Souken Training-Part 1

Monday, April 13

Monday began our first day of training at Souken, the educational government headquarters of the Mito School system.  In the morning, we had to meet first at City Hall, which is out the North exit of Mito Station and by the ruins of Mito Castle.  I actually woke up late (8am), so I had to hustle my professionally-dressed butt all the way there and make it by 8:30.  To my surprise, I covered the distance in 18 minutes (yay me and my short legs).  We applied for our Residence Card, then walked back to Mito Station and took the bus to the Ibaraki Prefectural Building stop to get to Souken.  The cherry blossoms lined the street almost all the way to the Research Center.  

Mito City Educational Research Center (aka Souken)

When we got into the Souken building and walked into the meeting room, we saw that there were books and packets at every table, each with an AET's name on it.  The binders held useful information about school life, life as an AET, how to communicate in basic Japanese, how to get around, various rules, and so on.  The bag with Mito-chan (Mito City's mascot) had a phone book (I couldn't really read it so that's what I assume it is since the pages were yellow) and a set of yellow and blue trash bags.

You might think trash bags are a bit of a strange thing to put in a welcome packet, but there's actually a very good reason for this.

The garbage system in Japan is very meticulous.  Everything is separated into categories:  combustible, non-combustible, PET plastic, and cans and metal.  Depending on where you live, you might even have to break it down even further, but apparently Mito is fairly lax about sorting the garbage.  Regardless, everything is sorted into various trash bags.  Yellow bags are for combustible (food scraps, paper, some plastics), blue bags are for non-combustible (such as glass), and cans and metal simply go into clear plastic bags.  PET bottles (which most vending machine drinks are made of) have to be taken to a specific drop-off site or placed in specified trash cans.  Luckily these can be found next to most vending machines and at convenience stores.  If something is simply too big to be placed in the bags, then you have to put a sticker of the proper color on it.  

As I later discovered, my apartment complex has trash pickup on different days.  Combustible trash is picked up every Tuesday and Thursday.  The others are picked up every other week on a particular day.  Every place is different.  My apartment complex has its own small dumpster for trash collection.  In other areas, it's common for trash to put out near the curb or on a street corner and covered with netting.  It's frowned upon to put trash out too early (sometimes even the night before is considered 'too early') due to the birds and vermin that will tear the bags apart and end up making a huge mess.

The entire system sounds like a bit of a hassle, but since Japan has very little trash floating around (despite the lack of trash cans to be found anywhere; I don't know how they do it), I guess it all works pretty well.

Ms. Haginoya made origami for each of us.

Another thing I found interesting: Umbrella Lockers.
This is a key that goes into a specified slot in an umbrella stand to keep your umbrella secure.
Souken has one at the front entrance.

The umbrella is locked inside the small slot until you put the key in to release it.
Guess umbrella thievery is a common issue.

After the first day of training concluded, Elena and I went back to Mito Station for dinner.  The station is lit up very differently at night and is quite vibrant even when it's not busy.  It makes for a very comforting landmark.

Tuesday, April 14

After arriving at Souken this morning, we went to the Ibaraki Prefectural Building in order to set up bank accounts at Joyo Bank.  While we were completing the process, each one of us was handed our hanko, a personalized seal that is used in place of (or along with) signatures on many major documents.  It would also be used to stamp my attendance book at my Jr. High School.  My name is written on it in Japanese katakana: kya-sa-ri-n.  

In katakana, my name is actually spelled: キャサリン ベルガラ (kya-sa-ri-n be-ru-ga-ra). 

The Prefectural Building also has an observation deck on the top floor.  Naturally, we had to check it out.  It was pretty nice.  You could even see the Mito Art Tower in the distance.

For lunch, we hopped down the street to eat conveyor belt sushi (my first official time this trip).  

I totally assumed the sushi plates were a free-for-all since I had been to this sort of establishment before.  So when I saw some plates rolling on by on these raised red dishes, I grabbed them thinking, "Oh, these are fancy!"  I realized a few minutes later that the raised red dishes were REQUEST orders from another table and that I had just stolen them (oops).  Mental note...if they look fancy, they're probably not for you (unless you ordered them yourself and the little screen starts chiming that your dish is on its way).

I won with the big stack on the right.

One thing I didn't realize about sakura blossoms is the mess they make.  I guess it's a really pretty mess, though.  When Taylor had said that we only had a few days left of cherry blossom season, I didn't know how right he was.  The cherry blossoms disappeared within the week and the trees lost all their shades of pink.