Live from Japan!

On Thursday all the JET participants in Gifu gathered at the Nagaragawa Sports Center for our first prefectural orientation of the year. It was a two-day orientation with a dinner reception on Thursday night.

For the most part the orientation went completely as planned. Nothing terribly spectacular or unusual, in fact, it was mostly as I expected, same information as Tokyo and a number of other publications, in a slightly different format and presentation. Fortunately, this is the last orientation we have to sit through for awhile, which also means it is really the last time we will be all together for awhile as well.

This orientation forced many of us to create a slightly tighter bond than we had before. For one thing, the overnight accomodations were communal. For women, there were six ladies to a tatami room and we all slept, on futons on the floor together. For men, there were even more people in each room. So cozy! I really hope I didn’t fart too loud, or say anything strange in my sleep.

Even more cozy than the sleeping arrangements, were the public baths. Everyone staying at the Nagaragawa Sports Center had to use the same public bath (separated by gender). It is quite strange seeing new friends, friends that you have only known for a few weeks, and total strangers completely naked. We were all fairly embarasssed to be there, and we were trying to do our best to be modest.

Once I got over the embarassment and shyness and gave up on being modest, the bath was quite nice. Before you enter a public bath in Japan you thoroughly wash yourself. At this particular facility, there were about 10 shower heads along one wall. Instead of standing at the shower head, you sit on this little bucket in front of it. You sit on the bucket, facing the wall, and shower. Once you are shiny clean, and you have to be shiny clean, I really did get the sense that the Japanese women were watching the foreigners to be sure, you slide into the tub.

The tub was like a really big hot tub. The water was warm and lovely. It was spacious enough to give you room to soak and relax. I was there with several new, and wonderful, JETs and we were overall fairly giggly about the whole experience. It is interesting how quickly grown adults can revert to their middle school selves when you put them in the right situation. It was quite fun.

Even though I had a nice time, and really enjoyed hanging out with all the JETs. I will be glad to go home to my own house tonight. It will be good to take a shower in the privacy of my own home, without anyone watching me to make sure that I have scrubbed out my belly button adequately.

The tub was very similar to a hot tub in the States.