Memories of JET and Japan

[andorus]

JET alumni: quick little query for you all. :)

When you think of your JET experience, what comes to mind?

No limits: memories, artifacts, things, places, people, foods, feelings. Anything at all. Kneejerk responses and happy times you like to ponder over. All are welcome.

Thanks!

Comments

[konoichi]

What comes to mind for me is trying, trying and trying to connect with other humans in a fulfilling way.

I also remember the pleasure of watching Japan go by on the train, and knowing wherever I got off there would be curry somewhere nearby. <3

[andorus]

Not sure if this is quite what you meant, but I did struggle sometimes to make meaningful friendships with Japanese people that went beyond friendly pleasantries. It didn't help that the only Japanese people my age I knew were in my friends' eikaiwas in neighboring towns. But my eikaiwa ladies took me under their wing immediately--that was always so nice.

And for me, it was typically okonomiyaki or shouyu udon that I came to anticipate. ;) (Or pasta or Indian food, in big cities while traveling!)

Thank you for sharing!

[brentwinsatlife]

The first night in Tokyo, getting off the plane with hundreds of other people just as excited as me, going out and living it up. My students smiling. Old people staring at me everywhere I go. Fun summer festivals. Spending all winter in the town sento because my shower was freezing cold. Freezing in my apartment, freezing at my schools, freezing everywhere. Drunken parties with everyone decked out in suits. Conveyor belt sushi, curry rice, raw horse and whale, shrimp heads. Hitchhiking. Loneliness. Crazy arcade music games. Bullet trains, temples and shrines, rice fields, cherry blossoms, mountains, the ocean. Fear that my time in Japan is running out. Tears, both my students' and my own.

[andorus]

Wow, thank you for all that--I definitely experienced a lot of those as well, but it's great to hear someone else point them out again. The mountains, the cherry blossoms, the loneliness (at times--a friend at home passed away my first year, which coincided with that springtime wave of homesickness, and I cried at the office a lot for a while)...check, check, and check. It's easy to forget that, like all life experiences, it's never perfect.

Out of curiosity, where were you placed? (Hokkaido or Tohoku, I'm guessing?)

[nighstar]

lots comes to mind, but i guess the biggest thing would be Kochi, where i lived. the streetcar and buses that i rode almost everyday. the streets that i explored and frequented on bike and on foot. my neighborhood...

:(

[andorus]

Aww, Kochi! I lived in western Tokushima (Ikeda-cho, or Awaikeda-eki on the JR Shikoku Nanpu line). I actually only went to Kochi-shi a couple of times, but the Sunday market was very fun to wander around.

Sorry to possibly make you homesick. :( But thank you for sharing!

[unallersimple]

Pretty muchh everything in my journal