Training: first day

So today was our first full day in Japan.

Thanks to jet lag we went to bed early, slept all night, then woke up at 6am this morning. I know some of you can't believe what you just read- YES, Kris and I were both up at 6am! I took my time and went down to the lobby at 8 and nervously waited with the other Interac recruits. There are lots of people from UK, US, some Australians and some Jamaicans.

At about 9 we walked for about 20 minutes to the Interac head office (which was pretty fancy) and began our training. It wasn't a very exciting day- mostly they covered things we already knew like what our role is in the society, generally how things work, yadda yadda. The most interesting part was the presentation on drugs and drunk driving: "No. Absolutely No." It was a scared straight situation. Otherwise there was just a lot of "look at this now sign it" kinda stuff. Oh! We did go to a clinic and get chest x-rays to check for tuberculosis, which is pretty standard. And we did a saliva drug test too. Kinda neat.

On our lunch break I ventured to the nearest konbini (convenience store) MiniMart and grabbed something that looked like ground pork with onions and peppers on rice with an egg. It was a bit spicy but really good. I can't read the food labels because there's lots of kanji and lots of words I just don't know yet. And whenever someone rings me up I basically have no idea what they're saying. I'm pretty sure its the typical "Hi/How are you" etc, and then I think they ask if you want your food heated up (they microwave it for you) at which time they make hand gestures so I just say yes. The register screen shows the cost and when they gesture to that I (try to) pay by placing bills or coins in the provided money tray. Then they say something else I don't understand and give me change. Thennnn they tell me to wait to the side, usually in Japanese but sometimes in English. I try to remember to say thank you in Japanese.

After training finished I came back to the hotel and luckily Kris was here. Without cell phones and internet we have no way of contacting each other all day. Anyways, we took a nap then woke up and he showed me some places he went today. We ate dinner 7/11 (he had somen and I had katsu curry, SO GOOD) then we got ice cream at B&R. The mall he showed me is super cute, I can't wait to go take a closer look. There's also a small attraction park nearby that has a roller coaster that's supposed to be awesome- its called the Thunder Dolphin, ha!

Its now 9:30pm here and Kris is asleep. I'll probably go to bed soon too then wake up early and get ready for the day. The hotel gives free breakfast vouchers to a Chinese food buffet downstairs and Kris said it was awesome- I'll have to check it out tomorrow.

K+K