An Afternoon in Okayama City

Okay, friend, this one's photo-heavy. Brace yourself.

My first weekend in Okayama, I decided to get up early and make the most of my Saturday. I was also right fed up of dealing with life without internet. So I left on foot in search of Higashi-Soja station (a much smaller station east of the main station, Soja, and much closer to my apartment) and kept being pleasantly distracted by things - like the unexpected discovery of this Shinto shrine. It's name is Bitchukokusojagu. I haven't decided if I'm going to try to remember that yet; so far it's a pretty solid "no". It just seems to require a lot of effort. Plus: Google Maps, our one true saviour and endorser of laziness. Regardless, it's a very peaceful and pretty shrine, and I'm keen to visit again soon.

Torii: traditional entrance at shrines.

Flowers will likely feature. I like taking photos of flowers. I'm not sorry.

Stone foot bridge to an island with traditional stone lanterns.

Aforementioned stone lantern.

Shrine is dead ahead, where the ropes hang.

Some school kids were cleaning out these buildings.

Whilst continuing the search for Higashi-Soja station, I came across an elderly man tending to his front garden. I asked him the direction of the station, and – as is the norm – didn't understand his answer at all. But I understood his arm waving enough to know I was loosely Almost There. I realised shortly after I'd parted ways with the nice gentleman that I'd misunderstood the end of our conversation, and I hadn't told him which country I was from (which was what he'd asked). So now I feel I owe him an answer, and it's been weighing on my mind for days.It's really bugging me. Like when you have a confrontation with someone and stutter awkwardly around your tongue and end up meekly acquiescing when what you wanted was to stand up for yourself, and then you lie in bed every single night after thinking about all the witty zingers you could have dished up instead of the embarrassing drivel that was reality. So frustrating.

In the end I found the station. My predecessor (the girl who had this position and the apartment before me) had left her Icoca (re-loadable public transport card, unique to this part of Japan) with credit on it - so nice of her! She's been ace, actually. I don't know much about her, but she was unwell and had to leave the job, so now she's recovering and has moved to Hiroshima. She's helped me with some gnarly queries despite being very tired a lot of the time, and she's extremely lovely. I'm very lucky - I've heard that some people's predecessors are downright unhelpful or completely absent altogether. Yikes. 

Even metro cards have cute mascots.

LONG STORY SHORT, I caught the train into Okayama City, the capital of Okayama Prefecture. From my city, it’s about 45 minutes on the Momotaro Line (named after the very popular Japanese folk tale about a boy named Momotaro, who floated down the river in a giant peach and then saved the town from a cave of demon trolls), which is pretty easy-peezy. By Japanese standards, Okayama is a small metropolis, but compared to the rest of the sleepy prefecture it’s a thriving hub of excitement. I was there to visit Bic Camera, one of Japan's multi-level technology mega stores, which is conveniently right next to the station. 

I'll spare you the details of the two and a half hours I spent in there trying to work out the contract with my limited Japanese and the salesperson's even more limited English. Just know that it was arduous and exhausting, but I came out with internet - sort of. I went to Maccas to try to get it working (I signed up for a portable router with UQ mobile - unlimited data for up to eight devices, for about $45AUD per month, and they gave it to me with enough charge for immediate use) but couldn't, so I gave up in frustration and decided to go sightseeing instead.

Statue of Momotaro.

The main entrance to Okayama Station.

This fountain looks like a dandelion, especially in the breeze.

First glimpse of Okayama City.

Okayama Symphony Hall is an excellent landmark when getting lost on foot.

The number of things to do pleases me.

Which is how I ended up at Okayama Castle (castle photo spam incoming - you've been warned). I've been to quite a few Japanese castles now, and a lot of them are lot bigger and more famous than the "Crow Castle", as it's affectionately known, so admittedly I wasn't expecting to be wowed by it. But it actually has a very impressive and compelling presence; it felt sort of unyielding and proud, or something. Like it had squared its shoulders, straightened its back and glared out at its enemies, daring anyone to challenge it. I'm not going to spoil the history of the castle in case anyone else intends to visit someday, but I did the tour of the interior - full of authentic historical artefacts and lots of educational stuff (of the mostly-not-boring kind), so it is well worth a quick visit! The breeze on the top floor is delightful, too.

Entrance to the castle grounds.

Tsukimi Yagura, a two-storey corner turret on the grounds.

"Crow" Castle.

There's been a lot of summer festivals and events on lately, which it seems everyone is just starting to wind down from. So when I re-emerged outside, a handful of festival tents were set up and people were relaxing on blankets on the lawn behind the castle. I tried my first muscat and all-over-black grapes - Okayama is famous for its fruit - and watched the kids play a shooting game, where they tried to knock down as many oni (a kind of demon troll in Japanese folklore) to win a prize. I got to fulfil one of my weeb fantasies of fishing for a "yo-yo", which you can see in just about every high school splice-of-life anime ever created. It basically consists of using a hook with some paper tied to it to fish with your hand for an elastic loop attached to one of the many painted water balloons in a trough of water. If the paper gets sodden and breaks before you hook anything, you lose - but you can take as many "yo-yos" as you fish up before your paper breaks. It's really fun, actually. And the water balloon yo-yos are very cute.

Tiny summer festival tents.

Yo-yo fishing game.

Victory is mine.

Yay. :)

I got a little creeped out by an over-friendly, toothless Chinese man who spoke very good Japanese and insisted on making a beeline for me whenever he spotted me. He was hanging around on the castle lawn, so this happened a number of times. He was determined to keep engaging me in conversation. You know the type - there's always one who makes people uncomfortable even though they're harmless, and you know they've done it to people everywhere they go, because their phone is full of photos of them smiling with random strangers. The man was very nice, but I scuttled off to Koraku-en half worried he might follow me there. He just gave me a cheerful goodbye, though. Like I said, harmless. But you can never be too sure.

Friend/creep insisted on taking photos of me... off-centre.

Koishikawa Koraku-en (Koraku Garden) is a large, traditional Japanese landscape garden that dates back three hundred years, which Okayama boasts is one of the top three Japanese gardens in Japan. On its official website it says it has received three stars from the Michelin Green Guide Japan, so it's a Pretty Big Deal in Okayama. Having been to Kenroku-en in Kanagawa and the Imperial Palace East Gardens in Tokyo, and been suitably impressed, I had pretty high expectations. 

The gardens are geographically very close to the castle, but it's actually quite a hike down from the castle, across the bridge and then around the edge of the garden to the main gate. It was a pleasant stroll, though; by that stage the late afternoon was fading into sunset, and small groups of girls in yukata (summer kimono made of cotton) and young families were wandering down to enjoy the summer illumination event at the garden. A conveniently positioned rest hut offered white peach soft serve as a summer special (white peaches are especially famous in Okayama, and they are intensely celebrated), and I will never say no to ice cream, so I stopped for ice cream.

Those paddle boats are swan-shaped.

Yukata (summer kimono).

So... I can't say I was disappointed by the garden, because that wouldn't be fair to how lovely it is. But at first appearance, Koraku-en simply appeared to be a great expanse of neatly-kept lawns with a curving stream or two. So my first impression of it was definitely a little underwhelming. But I stuck around. There were heaps of people strolling leisurely, so I went for a wander, which turned out to be the right decision. A short while later the sun dipped below the trees, and the garden awash in pastel sunset was absolutely magical. Especially when you then add the soft glow of the fairy lights strung all around for the illumination event., and the gentle, musical tinkling of glass chimes visitors had hand-painted. 

That sunset, though.

A moment to appreciate that my camera has a setting that adds twinkles to photos.

I think the beauty in Koraku-en really does lie in its tranquillity. That seems so stupidly obvious considering it's a Japanese garden, but it honestly isn't that much to look at at first glance. I kind of wondered what I was supposed to be taking photos of. But the atmosphere there is so calm and wonderful that I could have stayed for hours longer. I really didn't want to leave (alas, hour long train rides home, etc), and I'm already looking forward to going back and taking friends and family there. 

And that was my first trip into the capital of Okayama Prefecture! More to come soon. x

The First Few Days in Japan

So it's been a hot minute since I left Melbourne, and it's been a hectic and intense time pretty much since I stepped off the plane at Narita Airport in Tokyo. Allow me to update you. Originally this post covered the whole first week, but it was just getting too long, so I chopped it into two separate posts. Still, get comfy, maybe grab a snack - it still might be a little long (sorry).

Ciao, Melbs.

I left Australia on the 20th of August. My flight was at a very respectable time - 9:30am - but it ended up being delayed a bit, so my arrival in Tokyo was pushed back to 8pm. I was the only person on my flight who required a foreign residency card, so they plonked me on an uncomfortable vinyl sofa in the corner where I sat and baked in my own sweat and tried to look as uncomfortable as possible for the next hour. I am wholly convinced that immigration completely forgot about me, then suddenly panicked. The residency card took only a matter of minutes to be ready, then I frantically dashed through customs, hoping the JET associate who was meant to be collecting me on the other side hadn't given up and left. I found her, equally frantic, and we basked in each other's relief for all of fifteen seconds. Then we had to run for the bus. They'd pre-booked me a ticket, and the bus was leaving in five minutes. Good.

Thankfully, it was cruisey after that. It was a long hour and a half to Shinjuku, and there was nothing but freeway to look at until we hit the outskirts of inner Tokyo. Then it was beautiful. I was stunned when we unexpectedly passed Disneyland all lit up with fairy lights. Endless, inky city skyline. BAM. Spectacular glow for one dazzling moment. Really amazing. All the JETs undertake mandatory training at the extremely deluxe Keio Plaza Hotel, which is a short walk from Shinjuku Station. Marble floor, plush carpet, fantastic views - very ritzy. I arrived quite late - about 11pm, and was quickly ushered inside, where envelopes full of stuff were shoved into my hands and I was bundled into an elevator. Okay, thaaanks. See you tomorrow, then? By the way, what time and where is breakfast?

Rosanna ♥

My poor room mate had become convinced she didn't have a room mate at all, and had locked the door and gone to bed. #awkward. Luckily she hadn't gone to sleep, so she let me in and we pretty much immediately became friends. Yay. Rosanna is from Britain and lives a bit north of London on the commuter belt, and she has a lovely posh accent despite not being posh at all. She's tall and willowy with this amazing mane of golden ringlets and pretty blue eyes, so I wholly expect her to be a smash hit over here. She lives in Kobe, which is a hop, skip and a jump from me. We're planning a trip somewhere in Japan at the end of October. I've got my fingers crossed for Kyoto.

Conferences.

There was little time for much of anything besides a quick late-night chat, so we were asleep pretty fast. This was very fortunate, as it's an early start for JET orientation and training - 8:45 in the conference hall, fed, presentably clothed (full business attire) and ready for what is effectively cram school for ESL teaching. I'd heard from previous JET groups that orientation was the longest dragging 48 hours of their lives, but I actually really enjoyed ours. We had a very small group - only fifty people compared to the several hundred in the other groups - so we worked in close-knit groups and got to know each other really well under the intensely-scheduled circumstances. It was very calm, efficient and civilised. The seminars were well prepared and presented, and we had fun learning from the experts. Or at least I did. Can't vouch for the others.

Coffee catch-ups in Tokyo ♥

On the first night there was a welcoming ceremony with buffet dinner, where we all mingled and ate far too many varieties of cake, then slipped away as early as possible to escape to bed. Except I slipped away to meet up with one of my oldest friends for coffee at Starbucks. There was something really thrilling and magical about dashing out into Shinjuku at night, alone and right on the cusp of a huge adventure. I'd seen her a month earlier when I was on holiday, but it was just as exciting spotting her sitting in the corner of Starbucks as it would have been if it had been three years. We yammered for hours, until they forced everyone to leave so they could close (poor guys).

The second night, we had to fend for ourselves and forage for dinner. So a bunch of us ventured out into Shinjuku's narrow, winding back alleyways, all packed with tiny, steaming izakaya (miniature restaurants that basically consist of an island kitchen flanked by narrow counters, where people sit on bar stools and have hot food and cold beer served straight to them by sweaty chefs. Each izakaya seats anywhere from half a dozen to a dozen people). We found a place large enough for five and stuffed our faces with enormous bowls of cheap, boiling ramen. It was atrociously hot in there though, with the steam billowing off the hot plates, so we ate fast, stayed as long as we could stand it, then fled to the safety of Tokyo's air conditioned trains. Some of our group had never been to Tokyo before, and I selfishly wanted to visit a shop in Harajuku, so Rosanna and I (the seasoned travellers) gave them the short guided tour of Takeshita-dori, complete with mandatory dessert crepes from Angels Heart. Mind-blowingly delicious. Rosanna and I shared a strawberry cheesecake crepe, thus solidifying our status as "pals", and it literally had a whole piece of cheesecake in it. I live for Harajuku crepes. Add it to your to-do list.

Playtime in Harajuku.

We visited my store, I grabbed a disgustingly cute t-shirt, then it was off to find Cat Street, a charming, semi-old-fashioned-in-a-Ghibli-kind-of-way narrow road, lined with tall Victorian-style lamp posts and cute shopfronts. We wandered along for a while then changed course for Shibuya, where we stood and watched several rotations of the famous crossing in all its bustling glory, admired the dazzling neon signs on all sides, and took snaps of the Hachiko statue. Then we called it a day and went back to Shinjuku to sleep. 

Wednesday was "Farewell New Friends, Hello Strange New Home" Day, so we all woke up unpleasantly early, checked out, and lugged our crap to the buses that whisked us off to Haneda Airport. I chatted with the one other Okayama JET on the bus trip. She's a veterinarian from South Africa, small and slim with beautiful chocolatey skin and a sort of wry, sardonic sense of humour. She's in Kurashiki, which is only two stations from me, and doesn't have much Japanese language, so we're going to meet up next week and figure some stuff out together. She also vegan, which leads to the first funny anecdote of the year abroad: One of our PAs is a good-humoured middle-aged Japanese man who speaks zero English and had never heard of veganism. He spent a good ten minutes Googling it, then interrupting our conversations with the other PA (about more important things like appropriate work attire, what to do in a natural disaster, or who to contact if you're having any issues at your school/s) to ask if she could eat egg, or milk, or cheese, or fish flakes. I'm pretty sure at one point he asked if beef was fine. The Kurashiki JET is going to have an interesting year.

Off to Okayama.

It was only a short flight from Haneda to tiny Okayama Airport, about an hour and a half, and we were welcomed by glorious sunny weather, blue skies and green fields of rice paddies as far as the eye could see. Plus four Japanese men wearing business suits and nervous smiles. After a quick mandatory photo in front of the "Welcome to Okayama" sign, we were separated and chauffeured off to our respective towns. My guide was the Vice Principal of my base school in Soja, a gentle, well-spoken man who seems perpetually uncertain. He's done a lot of work with JETs in the past and is very supportive. He checks in on me whenever I'm at my base school, which is extremely kind as the Vice Principal is generally in charge of running the entire school. The actual Principal seems to be more of a ceremonial figurehead. Not unlike the Emperor, really. Ultimate power but delegates responsibility.

The afternoon was a blur, it was so intensely busy. I was taken to my base school, where I met the Principal and my supervisor, and a bunch of other teachers in the staff room, stuffed a bento (Japanese-style lunch box, consisting of an assortment of different Japanese foods in little compartments) down my throat, and filled out a bunch of paperwork. My supervisor then threw me in her car and drove me to City Hall to register me as a foreign resident of Soja, and then to the bank to apply for a Japanese bank account. This was a long, infuriatingly bureaucratic process, and there were some issues, so we had to go back to the school then back to the bank, then back to the school a few times until it was all sorted. I used my hanko (a tiny wooden stamp that is personalised with your name, and which acts as an official signature for important documents) for the first time, which was absurdly exciting.

Greetings, Soja.

By this stage it was mid afternoon and the sun was beating down fiercely. It was about thirty-five degrees the day I arrived, and there was not a cloud in the sky. Everyone - not just me - had beads of sweat sliding down their faces all afternoon, and we were all in short sleeves. It was disgustingly hot. And in this disgusting heat, I had the decidedly unpleasant experience of riding my bicycle to my new house, which is about a kilometre or so from my base school. Keep in mind that from the start of orientation all the JETs were technically considered "on the job", so we were required to wear business attire on the plane from Tokyo to Okayama. Second amusing anecdote of the year abroad: Not only did I get to ride my bike an unfortunate distance in the baking sun, I got to do it in a pencil skirt, stockings and heels. I hadn't ridden a bike in over ten years. The excitement of being in Japan, riding a vintage bicycle with a basket actually did trump the uncomfortable conditions though. Some delighted giggling may have happened (nobody was around; I checked).

Without a doubt the most difficult part of the day was the two minutes my supervisor and I had to spend trying to carry my thirty kilogram suitcase up a flight of stairs to my apartment. That literally sucked. It was horrible. My hands were sweating so much that my corner of the case kept slipping and dropping on the steps. I will never forget it. It was hell.

My apartment was filled with stagnant heat, and sort of depressingly empty-looking, but it was clean and everything worked, so my supervisor seemed happy and left me to settle in. I was in a kind of desperate state of THIS HEAT IS AWFUL GIVE ME SOME RELIEF, so I literally turned on the air con (the only air con is in my room; the rest of the house is an oven), peeled all my clothes off, and collapsed on the bed for a while, recovering. Unpacking didn't take long - thirty kilos is actually not a lot of stuff - so after that I went out in search of food. Shane and I had been delightedly entertained by the name of a pharmacy superstore behind my apartment - called "Drugstore Zag-Zag" (zagu zagu in Japanese) - so it felt only right to visit there first on my way past. Astonishingly, Zag-Zag actually is half supermarket, half pharmacy, so I was able to get all the basics there. Milk, bread, butter -- even eggs! So weird. Zag-Zag has a lovely, cheerful little jingle that plays on loop while you're browsing the shelves, too. I always leave feeling good about life.

Streets around my apartment.

View from my kitchen window.

Us late arrival JETs really had to hit the ground running, too. The next morning was my first day at one of my visit schools (I'm not sure what they're technically called; I go to my base school twice a week, then visit each of my other three schools once a week. But there are weeks where my base school has important events that take priority, and I don't visit the other schools... I'm not well-versed in the fine print yet). I was up and heading to school for an 8:00am arrival, where I introduced myself in Japanese to the entire staff at the 8:20 meeting, then gave a speech at the school's start of term opening ceremony. Hands down, the first school's opening ceremony was the worst, because it was as horrifically hot as the day before, and I was again in full business attire. Blazer and all. They let me keep it off until I went up on stage to speak, then remove it again afterward, but still. Intensely uncomfortable times. The speech itself went fine, the kids were hot and generally not enthused about being back after summer break, so nobody even really pretended to listen, but everyone was very nice to me and it was a positive start.

Courtyard at one of my schools in Soja City.

The afternoon was spent being introduced to the timetables, schedules and customs of the school, getting to know some of the staff - especially the JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) I'll be working with - and discussing the kinds of lesson plans they want me to start organising. It went extremely quickly, and it was a massive information overload. Note-taking everywhere. But again, it set me up with a very optimistic attitude towards settling into school life and the school communities here.

Making friends with my desk.

Friday was exactly the same as Thursday, but at a different school. I learned very quickly that Fridays are going to be my longest days, because factoring in a half hour train ride to Yakage Town for an 8am arrival means a 6am wake up - which I know for many is unremarkably normal, but for anyone who's unaware of my terrible sleeping habits, I'm basically nocturnal half the time and generally loathe mornings, so that was a big "yikes" of a discovery. However, it was actually fine and I woke well-rested, to my absolute surprise. Maybe this will be an era of new, better habits (we'll see). 

Soja Station.

Anyway, my school in Yakage is older than the Federation of Australia. That was my Fun Fact of the Week. Federation was in 1901, and the school was opened in like 1890. It has an old hall built in the architectural style of the Meiji period; white weatherboards with dark wood windows and doors, and an air of European aristocracy. Now it's where the tea ceremony club is held after school. I love it. It's so beautiful. I live for this kind of stuff. A newer wing was recently completed and they used wood from Yakage to build it (my heart, it is fuzzy). The school is a lot smaller than my schools in Soja City and has fewer teachers and students, but its rural character is very charming. Devastatingly, the prefecture attempted to close the school down recently, due to students being drawn away from Yakage Town to larger, more academic prefectural schools (cough my base school), but the school and townspeople successfully fought and saved it for a while longer. This school, with its rich history, deserves to survive. 

Bonsai in the a quad at my school in Yakage Town.

View from the tiny platform at Yakage Station.

On Friday night I experienced my first real wobble of the week. Having caught the train back from Yakage Town to Soja City, I wandered down from the station to the little lot where I'd parked my bike. My bike, like most, has a built in lock for the back wheel, and a little key for it. But my supervisor had also bought a second bike lock, one of those tube ones you loop around a fence and through the front wheel, etc. She warned me that sometimes bikes get stolen even if you use the built in wheel lock, and that it's always better to use both to be safe. Unfortunately this parking lot didn't have any fences or poles or anything that you could loop the tube lock around, so I'd had to just go with the wheel lock and hope for the best. I'm sure you can see where this is going. When I couldn't find my bike where I'd left it, I thought perhaps someone had just moved it (though why anyone would was beyond me), so I started looking through the other bikes. Then I started to get a little worried and anxious that my bike had been stolen within the first three days of my arriving. It's a long walk from the station to my house, too, so I was doubly glum.

A small house is attached to the parking lot, and a lady emerged out of it, asking if everything was okay. I told her I couldn't find my bike, and that it looked like another I'd spotted. She took my key and tried it in the lock of the look-alike-bike - and it was my bike! Turns out she had moved it because it's a pay-parking lot, but since I don't read Japanese and they weren't open yet when I arrived in the morning, I just hadn't known or realised. I went from panicked to horrified with comic speed - nothing worse than offending the locals you may have to see every day for the rest of your year on one of your very first days. She was terse at first, but she understood and the matter was cleared up quickly. I must have apologised a dozen times and bowed like a madwoman, because she told me I could park there even when it isn't open and just pay at the end of the day. She introduced herself as Takako, and I resolved on the spot to try to redeem myself and make her like me. But anyway, that was the first heart attack of the year abroad. 

I promise the next, and subsequent, posts will be much shorter (and they'll have proper photos from my camera, not my crummy iPhone 5C)! Talk again soon x

Applying for the 2017 JET Programme

I'm moving to Japan. (Yay!) I'm going to live there for at least twelve months on a three year visa, and I will be working as an assistant language teacher (ALT) in an English classroom. (More information on where I'll be living and working another day.) I'm participating in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which, if you've never heard of it, is a government initiative that basically aims to promote international relations in Japan at a grassroots level. Postgraduates from all around the world are invited to Japan to live among the community and work in foreign language classrooms, building stronger relationships between their Japanese cities and their home countries. If you're interested to learn more, or to apply, here's the JET website: http://jetprogramme.org/en/

Now that it's all finally happening, let me recount the process of the past few months of my life, for anyone who might be interested. 

Some context. JET is something I'd known about and been interested in for a while. I learned about it in probably my second year of uni, when a few friends from the campus clubs and societies I'd joined started to get accepted and move to Japan. I probably know five or six people who have participated in, or are still on, the programme. So it became pretty common in the conversations we were having at uni, especially because I was studying Japanese at the time. I think it's quite a common goal for people studying the language; if you take Japanese seriously, you either do a student exchange (like one friend, who went on exchange halfway through his degree, then put off the rest of his degree to just stay there for ages, living and working in Japan), you continue with your studies until you're good enough to go onto professional academia (you become a uni tutor or go into research, etc), or you do the JET Programme.

For a number of reasons, my bachelors degree took many more years to complete than intended or anticipated. By the time I finally graduated, I'd stopped studying Japanese years earlier and subsequently forgotten most of it, and I'd sort of given up on JET. I thought my chances of getting a position were disparagingly slim, so I decided to just work in Australia for a while and try to figure my early adult life out. Spoiler: that didn't happen (will we ever really have our lives truly "figured out", anyway? I doubt it).

Flash forward through the boring bits of young adult existentialism, and in 2016 I decided it was time to just go for it. If I didn't get in, I'd just do something else. Get another job, move into the CBD, go back to school. Whatever. At 25 I was restless and discontent, and sort of disappointed that I hadn't done anything I deemed worthwhile with my twenties. One random day mid-2016, I went up onto the rooftop car park at Westfield on my lunch break, ate my wholemeal vegemite sandwich, and called the JET desk at the Embassy of Japan in Canberra. A nice dude named Simon answered a bunch of questions I had and gave me all the important info. 

For months, the JET website had no information on it. Life carried on. Finally, updates! The downloadable application paperwork was up on the site, along with a printable guideline. Thank whatever gods for that guideline, because the paper application process is long, difficult, complicated, and legitimately gruelling at times. (Bear with me here. You're about to experience an unfortunate shift in tense - sorry grammar nut friends. But I promise it all works out fine.)

The application itself is eight pages long. Firstly, you have to write an essay good enough to convince them you're the right person for the job over the hundreds of other applicants. You need to make numerous separate appointments to see your GP to get a general check up and have them fill out a certificate of health, and another form qualifying you as mentally sound enough for the position. You need to apply for a National Police Check with enough time for the results to be posted out to you. You need copies of your passport, ID/driver's license, etc. You need photocopies upon photocopies of every single page of your paperwork, and they need to be individually stamped and recognised by an official. You need to organise three separate copies of your application to post to the Embassy, and they need to be butterfly clipped, not stapled. All the pages have to be in a specific, correct order. It's intense. It's intimidating. Some days it's infuriating. You stress. You lose sleep. You get it done, post it in an express overnight satchel, and then you wait.

November 18 rocks around and you hope like hell that they even received your application. Someone emails you letting you know they did. And then you wait some more. You wait the rest of November, all of December and half of January, and then, if you're lucky, one unremarkable day you get an email that says two things. First, congratulations for getting through round one. Second, the date of your interview in February. You're giddily excited, but it wears off quickly, and the rest of January crawls by at an agonising pace. By the end of the month you're sick with nerves. You have mock-interviews with your best friend (who also applied, and also got an interview) about four times, until you can mock-interview no more. You read the JET reddit for tips. You read blogs, websites and forums, and watch people's testimonials on Youtube. You prepare until you feel over-prepared. Then you just feel terrified. 

Then you go to your interview at the Consulate General of Japan. You dress smart. You buy a leather pocket that looks professional, and stuff it with a notepad and pen because one guy said you should take notes during the interview and ask questions at the end of it, and you don't want to take any risks. You arrive an hour early and they run late, so you sit for what feels like decades in the waiting room outside the office making awkward small talk with all your competitors (who don't seem even half as nervous as you, which just makes you even more nervous). One guy actually does look nervous, but then he tells you he's done the Programme before and you want to smack him in the jaw. 

The interview lasts around twenty minutes but feels like two. A nice Japanese lady comes to get you and leads you down what feels like the Corridor of Doom, into a ludicrously enormous board room which is entirely inappropriate for what is meant to be a small, formal interview. The nice Japanese lady sits at her place in a row of professional-looking people who stare at you. One is a youngish former JET, one an intimidating Japanese man who looks like the CEO of an important corporation. The nice Japanese lady smiles at you. You've been told to shake their hands to give a good first impression, but there's a gaping expanse between their desks and yours and it's too awkward to get up and go around, so you don't and it makes you panic a bit. They jump right in. You can't believe it's actually happening. You want to take notes but your hands magically aren't working. You want to drink the complimentary glass of water but are afraid you'll accidentally choke on it. You choose to be safe and not drink the water, and spend the rest of the interview with a distractingly dry throat. 

Somehow, despite all your preparation, each question catches you off guard. It's like you're back at uni and you've prepared all the wrong material for your exam, and it's on stuff you're not sure you ever even learned. Your stomach turns to ice. You give dumb, short answers. Probably not the kind of answers they were hoping for. You power through it and hope a better question comes next. It doesn't. Instead, they decide to impromptu test your language skills. You fail spectacularly and feel squeamishly humiliated. The Q&A you were warned about rocks around. Your questions sound dumb and vapid. One of them gives you a look like they know you have questions only because you've been told to prepare questions, and for no legitimately other good reason. 

Then it's over, and you leave. At first you're a bit brain dead from it actually being done. Then you just feel awful. You're sure you could have done better. You're disappointed in yourself. You want to cry but you're sort of too exhausted. You go home and try to give nothing away to your best friend, whose interview is the next day. When hers is over she immediately contacts you to express her dismay and cry, and you feel simultaneously relieved that you're not the only one who feels as though the interview went atrociously, and disappointed for her that it didn't go well. Defeat feels like lead in your gut. 

And then you wait some more. For the rest of February and all of March, you run back through the interview in your mind over and over and over and over, painstakingly nit-picking until you're convinced you've started remembering it wrong. Your emotions are a rollercoaster; gloriously high on the days you're feeling optimistic about your chances, and devastatingly low on the days you can't possibly imagine they'd give you a spot. The rest of the time you just feel stressed, anxious and tired as the killer wait frays your nerves. You try not to read anything anywhere about JET and just carry on with normal life, even as it occupies your every waking thought, day in, day out, for weeks and weeks. You don't want to talk about it because you're so bloody sick of it but it's also the only thing you're capable of talking about. There's no room in your brain for anything else.

The Americans start to get their results. The JET reddit becomes full of people celebrating. You only know because your best friend has been obsessively stalking the JET reddit since interviews for any tiny crumb of news. You continue to pretend your whole life isn't totally dominated by the outcome of your application. Finally, successful Australians start popping up on the reddit. It's time. And it's not a good sign - you haven't gotten an email yet. Surely that means they're contacting the successful applicants first, and you didn't get in. But you refuse to give up. You reason with your best friend, who is also trying to refuse to give up. 

You get your emails minutes apart. 

Alternate ALT. Wait listed. 

Not rejected, but also not really accepted either. You don't know whether to feel disappointed or not. Your best friend cries out her exhaustion in the bathroom. You sit at your work computer with your brain reeling in its confusing emptiness. It was the most likely outcome, but you were still somehow unprepared for it. Your friends and family have mixed reactions to the news. Some think it's worse than being flat out rejected. Some thing you're still in with a shot. People don't know whether to be happy for you or not. You don't know whether to be happy or not.

More agonising, impossible waiting. March crawls into April, crawls into May. Your best friend messages you every day, sometimes excited out of her skin that both of you are still in with a good shot, having considered your chances of being upgraded realistically and come up optimistic. Sometimes she's as flat as you and it's your turn to keep you both afloat. Back and forth, up and down, over and over. You start to wonder at what point is the reasonable time to let go of hoping and start planning the rest of your year and what you'll do instead. But you really don't want to give up. You're also sick to death of waiting for something that may never be happening for you. The constant state of not knowing is, hands down, the worst part.

Anyway, it's basically like that until you're lucky enough to get upgraded, which my best friend was in May, and then I was in June. So we're both going (hooray!). The relief and elation were actually slow burners - I didn't feel properly excited about it for weeks after getting the good news. I think I was probably cynically expecting there to have been a mistake. It was hard, having been wait-listed, not to feel like you weren't really picked because they thought you were right for the job, but because someone dropped out and they needed a replacement quickly. Even now, having built up my confidence about being accepted, there's still a niggling voice in the back of my mind that remains in a consistent state of worry. I think that's all part-and-parcel of this job, though, because now my worried feelings are all pertaining to leaving a good first impression on my colleagues and students, and not being a colossal disappointment following in the footsteps of my predecessors. We all keep telling ourselves that we can only do our best, and that our best will be good enough. Beyond that, it's going to be completely touch-and-go.

So there you have it. The arduous and agonising application process for the JET Programme. I think I just needed to blurt all that exhaustion out in one big hit; now that I've got the job I can move on from that horrible no-mans-land of waiting and wondering. Drawing all of it out is like sucking out the poison, and now I can finally just put it behind me. I do think it's important for people interested in or considering applying to be aware of how much patience and serious strength is required to get through it. It's a tough time. Your mental health will take some blows. But it's absolutely worth it if you're lucky enough to get a position. Now that all the paperwork is done and I'm starting to pack and organise (exhausting and gruelling in an entirely different way), the reality of moving to Japan to live in a small community is starting to hit me, and the excitement is buzzing. 

If you made all the way through all that, you deserve a medal. I don't blame you if you skipped it. From now on my posts should be shorter and filled with lots of photos. I'll be chronicling life in Japan here as much as possible (the good and the bad), and also on my Instagram (@breadbuffet), so if you're more interested looking at photos than reading anecdotes maybe head there. Thanks for reading -- stay tuned for the big move.

WEO: Rainy days.

I remember this day, but I don't remember what we were doing. We went shopping and probably ate pancakes. It was cold and rainy; a lazy autumn day off. What I wouldn't give for one of those now!

I still have this knitted sweater dress, but I remember being disappointed with it. TessChristine styled it in a Get the Look video ages ago, and it looked fantastic on her. I looked up literally the exact same item from BooHoo.com, and it just looked frumpy on me. It's also a little scratchy, whereas hers looked soft and cosy (I have very sensitive skin prone to eczema though, so could easily just be me). I loved the idea of being able to pull off a sweater dress like she does, but maybe it just doesn't suit my body type. Sad. Turquoise cable knit circle scarf was from Glassons. Black tights are Voodoo at Myer. Brown riding boots were bought in a BuyInvite sale. And the brown Oxford messenger is from Typo - even though I got this one years ago, they're still available! x 

Peachy keen.

I don't remember where I was going on this day; I think maybe to a brunch with a friend. I have a real love/hate relationship with these shorts. I love the colour and the lace detailing on them, but I've always felt funny about the way they sit on my body. They aren't flattering, and yet they're really cute. I still have them, but they've nearly been thrown away so many times now.

White blouse is from Supre. Peach shorts are from Valleygirl. Sand lace-pattern heels are from Dutchess on La Trobe in Melbourne. Same bronze clutch from K-Mart, as always. x

So long, friend.

Last year one of our best staff members left, and it was a very sad affair. This is what I wore to her farewell dinner. Ironically, I saw her just the other day - she works at Mecca Cosmetica now. We miss her so much. </3

I remember saving so hard to get this blazer; I put it on lay-by at Sportsgirl, and it was one of the first things I ever bought with my own money when I started working. I loved its nautical vibes. Amazing that it still fits! Same old jeans from Cotton On. Pretty sure the basic tee is also a Cotton On staple. Chunky heeled boots are from Famous Footwear. Same bronze clutch from K-Mart that I seem to have taken everywhere in 2016. x

Weekends with pals.

I'm pretty sure I wore this to a weekend hanging out at my oldest pal's place in Geelong, but it's getting hard to remember! Look how long and damaged my hair was then - cringe. It's so hard for me to grow my hair out because it's slow to grow, and once it reaches this terminal length it just gets ratty. I chopped it all off in 2016, and now it's short and healthy. I don't even really miss my long hair, surprisingly. I think short hair is cute and fun. :)

This bodysuit is a swim from BlackMilk; I got it in an eBay auction. Denim skater skirt is from Boohoo. Sandals were in a Rubi Shoes sale. x

White veil occasions.

Last year one of my best friends from primary school got married! The wedding was really lovely, in a pretty garden with a few close friends and family. It was hard not to be emotional about seeing how far your friends have come and how much they've grown - and reflect on everything you've been through together! My friend looked so beautiful in her Disney-inspired dress; both bride and groom were just glowing with happiness. I felt very privileged to share their wonderful moment with them. <3

This is my go-to dress for formal occasions. It's so reliable; I just love it. It's from Forever New. Nude heels from Famous Footwear. Bronze purse from K-Mart. x

Moon prism power.

It must have been winter, despite the sunny day, because I'm wearing chunky bamboo socks. It's also outside my best friend's house, so I'm guessing we were probably there for a Pathfinder campaign, or just to hang out and watch movies or play video games. Standard.

Oversized black knit is from Jay-Jays winter 2016 collection. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon themed leggings are from Teefury and I love them to death. Purple bamboo socks were a gift, but they were probably from Aussie Disposals - they are honestly so warm and comfortable and I highly recommend them if you live in Melbourne where the spontaneous wind and rain are bitterly cold and can freeze you to the core. Chunky boots from Famous Footwear. x

Llama, llama, duck.

A lot's been going on, but I'm back. Here's the brief update: I moved out of home, and all of 2016 was just hectic, really. I had to throw away a lot of my wardrobe during the move, but I'm going to post the stuff I'd prepared for this project before the move, and then keep going with this project anyway, because it was fun. :)

 

 

Anyway, this truly glorious top is from kisekishop. Lavender tennis skirt is from kokopiecoco, and the sparkly jelly sandals were from a Rubi shoes sale in 2015. x

 

 

Wear a hat.

Greasy hair day? Wear a hat.

It's been a busy week. I worked 6 days and did a lot in the evenings, so there often wasn't time to go home after work and put together an outfit for the rest of the day. Most days I just wore my uniform all day, which is depressing. Or there wasn't enough time to take an outfit photo before it was too dark. The 14th was my dad's birthday, and we met at the cinemas after work to see The Big Short (actually very good - interesting and funny; I recommend it) and eat pancakes. Pancakes feature a lot in my life, you'll come to understand. Last night after work I visited my friend (she likes Firefly and dinosaurs) to eat fajitas and look for houses we'd like to inspect. We're potentially moving out together soon. Excitement.

This pretty floral kimono is from Cotton On. Black denim shorts are from Uniqlo in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. They were $13AUD. Uniqlo is so expensive in Australia, so that's an astoundingly amazing price to us. Black wedges are Naughty Monkey, sold at Famous Footwear. I wear them all the time, and they're a pretty low heel, so they're extremely comfortable. They would've cost me about twenty bucks a few years ago, but they're almost always being stocked because they're so popular. Basic white singlet is the same Coco Latte one from the other day. And this felt floppy hat is a recent addition to my wardrobe, intended for styling in autumn mostly, and was $39.99AUD. I got it from an adorable quirky clothing store in Sassafrass in the Dandenongs. It's on the corner on the high side, and they also sell great socks, so if you're ever up there, go visit. x