so it turns out I really like having a blog. Writing emails is too much work.

I hope that everyone who is interested is reading this, cause I'm not sending emails...I'll get around to postcards, except that I dont think they sell them on miyake (which is wierd cause they have miyake keychains). I wont get to Tokyo until September.
Speaking of September, apparently you can get some major discounts on airfare if you travel within 2 weeks before/after your birthday! SO...if any JETS are reading this...who wants company??
So. this week. Well, monday was tough cause the internet was down. And I didn't have a book on me, so I went swimming...They have a HUGE pool on the roof of the school! And its heavenly to swim in! I had a paid vacation yesterday (I think) and we were supposed to go dolphin swimming, but the captain said the waves were too high and it would be dangerous...so I stayed at home and watched the olympics. My modem came in (yay!), but Im still waiting on something else in order for my internets to start working.
The English teacher and another teacher gave me a present today! An Inkkan!! For those who don't know what this is, In Japan, you have this stamp with your name on it that acts as your signature. They are all handmade and are original, so its really hard to get a duplicate, that being said they are extremely expencive and important in order to sign certain documents, and in some cases, you'll need one to get things like a bank account. It is really such a nice gift. I so dont know how to use it...
Some island information! The good things and the bad, what I've discovered thus far.
I am gonna start with the bad and end with the good. I think that's more optimistic.
The worst thing about the island are the electronic boxes. They go off at 7am, 12 noon and 5pm announcing I think the weather, everyday. Which isn't that bad - I dont need an alarm clock in the morning...Its the other, random times it goes off due to gas warnings. Im beginning to understand them. Paulette says that the sound it makes before the announcement indicates what level the gas is, and then you listen for where the gas is. If its really bad you can just smell it (it gives me a headdache). The language barrier isnt that bad, but I can see it getting to me eventually. I dont have a phone yet, and I tried to get one last week, but I need my gaijin card which I havent recieved yet. Transportation is an issue, because you really do need something to get around faster than your legs...
Now the goods. The people. The people are SO nice and SO accomodating. I manage to get a ride to school everyday by someone, and the JTE put a message on the blackboard asking anyone who has something they can give me to tell him. So far I've recieved a bed (my favourite thing), a table (my second favourite thing), a chest or drawers, a plastic chest of drawers, a rice cooker and a frying pan. I gave the teachers a box of chocolates I bought in Choshi when I went to see Hitomi last week. I think they were well recieved. I wrote a note saying 'everyone, thanks for everything'...in my bad Japanese. I hope it was okay. I am planning on setting out my Canadian candies when school starts so that other teachers I havent met yet can have something too. I am definately becomming more comfortable around here. I went to the store the other day and everyone was like 'Its the new english teacher!' it was kinda nice. The island is beautiful and once I figure out how to explore it I will.

As for people who want to visit me, I give you this advice:
Come in the summerish times...apparently there isnt much to do in the winter (all there is to do is swim, which you cant do in the winter) and I dont know if I will be able to entertain you.
I dont have a car yet, but I hope I will get a moped or a vespa at some point, so again, everything will be by foot, and its a long walk to the good spots, unless you catch a bus, which goes around the island once every hour or two.
The top of the mountain is restricted and no busses go there, so if you want to visit it, you'll have to wait til I get a vehicle.
Bring aquatic gear. The snorkeling is amazing!!

anyway, Im getting disctracted. The internet is pretty and it soon shall be MINE (at home)

Planning a trip to Tokyo in september if anyone wants to join?

website

Here is an awesome article Rachel (another Izu island JET) found. Its really insightful and a good reference to what the island is/was like!

http://www.outdoorjapan.com/contents/current_issue/1209623441/1217472440?language=english

new address

Okay. so my NEW address is
Carla Weigel
100-1211 miyakemura
Tsubota 2975
Osato jutaku
1-105

So I guess this is where you can send stuff, if you so desire.

This weekend! Well, on saturday sugawara-san took me to see the island. We went snorkeling and saw tonnes of tropical fish (we found nemo!), including a blowfish (oooooh), and we went to the volcano (shh, its a secret!) and we went to an elementary school that was destroyed by the lava in the eruption in the 80's! Turns out the volcano eurupts every 30-40 years, and the last euption wasnt one with lava and that stuff, rather sulphur levels became too high which caused the evactuation. The top is really cool. it looks like hell cause all the trees are dead from the suphur, but the branches are all there. it looks like driftwood. But we also went to a convervation area or something of the sort, which kind of showed how beautiful miyake used to be before the eruption.
I bought some fish. Salmon, I think. The only spice I have in my house right now is nutmeg. So I put soysauce and nutmeg on the fish and broiled it... and it tasted really good! I also made up a soup of green onion, fish sauce, soba noodles and soy sauce, which also worked out well. man its easy to cook Japanese food! :)

I cant get over how nice everyone is! One of the teachers gave me a chest of drawers, another gave me a table AND a sofa (that turns into a bed! A bed!! I have a bed now!! yaaay! Before I had a fouton (which is basically a matress and some thick blankets that are placed on a tatami mat on the floor which you have to fold up everyday so that it doesnt get mouldy) that was missing a mattress, so the idea of a bed is fantastic!! gee!!
They are planning on going swimming on the 20th, and I am going to tokyo on tuesday to see hitomi for a few days!
so far, Japan is very nice...I can see myself getting lonely easily if I dont get out of my shell, but I think I can manage! I hope that the other JETs come visit, along with you peoples from Canadia!

I think that's all to report for now!
Carla out!

Im heeeeere!

I have arrived!! (in advance, sorry for the lack of apostrophes. I cant find them on this keyboard...in fact, any typo you can assume is because of the keyboard - that, and it seems Im already starting to lose my english) Also, this is going to be very unflowy and ADDish because I am still jetlagged.
What can I say? not much is happening, although it seems that I have a LOT of work ahead of me in my house. I dont have any furniture and I have to set up my curtains and things, as well as get my kitchen organized and catch up on my sleep.
the island is really pretty, and so unlike anything Ive ever seen before! There is a lot of greenery, but there are also trees that are completely dead - they look like driftwood, only upright and still in the ground - and there is a constant coo of bugs. There was a cockroach in my cabinet...a bigass thing! It was HUGE! so gross...but it seems the bugs are even welcoming! Yesterday a couple that runs a grocery shop gave me an old rice cooker, and one of the teachers gave me a cup from his parents sushi restaurant on the mainland.
Yesterday when I arrived there were a bunch of people from the school waving Canadian flags to welcome me!! It was so nice, but I didnt know what to do! I kind just stood there smiling awkwardly. Everyone here is really welcoming. Yesterday we just went around to get me a residency card (or something) and a gas mask and things. I will take pictures, but my camera hasnt arrived yet...nor has my big suitcase with all my clothes in it...
Most people here try their best to speak english, so that isnt really much of an issue. the only problem is that everything they can stay in english I can say in japanese, so there is no way to communicate the more complicated things! I cant wait for my DS so I have a dictionary.
I am still very tired, and I really want a day to just sleep off the past two weeks. I actually got my first whole-nights sleep last night! I still have a headdache though, which could be the sulfur (but it doesnt seem that the island smells that bad). They are having a welcome party for me tonight, so I probably wont get much sleep til the weekend.
They werent kidding when they said I only work 16 days! I got to choose my days this month today and I am working everyday (except next tuesday, which I scheduled off so I can do housework) until the 27th! so I am getting 5 whole days off at the end of the month! wh00t!
My registration card wont be coming for a few weeks and I cant say when Ill have the internet at home, but so far I am using the computers at the school.
My house is HUGE! There are 3 rooms!! I dont even know what to do with them, especially since AC is only in one room! The floors were cleaned and the bathtub is new (that was fun to figure out yesterday). Everything is run on gas too, which is nice. I have no furniture, so I might have to go get some of that, unless Paulette still has things to give me, which is entirely possible, so I dont know if I should venture to the mainland quite yet.
Im tired. Im gonna nap. but dont tell anyone. I dont know if its allowed!!

my address

due to popular demand, this is my mailing address. It's actually the school's address, but I should get everything and anything sent to it:

Carla Weigel co: Miyake senior High school
4586 Tsubota Miyakemura Miyake-jima
Tokyo 100-1211, Japan

uuugh

ok. so yesterday was a combination of rockage ans suckage.
I woke up at 4am unable to fall back asleep. Went for a good breakfast, managed to do some computer stuff, but later found that I have a splitting headdache, so I go downstairs to get some coffee to find that it's closed and I have to go to the 42nd floor to get a cup of coffee!! So I go, get my coffee, talk to a girl for a bit, then return to my room. Next thing I know it's 10:00 and I was late to check out! So I quickly get organized and go to check out. I go to check out, and of course I didn't do any room service or anything like that, but I find that my roomates left me their overseas call bill (classy)!! Turns out that one of them told them the bill was mine!! So, either the first one checked out and a) it was hers, and she forgot about it, b) it was hers and she told them it was mine (as opposed to the other roommate, who is her friend), c) it wasn't hers and told them it was mine (even though she knew it was the other girls), d) it wasn't hers and decided to just let it go. The second one either a) it was hers and told them it was mine or b) it wasnt hers, and rather than paying half of it or something like that, she just tells them it's me, though she fully knows it wasnt mine (because she saw me on skype, and I let her use mine) or c) the previous girl told them it was mine so they didnt bother asking her. Anyway now I'm just pissed off. I'm tired and have a headdache and was stuck with a bill that wasnt mine (the bill wasn't expencive, but still it sucked)! The Japanese people from the ministry I met the day before meet me and after waiting for a while, I meet my supervisor. We walked the in sweltering heat to the board of education and had a little orientation, they gave me 150000 yen (1500) for 'moving expenses' (yay!) then we go for a decent lunch (about $8.50) and I told her a bit about Canada and about the JET application and other small talk. Then we went to my hotel, I paid for it (which I'm told I'll get back), and met with the English Teacher on Miyake Island who was supposed to help me go shopping, but he decided that we didnt really need to go shopping, because I should have everything I'll need for at least a little while, so then we called Hitomi and we went to the electronic-big section of tokyo (apparently it's famous), and we went for coffee while we waited for Hitomi to show up. We missed her first call, but after a while she met up with us and everything was good. The teacher decided I guess that it would be better for Hitomi and I to hang out together and left us to our own devices (I felt kinda bad...). Hitomi brought me to a bunch of stores in Tokyo, then we realized I had left my camera in the precious hotel!! So we got them to send it to Miyake (which will prolly cost a lot) and continued on with the rest of the day. Things in Japan are expensive, but food is pretty decent. Drinks cost between 110-300 yen, generally, but you can get a meal for under 1000. The first night I was in Tokyo, my noodle bowl cost 380 yen (The yen works like CAN money. consider 113 yen $1.13, and 10225 yen is about $102.25, etc. It gets confusing when speaking about it).
So then that was fun. I saw a tonne of things I'd get for people and got to see the mainish areas of tokyo. Later we met with my predecessor, Paulette, and the another island JET, Rob as well as his friend, and two other people i have no idea who they are (while hitomi went home because it was getting late for her) and went to a pubish kind of place. After an interesting dinner we went met up with another island JET, Tyler, and his either girlfriend or sister (I think sister), to Kareoke which is always a popular way of humiliating oneself. After that Rob gave me some money to take a cab back to my hotel (which wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be), and I retired to my room. thing is I couldnt understand the place! You need your card to turn on the lights - you put your card into this slot and the lights go on. I found the AC (yay!) and tried to turn off the lights, but if you take out your card, the AC turns off too! I tried to find a way to turn off the lights and not the AC, but couldn't, so opted to sleep with the lights on and turn them off at about 2 or 3am. i woke up this morning at 6am, and now Im killing time til 9 when I meet the teacher again and we're off to Miyake.
So I don't know when I'll get the internet again...I will do my best to get it all as soon as possible, but there are no promises!
Later peeps
-C

Tokyo Orientation!

Alright!
So, I finally got more than 5 minutes online, so I can update my blog!
Saturday's flight was not that bad at all. I had good seats near fun people, and the 13 hour flight went by really quickly. They have these touch-screen things in front of every seat, so you got to choose what you watch, including TV shows, a meditation thing, movies, etc. I watched Horton hears a Who, Definitely Maybe and most of Spiderwick chronicles, as well as an ep of the Simpsons and Boston Legal. the rest of the time was speaking loudly to the people around me and attempting to sleep. There was this weird hypnosis/relaxation channel thing that was supposed to make you fall asleep. It worked, but didn't last long. I think the whole flight I slept maybe an hour.
After that, we arrived in the humid airport and took a bus to Tokyo. Then in Tokyo we had the rest of the day (by that time is was 5pm local time) to do whatever we wanted. We went to the city and ate (restaurants are cheap!) and then went to sleep. I didnt sleep much that night because I woke up with a stomach ache, and the next morning started bright and early with a bunch of speeches and I didn't pay any attention to much of it. Then there was a very vegetarian lunch (meat-shaped tofu!) and then workshops in the afternoon. I meant to go to them, but I slept through them. That night there was a prefecture outing, and I couldnt find mine (there are 2 Tokyo JETs, and I didnt know where we were meeting) so I went to my friends' prefecture thing, Kareoke, and we sang for 2 hours. It was a lot of fun! Then we came back for more sleep.
Yesterday is much of a blur. There was a really awesome Engrish speech by a Japanese guy. He was just speaking random sentences. Some of my favourites include: "Speaking in public makes my hair stand on end, so I applied a lot of mousse this morning", "The sultry weather made me wake up this morning sweating. I feel as tight as jeans from the dryer" and "I'd rather be crossing the river Jordan right now". After his speech there was a panel...Toronto had a great orientation, so a lot of this weekend's information was repetitive and redundant. A few friends skipped the last session and went to a mall to find a hair-dryer, but they didn't have one! This place was HUGE, and had everything...EVERYTHING, except a hair dryer. Then we went into an electronics store, where we finally found one (after much translation issues), and we came back to the hotel (which is beautiful, by the way) to go to a very dry presentation at the Canadian Embassy. It was long and boring, but we got some useful things from it (maps and things) and we basically crashed when we got back.

Breakfasts here are amazing! There are fruits and potatoes and eggs and meat. It's really tasty!

Let me tell you about toilet seats. The toilet seats here are heated (which SUCKS in the summer, but Im sure are great in the winter) and there are buttons that will spray very hot water into your underparts, which is startling (but whatever you do, don't stand up!) and some have a button that makes a flushing sound to hide the unmentionable sounds you might make while doing your business.a

What else? Tokyo isn't as busy as I thought it would be. Mind you, we're not in the main area. Language isn't a problem yet, but I haven't gone far out of the hotel. I don't think the whole thing has hit me yet, either. I'm really mostly extremely tired and jetlagged. This morning I woke up at 4am, unable to fall back asleep. It's currently 8:30, and I'm waiting for 10:00 to meet up with my prefecture people to start my adventure. I don't know when I will have internet again.

I think that's all to report for now. I'm having fun and meeting a lot of people. It's fun and I hope I can visit everyone on my list!! It seems everyone wants to visit my toxic volcanic island, and I am more than happy to host them! Assuming that's allowed :P

I suppose that's all to report for now!
Carla Out!