana-dog...

F@cking Northwest Airlines

Two posts in one day! Good god the sky must be falling.

Ok, I'm going to rant now, and its really for no good reason because JETs from parts of the world that are not North America have only 20 kilograms in one suitcase alloted to them to pack their lives into to travel to Japan. Let it be known that Americans and Canadians get more than twice that, at 46 kilos and 2 suitcases. I have no right to bitch about not having enough luggage allowance, but that is exactly what I am going to do.

I have finally managed to do a trial packing run with my luggage, and despite my earlier confidence, I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH LUGGAGE ALLOWANCE. Sonnova...

There isn't really much more than I can say about it. I have one large suitcase, and one medium suitcase. The larger one is pretty loosely packed, and weighs some 23.8 kg. My medium suitcase is rammed to the gills, and as of now weighs 20.7 kg. I can in theory put more stuff into my medium, if I can somehow manage to find the space. It's looking pretty grim truth-be-told.

There is a sort of silver lining in these storm clouds of aggravation. My dad has volunteered to take some of my winter stuff to Japan with him when he travels there at the end of October, and then ship it to me from there, thanks to the far more generous allowance of Air Canada's Elite travellers program. Now, I just have to make sure I don't go overboard with winter stuff...

And to those travelling from places that are not Canada or the U.S., my condolences...

Counting the days...

Its hard to believe that in some 3 days time, I'll be on a plane headed back to Japan. The reality of it started to hit me, oddly, on the way to a family dinner, when I realized that it had turned to August somehow without me knowing. Of course, I blame my blissful month as an unemployed bum.

I've been lazy about updates, I know. In part, I have been legitimately busy with some last minute preparations. Not really a good reason, but I digress.

The truth of the matter is that most of what I've been doing in the last few weeks has been fairly routine. I spent a day at the CN Tower, a fun day revisiting an attraction I hadn't been to in over a decade, but ultimately pretty banal in execution. I bought luggage, gave Power of Attorney over my bank account to my mother, purchased gifts for my teachers and family, snapped pics of Toronto, et cetera et cetera ad nauseum infinitum. For just about every JET that travels to Japan, there are an equal number of blogs to catalogue their trials and tribulations.

No, I'm not going through a bout of self criticism with regards to my own blog. After all, it remains, as always, primarily a tool to give my friends a glimpse of what my life will be like in Japan. Its the mundane aspects of my last few weeks which has prevented me from posting anew.

I'll retract that last statement. Not everything has been mundane, and so I'll give you the skinny on the good stuff that's happened.

The best things by far have been the time I've got to spend with my friends. A wicked farewell party at my fav hang out Las Iguanas got me completely loaded. Beers, lemon drops, and heartburn inducing tex-mex all served to remind me just how much I'll miss everyone. Thank you Al Gore for inventing the internet--now I'll be able to keep in touch.

Just tonight I got to have a kick-ass dinner with the family. Baby back ribs, and a fully loaded baked potato. It's a meal I doubt I'll see for a long long while. My only regret was the collective realization amongst my family members, that we get together for such dinners far too little.

And perhaps finally, I've found out that my new co-ALT will also be from Toronto. A Chinese-Canadian girl, coming with Group C (i.e. end of August). Cool beans.

Niagara Falls, and news from Japan

I'll admit it--I've been lazy about posting. I went to Niagara Falls last Friday, a trip that was both successful in intent and incredibly annoying in execution. Let me digress.

Leaving at 9am, my dad and I arrived on time at around 11am, having spent 20 minutes or so at the Number 3 lock at Welland Canal, and about 10 minutes at Tim Horton's. All the attractions were comped to me, thanks to my dad's working as a consultant for Niagara Parks Commission, and so I did the whole Journey Behind the Falls and Maid of the Mist. In both cases, I managed to take some pretty iconic photos. Standard tourist fare, all in all.



In the sense that I managed to snap these pics, even on my sub-par 2 megapixel camera, my trip was a success. However, the rest of the day was a trial.

From 3-5:30, my time was spent waiting in the car while my dad conducted business. This was fine. I had my laptop, I had music, and I had a book. Honestly, in the lazy heat of southern Ontario, the time passed quickly and without incident. This is where things start to go awry.

The reason for such a long time spent, in the shadow a tree at the Chateau de Charmes vinyards, was that media tour (they take promotional videos) was late by an hour arriving, and when they did arrive, they had to be hand-held for the entire time there. While at the time I did not think much of the wait, little did I know it would be a mere taste of what was to come.

Leaving Niagara Falls, we got on to the QEW just in time for to smack into the ass end of a hellishly slow traffic jam. We covered the distance from Niagara to St. Cat, a trip which usually takes some 20 minutes, in about 3 hours. From about 6pm onwards until just before 9pm, in that almost 3 hours I swear I could have walked the distance we covered faster. About 9pm, we managed to get off the QEW and onto highway 81, a smaller but much faster route, by-passinged the blockage. Back on the QEW, we sped to Burlington where we stopped off for dinner at Jack Astor's, arriving back in Toronto at about 10:30pm, exhausted from our almost 5 hour journey home. If you were paying attention earlier, even at a moderate speed it normally takes about 90 minutes to get from Toronto to Niagara Falls.

Well, that out of the way, some more information from Japan. First, I just found out my co-ALT has dropped from the Programme. I'm surprised that people are doing so this late in the game, and it often makes me wonder why such things happen. While I'm sure a large number of people drop because they find better jobs, or are offered some other means to further their careers, I'm certain that some percentage at least drop out because they learn they are in a rural area, or simply freak out because they cannot handle the idea of moving to a foreign country for a year (or more).

Having said that, it makes me wonder what these people were thinking when they submitted their application. Did they expect to be in the big city, with every modern convenience easily at hand? A simple Google for JET blogs will have easily disabused anyone of that notion. The JET Programme is designed primarily to facilitate cultural exchange at a grass roots level, often introducing internationalisation to those who might not always get a chance to do so--kids in rural areas of Japan.

As well, as different as Japan is culturally (and in a very real sense I am a very poor candidate to sympathise with the plight of those who are dropping everything they are familiar with to teach in a country they hardly know the language of), it is still a modern nation with many aspects that are recognizably western. Even small towns will have McDonald's or some equivalent, and Starbucks are popping up everywhere. Internet and internet culture has flourished in the last decade, and having access to the world wide web means that you are never more than a click away from your friends and family. Of course people will still suffer from culture shock and home sickness, but the point of the JET Programme is also for it's participants to experience new things and new cultures.

Of course, this is not to imply that my co-ALT was one of those that freaked out and dropped. I don't know what the exact situation was, save that some lucky Portland alternate just got a chance to be upgraded. Congratulations are in order, because that is a feeling I am intimately acquainted with. And to my co-ALT who dropped, I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavours.

Ok, rant over.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I just recieved a FLOOD of emails from some students from Genkai H.S. I was floored by the emails, and it's made me even more hyped to get there. I spent an hour replying to them all, and I can't wait to try and match email to face. Hmm, I wonder if this email flood was part of a computer lab lesson my predecessor made up...

Drinky drink

My attempt to "not get too drunk" last night failed completely.

That is all.