新規JETの皆さん、集まれ！

Come Wednesday, I left the Kikai family's house for good and travelled with Horiguchi-san to Hondo, the largest city on Amakusa.  From there, the two other new Amakusa JETs and I were going to take a bus to Kumamoto City for a three day Prefectural Orientation.  MORE ORIENTATION?!  More talks about culture shock and taking out the trash and not drinking and driving?!  Yeah, I sorta thought it would be a little ridiculous, but on the other hand we would get to spend time in Kumamoto city at night, enjoying the "big city" experience.

The bus from Hondo took a little less than 3 hours, and after chatting for a little while (which, BTW, is a no no in most public transportation spaces in Japan) all three of us napped the rest of the way there.

But did we really arrive in Kumamoto?  All three of us were fooled when the driver announced that the next stop was Kumamoto station.  Kumamoto station? Kumamoto transportation center?  What's the difference?  We got off anyway, only to get a sneaky suspicion that we weren't in downtown Kumamoto.  After walking a bit in the direction of what looked like 'more civilization,' Emily was finally brave enough to ask for directions.  We were told that we were REALLY far off from our target, and that we'd better take the train from the station across the street to Sojo University.


Enter the train station: after successfully reading the kanji for Sojo University　崇城大学  on the station map, we had to ask yet another person in order to find the right train...


...or was it the right train? Actually, it probably was, but we made another botch by getting off at the WRONG SOJO UNIVERSITY!  How were we supposed to know that there were two?  Anyway, we finally gave up and asked the station manager at the tiny Sojo University stop if he could call us a taxi.  A 15 minute ride later, we were right in front of our hotel in the middle of downtown Kumamoto.


After checking our bags, we decided to head off to the location of the conference and grab lunch on the way.  Though the idea of going to Kaiten Zushi 回転寿し was raised (the places with the sushi on the little conveyor belts), we were informed by the hotel staff that there was no kaiten zushi places nearby.  Instead, I convinced Emily and Teresa to go to a cheap, 24 hour, Japanese fast food chain called Yoshinoya, a restaurant that serves primarily gyudon 牛丼 (bowl of rice with meat, vegetables, and sauce on top).  Sorry Emily and Teresa.  At least it was cheap and fast.


Speeding up the story, the first day of orientation itself was not much worth talking about.  Yes, there were some funny talks and some useful information, but I was surprised that all I felt was the desire to go back to Amakusa (or first go play in the Kumamoto, and then go to Amakusa).   The first day ended with tours of Kumamoto's famous castle given by local high schoolers.  Though I had already been to Kumamoto castle the last time I came to Japan, I went anyway, and it was great!  (All of my pictures are on my cellphone; I'll upload them later). 


That evening, everyone went to a beer garden (rooftop, outdoor space to drink and eat snack-like foods) down the street from the orientation site.  I was slightly unimpressed considering that I paid 3500 yen ($35) just to go, yet they gave us only a paucity of food.  Yeah, you are supposed to take advantage of the fact that it's all you can drink, but I was told even by the senior JETs that the food experience was not as good as last year's.   


Wrapping things up, the beer garden session ended in two hours and people split up into two groups: those going bar hopping afterwards and those going home/around Kumamoto.  I was in the latter.  Two other JETs from my hotel and I went around downtown Kumamoto, which has plenty of cool outdoor shopping streets that are covered and reserved for pedestrians, and got okonomiyake (my favorite; again me exerting my food opinions on others; oops) and went in and out of some interesting shops like Don Quixote (they have everything) and Best Denki ベスト電器 (think Best Buy).  New Apple laptops were like $800!!!! I almost bought one on the spot.  I'll probably go back later and get one, as my current laptop is wearing down and the charger unit is held together by tape (very dangerous, considering how hot it gets).  When finding the okonomiyake place, some employee of an all-you-can-drink bar (which, BTW, was much cheaper than the beer garden we went to) kindly walked us there.  And this guy was supposed to be standing outside of his place getting us to come in!  Instead he left his post and showed us the nearest okonomiyake place.  I love Japan so much sometimes...


LAST RANDOM COMMENT:  Kumamoto has some strange relationship with country music, and there is a big country music festival held outside the city every year. Some of the bars, like the mentioned above, boost a country music theme.   If country music is your thing, there is one city in Japan for you!