I made it! I'm finally in my new town, Kamiyubetsu, and pretty much settled in. The past week has been pretty insane and busy. On Sunday, I arrived at Narita airport in Tokyo after a 10 hour flight from Vancouver. Right when I stepped off the plane it literally felt like I was in a sauna. The humidity was insane! It was around 37 degrees and luckily it was a cloudy day or the sun would’ve made it even hotter. After shipping a few of my bags to my new apartment they shuttled us to our hotel, Keio Plaza in Shinjuku, on buses which took another hour and a half. By then I had been awake for almost 18 hours (trying to sleep on an Air Canada flight is impossible, to put it nicely).

When we got to the hotel we checked in and I met my roommate, another ALT from Alberta who was also headed to Hokkaido. We went out that night to a few izakaya’s (Japanese pubs) with some other Canadians and by 11:00pm I was dead tired and crashed. The next two days were full of speeches and workshops in order to prepare us for our new jobs and for general living in Japan. The evenings consisted of more izakaya’s, tabe and nomihoudai's (all you can eat/drink) and more exploring in Shinjuku. We also visited the Canadian embassy which involved taking the subway. It was literally an underground maze. On the way back from the embassy it started to downpour and there we were in our suits and ties... but no umbrellas. Luckily, we managed to navigate the subway tunnels to get back to our hotel without even going outside. The tunnels are like a mini-city with tons of shops, stores and restaurants, it was crazy. I'm convinced you could navigate Tokyo through the subway tunnels alone.

Yokoso Japan! Tokyo from my hotel.
The next morning marked the end of the orientation and the departure to our home prefectures. At 9:00am, all 45 of us Hokkaidoans boarded a bus and headed to Haneda airport. We flew ANA airlines (which kicks Air Canada’s ass any day) to New-Chitose airport in Hokkaido, about an hour and a half flight. When we arrived they brought our delegation across the airport into a large meeting room where we met our new supervisors. Mine didn’t speak English very well so after a converstation in broken Japanese, he explained to me that we would be taking the train to my town. From New-Chitose airport it was a 30 minute train ride to Sapporo city and from there another 4 hour ride on the "express train" to Kamiyubetsu. It was 7:00pm when we arrived and I had been travelling for over 10 hours by then. My supervisor took me to his house to eat supper with his family and then I was dropped off at a ryokan (Japanese style hotel) for the night.

EDIT: If you are planning on coming to visit, this is not the only way to get to my place! It's in fact the long way. The short way would be to fly from Haneda airport to Memanbetsu airport (about 2 hours) which is only 15 minutes from my place. It's a lot faster than the trains and cuts off about 4 hours of the trip.

Hokkaido from above.
On my first day of work I was shown my desk at city hall and then taken around to see the mayor, vice-mayor, and the employees from all the different departments to do a self-introduction in Japanese o_O (a bit nerve-wracking..). I registered my new inkan (personal seal), alien registration card, opened up a bank account, signed my contract, brought my luggage into my new apartment and was left for an hour to get unpacked. That night, my supervisors took me around to go shopping for groceries, helped me pick out a new keitai (cellphone), buy everything else I needed for my apartment and then waited around with me to get my internet hooked up. After that I made supper (salmon and ramen) and then fell asleep at 9:30pm due to sheer exhaustion. Today my supervisor gave me a tour of the entire town and brought me to all six of the schools I'll be teaching at to meet the principles. All of the kids are out for the summer but school recommences on August 18th. We also went to the culture center, library and basically every other landmark in the town. The rest of the afternoon I spent at my desk at city hall trying to get more settled in and figuring out exactly what I'll be doing for the next year. I don't have any transportation right now but I am only an 8 minute walk from my apartment so at the end of the day I walked home. I should have a new bicycle in a few days though and once I do I'll be able to explore my town a bit more.

Anyways, I will be putting pictures up of Tokyo, Hokkaido, my apartment, the festival happening this weekend and I will also be posting a lot more soon. I promise!