hey all,
After 7 hours of sleep, I showered, and geared up for training: suit and tie, gathered a pen, notepad, and forms, and had some Japanese breakfast.
For those who've never had it, it seems to consist of miso soup, rice, nakuto (fermented soy beans, which is something Mito is apparently famous for. This is actually quite good.), and some assorted meats and vegatables (sometimes chicken, fish or pork, with cucumber, daikon, lettuce, etc).
After some socializing with some of the other ALTs, we headed over to the training center, which was held in a room in the local city hall. There were self-introductions, some demonstrations of popular games, and the usual hefty information packets. About half way through the self-introductions, the ALT next to me, and myself were both pulled aside and spoken to by the president of the company. He explained that we were to be stationed at a new contract location for them: Ageo city (also called Ageo-shi). Ageo-shi had apparently had bad experiences with another company, and his speech basically asked us to please not screw this up for the company by making a bad first impression, all the while never implying that such a thing would ever be posible with such high calibur (although un-experienced) ALTs such as ourselves.
We received lunch and dinner o-bento, which are boxed meals. Pretty good on the whole. Those in my family will be pleased to know that it is imposible to get pizza without corn on it in Japan: the other ALTs hated it, but it seems I've found a place that is perfect for me, at least in that regard.
Training continued the next day, but Masashiro (the other new ALT stationed in Ageo) and I were taken to Ageo-shi (a 2 hour drive from Mito), by two of the coordinators to conduct interviews with the Board of Education. There were 5 other ALTs there, all of whom had been in Japan for some time. I guess we all nailed the interviews, because we were all hired to work there. Another 2 hour drive later, and we were back in Mito.
