Departure from Tokyo to Ehime was pretty straightforward. Group with the other Ehime folks in the designated place, board a bus to Haneda, and fly to Matsuyama. Upon arrival you will find groups of people holding signs for the different placements so in theory it should be pretty hard to get lost. I, on the other hand, ran into some trouble. I saw the group holding up the sign for Imabari and told them my name only to be greeted by confused looks when they checked their list. I am pretty sure they were looking for arriving municipal JETs only and I think I was the only prefectural JET arriving that day. Basically after a bunch of waiting I found the person who was supposed to pick me up.
Day 1 was kind of a blur. Drove from Matsuyama to Imabari, ate lunch, met some school staff, looked around the apartment, registered at city hall, did some shopping at grocery stores/nitori, and went home. To be honest with you, the feeling of being all alone in my apartment wasn’t a huge shock or anything. I was tired, sweaty from wearing a suit the entire day, and just wanted to take a shower. Chances are your supervisor or whoever is picking you up will buy you lunch and dinner. So you won’t have to worry about feeding yourself the first day. Welcome to Imabari!
Arriving on Wednesday gave a weird sense of ‘deja vu’ for me. For many years, school had always started on a Wednesday since Labor Day was always on a Monday. In a sense, I felt like I had gone back in time to my public school days as a student, but this time as an ALT instead.
Thursday and Friday went by rather quickly. Bank account setup and getting phone contract settled on Thursday, and a full day at the school on Friday. You’ll most likely learn about logistics for certain things such as taking nenkyuu and special vacation during the summer. Hopefully whoever is helping you out is helpful at answering your questions. Please ask questions if you are unsure about anything. Chances are you’ll use your ‘hanko’ quite often these few days. I applaud you if you can use it correctly the first time because I sure messed it up a few times at the beginning.
If you ever feel like you miss the large city feeling, no worries there. I took a short weekend trip over to Osaka/Kyoto and it was straightforward enough. If your local JR station isn’t served by the Shiokaze/Ishizuchi you’ll have to take a local train to one that does. Buying tickets is easy enough and the machines have English options so no need to worry if your 日本語 isn’t good. Otherwise, enjoy your train ride and follow the signs for the Shinkansen at Okayama station. I’ll have a more in-depth post soon if you are interested.