Tokyo Orientation part 2

I'm a blogging fiend.

Monday was the first real day of orientation. Orientation mostly means listening to speeches which vary in relevance to the upcoming job and eating provided meals. There was required stuff in the morning, which I think was mostly just general speeches about how much fun it was going to be and how we need to do our best. Everyone was very enthusiastic and happy to help, which was nice, but it was the second round of speeches that covered these same vague ideas, so it wasn't all that entertaining. Gotta give everybody an E for effort, though. In the afternoon, there were some workshops which were optional (actually almost everything is optional because they don't take attendance at all) which I skipped because I was feeling a little tired of these things, and a lot of the stuff didn't apply to elementary JETs so much. Instead I went to akihabara to buy an electronic dictionary.
Akihabara is famous for its so called electric town, which is an area filled with giant electronics stores, arcades, and the like. A lot of foreigners go there to pick up cheap electronics, but the joke is on them because Japanese electronics are more expensive in Japan. Seriously. I think it has to do with a lack of storage space, but I don't know. Shopping in Akihabara (fall [I don't know] plain) is an experience like none other. The stores are packed so tightly that if you run into somebody else in an "aisle" one of you is going to have to back up. A lot of the stores are 5+ stories high and there are flashing lights and people in costumes trying to give away advertising-laden fans and tissues in front of a lot of stores. The people in costume constantly yell out things like "irasshaimase," and most people just ignore it. If you want an admittedly poor-quality fan or some tissue, though, you can just grab one and walk off. I imagine it is the kind of job that kills people on the inside. I don't generally like the idea of going to Akihabara because it is kind of a trendy place for foreigners and also it is crazy, but it's one of the easiest places to find electronic dictionaries.
I got one in a duty-free (I don't know how this works) shop for around US$ 70. It doesn't have the nice kanji-drawing function in it, but it can still be used as a kanji dictionary using a system of stroke number, radical, and reading lookups. The cheapest one with a writing function I could find was about $300, which is just too much to pay for something like that. I spent too much time looking for cheaper ones, though, so I didn't have time to go to Ueno as I had planned. Ueno has a somewhat-famous giant toystore where I was going to buy Pokemon cards for someone. I had to get back to Shinjuku in about 40 minutes by that point, and the train ride on the Yamanote line is about half an hour.
As a side lecture which is not interesting, the Yamanote line is one of about a trillion lines of railroad in and around Tokyo. It's the central line that goes in a circle, stopping at all the places any visitor would want to go, and acting as the main conduit for commuters who need to switch lines coming and going from work everyday. The problem is that there are no express trains on this particular line, so if you want to go to a station that is on the other end of the line, it will take about half an hour. Also, around rush hour, and any time you are near certain stations like Shinjuku, the trains are so crowded that you will be necessarily pushed up next to a bunch of other people. It's not really that big a deal, but something to watch out for if you haven't been on Japanese trains before. Also, women have been groped so much on the trains that many trains have women-only cars to protect them.
Tokyo's public transit system is (I claim this with no experience traveling in Europe, but still confident in my assertion) the most incredible in the world. There are so many train lines running all over that it is almost mind boggling. There is also a subway system, which is almost as extensive, and buses for everything else. You are literally never more than a block from some form of public transportation in Tokyo. This alone would be impressive, but what is incredible is that everything is ALWAYS on time. The only things that throw the schedule off at all are weather/earthquakes that actually destroy(s) the tracks, or people suiciding by jumping in front of the trains. Nobody does this now because families incur the costs of doing so, which would only bring more shame on them. Keep in mind that at most stations, a train arrives at the station at least once per 5 minutes per line. Also, if there is for some reason a delay, JR issues excuse notes so people don't get in trouble at work. Ridiculous.
The crowning achievement of the Tokyo transportation system, however, is how easy it is to use. Each station has at least one map of the lines. A big red arrow marks the station you are at, which is generally labeled in Japanese and English. You just find the station you want, and look at the number by it. That is the amount you need to pay. You put that much money into the machine, press the button with that amount on it, and get your ticket and change. Put the ticket into the gate and get it back with a hole punched in it. Get on the train, get off at your station, put the ticket in the gate and go about your business. Even if you mess up for some reason, you can just use the fare adjustment machine to fix it. And there are always JR employees whose only job is to stand around waiting for you to ask questions. And they understand English pretty well, generally. I almost feel bad for other foreigners there. Except for the Chinese, because stuff is often written in Chinese, too. And Korean. Japan is so nice to its guests.
But I digress. When I got back, there was a banquet for us, which was delicious. There were tables and tables of food, and tables and tables of beer, ginger ale, and coke. Japanese people love beer and coke like you would not believe. I spent most of the time talking to the Brits, who have a magical way of finding each other in a crowd that is something like 80% American and 20% a mix of Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, South African, and the requisite Japanese officials. They were all pretty decent chaps and we had fun talking about how British people have funny accents and Americans don't know that countries exist outside of North America.
After the banquet, some of the prefectures got together to go out. Shimane got together and went to a nearby beer garden. We new Shimane JETs had gotten pretty tight over the last two days, so it was pretty sweet. For those unfamiliar, a beer garden is an outdoor restaurant sort of thing where you pay some ridiculous amount, around 3000 yen, that is $30, to sit at a table and have plate after plate of food that ranges from little pieces of meat to plates of fried noodles brought to you over the course of about an hour and a half. And, as long as you stick to beer, unlimited drinks. So, that was fun. Apparently, afterwords, a lot of the prefecture went Karaoke (which is for most people an excuse to drink excessively), but some of us didn't know, so I ended up trying to find some more people to go out with. A guy named Adam, who is from Ireland, and is a new CIR in Shimane and I couldn't find anybody willing to go out, so I ended up just going to bed. Still, a pretty good night in all.
There's just one more day of actual orientation to log, so I'll put that in the next update.