Whoa! Let's Slow Down A Little

Omiyage. Visas. Contacting co-workers and predecessors.

This going-to-Japan thing is suddenly becoming very concrete and real. There is no panic like the 'Oh shit, this is moving from very abstract to very concrete' panic.

The reality of it suddenly hit me when I was contacted by my predecessor this week. While I'm still slightly disappointed by my Okinawa placement, I've found out that I'll be in the capital city of Naha, which makes things much more tolerable (A real city! With people! And things to do!). Just as exciting, I'll be teaching at (allegedly) the best/most competitive high school in Okinawa. I was also contacted by the person I'll be working with. She's Canadian. But that's OK, no one's perfect.

And on a somewhat related note, omiyage is horseshit. I'm not really a huge fan of condensing a city, much less a country, into a trivial gift. It combines the fun of buying a gift for someone you don't know, with a price limit too low to get anything worthwhile, along with the added excitement of the fear of breaking some cultural taboo!

For those of you unfamiliar with the rules of omiyage I'll be doing a post on what I believe to be the critical rules at a later date.