how time flies...

So sorry about not updating any earlier. I kind of wanted to wait until I had gotten Hobo before I posted anything, and then I just got really, really busy. I mean, I do make rather loooong ass posts.

Anyway--since the last time I've updated, I've changed my apartment a lot. A few (well many) trips to Nitori proves to be bad for my wallet, but hopefully by this Sunday I'll have a more accurate image of what I want my apartment to look like. I'm trying this whole living as an adult thing. I did manage to get a few things for my living room though! So it looks pretty chillax and shit, which I enjoy. And I finally have a kotatsu! I had to put all this shit together by myself of course, but the expensive computer chair was the most difficult. But whatever, I did it, here's a glimpse of my newish living room area:



I'm hoping to keep a more brown/green color scheme for the apartment, but so far it's kind of jumbled up. It will probably take a while before it actually looks the way I want it to look. I need paintings and clocks and shit on the walls. IDK, something cool and artsy.

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I've been having a blast with my new friends (it's about time I got some!) They're all so fantastic and just genuinely wonderful, fun people! Yes I do have a pretty big crush on one of them, but you'll have to Skype me to figure this shit out. :P

Here are a few photos:

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So onward ho--I work now at Taga Junior High School. It's about a 10 minute bus ride away, but it's a fine school. It's not new like Komao, and it's a lot bigger, but the kids seem really great and so far the school lunches haven't sucked ass (I'm waiting for the big ickyness that awaits). I honestly just don't even bother asking what I'm eating anymore, I just try it and if I like it, I eat it.

It's mystery meat all over again! It's kind of funny how you end up missing the mundane simplistic chicken fingers and mashed potatoes every single day just because you didn't have to wonder if you could stomach your lunch the next day.

I really like working at Taga. Aside from being a rather large, extremely boisterous school, and it's impossible for me to remember the names of the students, it's sort of relaxing in a weird way.

I was able to take a lot of photos yesterday, all of them are on Facebook, but here's a little sampling:

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And for the main event, Hobo.



I named him before I got him, and it's funny because he actually fits his name quite well. He's extremely obnoxious, will eat anything (including trash), and finds fun in kicking a hair band across the floor. He's almost 6 months, so he's getting fixed soon, which will hopefully take some of the obnoxiousness away. I love him dearly, but I don't like anyone waking me up at 5:30am for no reason.

He has his own hut and things, which you can see on Facebook if you want. I didn't feel like Photoshopping all of that together. Wah, I'm lazy.

Anyway, although I'm allergic to him, I'm not really at home as much as I'm at work (which is kind of sad in a way), but he entertains himself quite well.

I'm going to try to update sooner, but I'm INCREDIBLY busy busy busy this next month. Ughhh.

up, up, and away we go~!

Hello everyone! I know I'm basically doing this on a weekly basis now--maybe entries will come quicker when I have more free-time.

The past two weeks I've spent teaching at Komao Junior High School here in Hitachi. It's a lovely new school with so many wonderfully enthusiastic kids. All of the teachers are very young, at least the English teachers, and they are all really good looking. [/jealousy] Plus, Mr. Ito it's ridiculously handsome (I have a crush on him--which is kind of known by everyone now).



And I have thankfully made a new friend in Ms. Asada (or Yuka). She's 24, totally gorgeous, and super nice. Her English is pretty good, so we meet kind of half-way. She loves to go shopping, I love to go shopping. Very soon, Yuka, very soon!



For a couple of days I went with Brian to help teach at Nakasato Junior High School and Elementary School. It's about a 45 minute bus ride, way up in the mountains passed one of the iconic symbols of Hitachi, the large industrial exhaust pipe thing (I don't remember it's real name, give me a bit of a break!) When we started to actually get to Nakasato I could really honest to God see the landscape of My Neighbor Totoro. So that was when I started actually looking for him. The mountain landscape is really breathtaking, and although the town is very, very rural, it's so beautiful. I wish I had more pictures, but I had a great time teaching there, so perhaps I'll get to go back--you never know!

And if you don't believe me that it's a small school, there's a class with only three kids in it. See for yourself:



Tomorrow I finish my last day at Komao (*tear-filled eyes*) and will begin at my regular school Taga Junior High School on Tuesday. I have only met the Principal and Vice Principal from Taga, but they are both the nicest men, and the Vice Principal (or kyoto-sensee--if I'm saying that correctly, whoops) was an English teacher for many years so his English is quite impeccable.

Taga is a much much much larger school than the schools I've been teaching at before, but at the same time, it's no where near as large as our middle schools at home. I can't imagine teaching a school the size of Simmons or Berry, honestly.

But so far I have learned that no matter where you are in the world, 13-year-olds are 13-year-olds. There's no special formula, there's no magic potion, unfortunately, they are who they are. And that Apple Rolls are the most delicious thing everrrrr.

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Last Wednesday was my office welcoming party and it couldn't have been more fun! I had such a blast. Great food, FANTASTIC people, and drinks that wouldn't stop coming! Mr. Sakuma and I were kind of the drunkest of the bunch, as he drank straight sake and I drank gin & tonic (deliciousness), but it was fun to see that my Japanese actually gets better when I'm drinking. Not that I plan to do this all the time, so don't get worried, but it is SERIOUSLY fun to drink with the Japanese--because nothing you've said or seemed like really matters at the office the next day. No weird looks, everything stays at the restaurant. Which is great, because Mr. Takano and Mr. Suzuki walking me half-way back home (Brian lead me the rest of the way) was kind of embarrassing as I was quite unable to walk straight. But they found it funny.

I wish I had pictures, but at the same time...ehhh...

I tried lots of different foods though (I'm pretty sure the gin helped with that). Including nato, Ibaraki's special dish...fermented soy-beans. Needless to say, I swallowed it, but I shall never put that in my mouth again. I tried sashimi again...sorry, just not my thing. The texture of the meat and the saltiness, it really just pushed my gag reflex.

Anyway, other than that, the restaurant actually made me fried ika despite the fact that it's only on the lunch menu. How awesome is that?

The people at my office are completely and utterly awesome.

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This morning I kind of woke up randomly at 8am...on my only day off. Why can't I do that on the days when I need to get to work?? Weird ass biological clock.

Anyway, Joyful Honda (sort of like a huge Wal-Mart) delivered my bicycle this morning around 9am! I was soooo happy to see it, because finally I wouldn't have to walk everywhere!

I haven't named it yet, but I will soon.

Anywho, I haven't ridden a bike since I was like 13, so I needed desperately to take that baby out into a parking lot and teach myself again. I ended up in a random field and rundown parking lot that was mostly gravel and surrounded by stray cats, but I was able to practice!

After about an hour of trying out the bike, breaking, turning, keeping myself stable if I run over a big rock, that sort of thing, I decided it was time to go back to Ito Yokado (part of the shopping mall) to exchange my mini-SD card. Unfortunately I got a 4GB one, and it wouldn't work with my phone, but I switched it out and tried the 2GB one in the store and everything worked out fine. I spent some more time shopping. I bought two new pairs of shoes, since I needed a very comfortable pair of shoes to leave at school and a new pair of tennis shoes. The lady was extremely nice and gave me a discount because I was a teacher. You can see those shoes in the videos below. But I mean, come on, New Balance is the best--and those other shoes are supremely comfortable and professional looking at the same time.

After that I bought some things for my bike at the Hyaku-en Store (the Japanese dollar store)--unfortunately only two of the things I bought really worked for my bike. Oh well, I guess I have a random drink holder for whenever I need one. :P

I took my stuff back home, ran into some students, and decided to just cruise around Route 6.

I ended up going into a few stores, coming out with nothing, and heading onward. My destination: to see mini-Vulcan. Yes, when I first got here I didn't want to see it, but I don't know. I had the time, I had a bike, how hard could it be?

Well considering the fact that Vulcan is on top of a MOUNTAIN and I had to leave my bike at the bottom of it for fear of me just tearing a muscle or something trying to get up. I ended up just taking the most difficult route possible up this mountain too. There was a MUCH simpler way to get up it that wouldn't have taken as long or as much energy, but I didn't see that way, of course.

Anyway, I wandered around for over an hour looking for this damn statue, so I just kept going up and up and up. Finally I made it to the top, and there was Vulcan. Smug little bastard.

It really is a fantastically beautiful view from the top, so I took some pictures on my phone (as I was stupid enough not to bring my camera--but I guess this was more of a whim kind of thing) and I should be able to get those on my computer fairly easily...but that will probably be in the next post.

I was in Kamine Park, which is a very large park that consists of a zoo, an amusement park, a kid's amusement park, a music museum, and an olympic pool center.

I needed to get to Kamine Pool because I wanted to check out their times again, and to see if I could go ahead and buy a monthly membership or something. I do plan to go swimming there often.

It literally took me another hour to find the damn pool, and all the while I just kept talking to myself--trying to tell myself that I can do it, I can find the pool...and eventually I did. Thank god too, because I was seriously out of energy at this point...and it was only 2:30pm!

I did manage to pay for a monthly membership card--so I plan to make that trek a lot. Hopefully I'll manage to lose a lot of weight by doing so, especially since I keep eating fried ika like nobody's business (I can't help it, it's soooo delicious!)

Anyway, yay yay yay, I get to go swimming in a heated pool! Yay!

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So...I know you've been waiting, and here it is. The complete tour of my apartment. I took these videos again tonight so that they wouldn't tick YouTube off so much. So sorry, it's in 5 parts, but they're much shorter videos! Enjoy!

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If you haven't gotten a call from me, I'm very sorry. I can only call at night when I have the time, so it will be around 8-9am your time...so very sorry! Maybe I'll be able to call on Sunday mornings since I seem to be waking up.

phew! here we go! LONG recap (fair warning)

All right, so. I'm finally in Hitachi! Yatta~! I have my Windows Task bar hidden, so maybe one of these days I'll remember to pull up my language bar so I can write in Japanese.

The plane ride over was long, but I slept through most of it. I was SUPREMELY lucky to meet Amanda at the Atlanta airport, she was also flying to Japan to teach English! So we got to sit together the entire time, I was so happy to have someone go through that airport journey with me, because I hate airports and airplanes and bleh. Anyway, she's amazingly nice, and will be a wonderful teacher! Hopefully I'll get to hang out with her soon, since she and her husband do not live that far from Hitachi! Here are a few pictures from me traveling to Japan:



I was SO lucky. Not only was my plane ticket cheap, but it was the best flight I've ever had. There were TVs in the seats and you got to choose what you wanted to watch and everything! It was super cool. I only watched Leap Year and The Princess and the Frog, because I was sleeping for the rest of the time, but they had a LOT of options.

And as you can see, there's my moose, representing good ol' UAB no matter where he goes. :P

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This is basically my one week anniversary to having lived in Hitachi! It's a really wonderful city, a lot like Birmingham, but with more places to shop and eat thrown everywhere, some within walking distance, some you need to catch a ride to get there, but overall very reasonable distances.

Hitachi is a very long city along the eastern coast of Japan, so think long as running up and down the coast. Hard to imagine? Here's a map:


I snagged this from the Ibaraki Christian University website, if you want to know. After Tim had mentioned it, I checked out their website.

Hitachi is in the Ibaraki Prefecture of Japan, it has about the same climate as Alabama--very hot and humid in the summer (it's getting a little hot now)--except it gets really cold during the winter and it actually snows here, so despite the fact that my apartment doesn't have central heating, I am very excited to see REAL snow!

Hitachi is known for their beautiful cherry blossoms (Sakura trees), and they have a huge festival in April--which I'm very excited to get to see next spring. Hopefully my family will get to visit during that time because it would be a lot of fun for them to see the festival and such that takes place on the main streets.

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For the past week, I've been in and out of the main Board of Education office here in Hitachi, which is within walking distance of my apartment (very close by). Mr. Moriyama, Mr. Takano, and the rest of the staff have been incredibly helpful and extremely kind. I have to especially thank Mr. Moriyama for being such a fantastic translator, without him, I probably would've just stared blankly at anyone who spoke to me with "Waahhh, sumimasen wakarimasen..." ("I'm sorry, I don't understand...") And Mr. Takano who has helped with done all of my paperwork--including helping me get a library card (they have a small English book section, but it has Stephen King/Michael Crichton novels, so I'm totally on board!) I call him Speed Racer because he's a very very fast driver, but a great one. They have been SUCH a help, it's ridiculous. I was able to meet the mayor (very soft-spoken man who asked me how Mayor Langford was doing *awkward silence* Mr. Moriyama kindly told me he would not translate "Oh, he's in prison."), get registered as an alien, a bank account, a cell phone, and internet service all in one day thanks to them.

I also have to give a huge thanks to Brian and Mie who live next door. Brian is another English Teacher here from Sister Cities Birmingham, so it's nice to know I have someone from the 'ham sitting right next door. His girlfriend Mie is wonderful and her English is really great (a hell of a lot better than my Japanese that's for sure!) We've gone to a lot of really fantastic restaurants, the largest mall around (Fashion Cruuuuise~!), and plenty of other useful stores. Brian has really helped me figure out my way around Hitachi, how to use the ATM, how the train station works, next is the BUS--which we were given bus passes with money on them, so it's totally awesome. They have an adorable cat named Mari as well.

Here are a few pictures of Brian, Mie, Mie's friend Junko, and I out and about:



Although I cannot get a dog (because the owner of the apartment has stressed I cannot have one--I shouldn't have asked, damn my thoughtfulness!), as depressing as that is, I'm going to have to get over that and try to fill my void with another animal. We went to the pet store and of course I saw plenty of dogs I wanted, but there were some cute cats. However, animals here are VERY expensive, like $1000 for a cat or a dog. Very weird, but I guess it's because they don't have as many as we do and they aren't selling pound puppies, if you know what I mean, they're all pure-bred dogs. I have, however, learned that my allergy to cats is actually not the fault of the cat's, but of pet dander in general. So wonderfully enough, if I take the right kind of allergy medication daily, I can have a cat. I want a dog, but if I can't have one, I'll have the next best thing, which is a cat. I want an animal who will greet you when you walk in, and if we're speaking truthfully here (which I think I am) a cat would be a better choice because it can take care of itself (I.E. litter box and such) while I'm at work, and then will be playful and such when I'm at home. (at least that's what I'm hoping for)...but I love dogs too much. I miss my babies:



Anywhooo, I have a lot of help here, which is utterly fantastic. I have a bit of jet-lag, it's affecting me at night mostly, what with waking up in the middle of the night and such and wanting to go to sleep at 8pm. I need to adjust my body's internal clock. I'm hungry at the oddest times too, I guess that's part of it, so I have to carry around crackers or Pretz or something to help ease my stomach until it's actually time to eat.

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I have to admit, when I first thought about moving to Japan, I knew I was probably going to be stuck in a cubby hole on the 10th floor of some older building with $700/month rent. And I was seriously okay with that. However, believing that to be the case served to be a huge surprise for me when I actually got to my apartment.

It's really really big. I mean, it's bigger than my other apartment, and it's all MINEEEE (living by myself is somewhat lonely, but in the long run, IT'S MY OWN SPACE AND I DON'T HAVE ANY ROOMMATES OMFG I'M SO HAPPY!) I actually have a lot more space than I'm used to, so I'm like, "What can I buy? What can I buy?" Though I need to wait until I actually get paid to buy more decorative things.

Here's a nice ridiculously long video (about 30 minutes. I know, I know, but whatever, skim through it if you like) that shows you my entire apartment! It's changed now, since I have internet and I moved the desk and such into my room for the computer, but it will probably continually change as I get more stuff:

I've run into some problems...so I'll put this up in another entry maybe tomorrow or something!

So needless to say, if you want to come and visit Japan, I have the space. :P

(And not to brag or ANYTHING like that *wink*...my rent is $50/month. MWAHAHAHA~!)

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Last night, both Cook-sensees (Masako and Tim) came to visit! It was sooooo awesome to see them both, as I have missed Cook-sensee like crazy! We weren't able to spend that much time together, they had very busy schedules, but the time we did spend was hilariously fun. We ate fantastic food that had an all-you-can-eat bread bar (it's like my DREAM COME TRUE!) Here are just a couple of pictures from last night (dim lighting, sorry):



I will miss you guys so much! Tim, don't hesitate to send me an email to help set something up, Brian and I are more than happy to help!

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Okay, I'm sure some of you are wondering, "How the hell do I get a hold of Jill?" Well there are several ways...

SKYPE (because God invents bandwidth-sapping programs like these to give you an excuse to torrent like crazy)
jill.albright
1 (205) 588-5798 (Yes, I have a phone number that you can reach me at. Just remember, I'm 14 hours ahead of you, so look at the time, add 2 hours and switch the AM/PM part and that's what time it is for me. Voicemail is set-up, if I don't pick up, please leave a message and I'll get back with you, promise promise!)

MSN Live Messenger (sorry AIM is for 12-year-olds and people who still cling to the idea of AOL meeting their needs)
nithpantiel@gmail.com

Email (because I'm old-fashioned like that)
nithpantiel@gmail.com (too hard?)
jilliana@uab.edu (Use it until it runs out!)

Facebook (I finally understand it's purpose now)
Jillian Albright

And last, but certainly the most important that I'm sure you all want to know:

Mailing Address (don't worry you don't have to write in kanji)
HITACHISHI SUKEGAWACHOU
1-6-8-102 317-0065
JAPAN

Basically it's set up like this:
CITY, PART OF CITY
SOME NUMBER-MAYBE STREET NUMBER?-I THINK HOUSE NUMBER...-APARTMENT NUMBER!, POSTAL CODE
COUNTRY

PLEASE, I have a TON of super adorable stationary that I have bought...and will probably buy a lot more. It cost me like $1.25 to ship a small letter to the U.S., so I'd love to send you guys some really effin' cute letters. Please please please email me your addresses (even if you're my family because I don't know where you want these letters sent to!) If you don't live in the U.S., please send me your address as well, I'm sure it cost about the same!

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I love you all so much, I hope to speak with you soon, I'm going to go ahead and take a shower now, then call my family (for the first time), and go to sleep!

Oyasuminasai~! (Goodnight!)

xoxo Jilly

beware the yakkan shoumei...

I don't know about you, but I live in what I consider to be a fairly large, boisterous city. So for a process, such as mailing a packet of information to Japan, I figure would be relatively easy and I shouldn't have to worry too much about it.

My experience with the Yakkan Shoumei has been a tough one. I have read multiple blog entries about how effortlessly they were able to send it and receive it, and how you should not worry as much about it as anything else.

Which I will say that the application itself isn't very hard to understand or fill out, the only thing you need to worry about is the US Postal Service.

Never in my life have I had such a horrible experience trying to mail something. I had all of my paperwork together, btw for future reference, this is what you'll need:

2 signed copies of my Declaration of Medication form

1 Explanation of Medication page for each medication

1 Import of Medication form
(All of these forms should be available in a .pdf file --along with filled-in sample pages-- HERE.)

Copy of my Prescription from my Doctor

1 standard envelope with my address on it (so they can mail you the Yakkan Shoumei)

The only thing left on my list of needed materials to mail were the International Reply Coupons. These are little coupons of a sort (completely in French, lovely) that you mail them so they can go to their post office in Japan and turn them in for Japanese postage stamps. You should be able to get these at any of your US Postal Office locations.

I went to 7 all across the city, including the largest post office we had, and no one had them, and if they did have them they were expired. Btw, they do not know what these are at many locations, and do not try to go to FedEx or UPS, they do not sell them there.

I was at my wit's end. I had the perfect amount of time allotted to mail my package on to Japan had I in fact had those reply coupons. Part of me wishes I had just mailed it without the coupons and maybe they would have taken pity on me (which might have happened, I mean the coupons aren't that expensive, but they stressed they wanted them).

I figured out you can buy them on the USPS website (I've linked you directly where you can buy them) and have them delivered to your house. Now, like all other important mail, this took nearly a week to get to me. Time was running out, but I finally had EVERYTHING I needed to mail. So I was going to overnight it.

Nope. No one (not UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc) overnights things to Japan anymore, at least not where I live. Maybe if I had driven 2 hours to Atlanta and tried from there, a plane might be on its way to Japan, but no. They said it would take about a week to send it to them, that was as fast as it could go. Considering it takes the office a week to send it back. That would be two weeks before I got my Yakkan Shoumei and that was if I was lucky. Even then, I'd have been in Japan by then.

So I ended up at FedEx at 3 o'clock in the morning, taking another blog's advise and just faxing it to them. But like many other normal individuals, I don't own a fax machine. So it cost me $35 to fax 10 pages (first and foremost a note including why I was faxing this information to them, alongside my name and address and hopefully they would have taken pity on me--but I doubt it), and on this guy's blog, he received a response. I never did. Probably because FedEx doesn't fax things with their return fax number, so they probably never got the number in the first place. My mistake for not writing it clear as day the first thing I faxed.

So all-in-all, I had a horrible time with this process, not because getting the information together is difficult, but getting the information to Japan is difficult as hell.

My suggestions for you, if you have run across this blog entry and are suddenly scared about this:

If your post office doesn't have any International Reply Coupons and you don't have a week to wait for them to get to your house, GO AHEAD AND SHIP IT!

If you're thinking of faxing it and it's not YOUR fax machine, DON'T DO IT!

Plan for this as far in advance as you can. That way you will have enough time to pull everything together, ship it off, and get it returned to you in a normal reasonable fashion.

Open up the phonebook. There's no reason to waste gas driving to multiple places like I did in some manic maybe-if-they-have-them-I-can-go-ahead-and-ship-this attitude.

Don't feel bad about it. You're not the only one.

Luckily I do not have any life-threatening conditions or medications that I cannot live without. I just didn't want to be detained for having any medication in my bag. So regardless I plan to bring along all of my information, including my receipt for faxing it to them and if they ask, I'll try to explain it as best I can and hope that having all of that information already filled out will help. If not, I guess they can throw it away.

*gaaaaaaaasp*

I got an email a while back about Sister Cities. It wasn't my first goal, as JET had always been, but I thought given the fact that I was going up against two other people that I could get it. It was kind of my security blanket so to say. So I told myself if I was accepted by Sister Cities that I would go ahead and accept it. Because it's not that it's a bad program or anything, in fact, the more I thought about it, the better it was. So I think subconsciously I was starting to want Sister Cities more. I knew where Hitachi was, it's about an hour and a half north of Tokyo, and 5 minutes from the BEACH. I love the beach. The beach is a place that is so serene and beautiful and I just like sitting out there and getting my thoughts together. ANYWAY, going a little off topic there. The only problem with Sister Cities was that they were looking for someone to take the job by April 1st. I, of course, couldn't do that as I don't graduate until May.

The email basically said that they gave it to this other dude, mainly because he could be there on April 1st. I don't even know how to explain how bad I felt. I just started crying. Like, I was sobbing so badly I couldn't catch my breath. I called my mom and was just depressed and obnoxiously sad. I kind of felt that my security blanket was gone and I'd have to wait until April to hear from JET (which I don't think I did as well on the interview) and I was just...devastated.

It was then that I realized (finally) just how much I've wanted this. I mean to say it for so long is something, but to actually have the opportunity taken away from you, if you're okay after that, you didn't really want it. I did, and I do. I cried my heart out, I was just so devastated and upset over that email.

The next day, after I had cried my eyes and poured my heart out to everyone that I trusted (which was basically my mom--I didn't really talk with anyone else because I didn't want them to know that I had failed at something that I've worked years for), I got another email.

Apparently this guy declined the position and the people of the school board wanted me as his alternate. They had really needed someone to come in April, but they pushed my starting date to May 20th, so I'd have enough time to graduate and get over there.

I took a day to kind of...absorb this information until I finally accepted it. I really can't describe how excited I am. I almost started crying again when I found out I got it. It's a really crazy experience, and so far it doesn't seem real.

I've already booked my flight and everything to Tokyo where they're supposed to pick me up, because Air Canada apparently had a deal going on or something. IDK, I'm just glad I was able to get it.

Here's a list of answers for your questions that I'm sure you have

I'll be in Hitachi, which is in the Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan. (see map here)

It's a fair size city, it's not Osaka and it isn't in the middle of nowhere either.

I work Monday-Friday, from about 8:30am-3:30pm. So, it's like going to school, but I'm not required to write essays! Yay!

I don't know what age group I'll be teaching, but it can be elementary, middle, or high schoolers.

I'll have my own apartment, which is beside Brian (a teacher from Birmingham) and underneath Jean (the Sister Cities teacher from New Zealand). So I'll have two English speaking people in my own complex, one of which is from where I live. Definitely a comfortable place to start out my life in Japan.

I get paid about 320,000 yen a month (about $3200), but will be paid less if I don't show up to work of course. (because the yen is so close to the dollar, I just put the decimal in two places from the right and that's what it's close to in USD)

I have to pay for my own health insurance, taxes, room/board, from my paychecks.

Brian says he'll help me get internet when I get over there.

I'm guessing he'll also help me get a cellphone.

As far as I know, no pets are allowed (*sad face*).

I asked the old Sister Cities participant if she had enough money to really enjoy herself whilst paying for everything and she said she had enough money to buy herself a motorcycle...so I'm going to say yes (especially since I don't plan on buying a motorcycle).

I'm still trying to get my SKYPE subscription and everything figured out. I don't know what plan to buy (since I'm only calling landlines in the U.S. from my computer in Japan) or if my online number should be an American number or a Japanese number. If you know, care to help me out?

My flight cost me $555 with taxes and travel insurance and everything. I fly from Atlanta to Toronto, then I get on a plan from there to Narita airport in Tokyo, where they should greet me and pick me up.

The best way to contact me is still by email (nithpantiel@gmail.com).

I leave on May 13th at 6am from Atlanta and should arrive in Tokyo at about 3pm on May 14th.

I'm not planning on bringing a bunch of stuff with me. If I need anything specific I'll buy it while I'm there, or I'll have my mom ship it to me.

My Japanese sucks. I have to get back to studying, fo shiz. I'll probably be studying every day while I'm there. I just wish I had more time right now to do it.

I'm planning on buying a huge DVD slip case and bringing a lot of my movies with me. I'll just watch them on my computer instead of buying an American DVD player just to watch them.

If you have any other questions just ask away!

If you want to contact me, here's some info:
Skype: jill.albright (pretty easy eh?)
MSN: nithpantiel@gmail.com
Facebook: Jillian Albright (add me if you haven't yet)

I'll update with my address if you want to send me a postcard or something when I actually get over there. Snail mail will take FOREVER though, you must remember.
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