Pre-Departure Orientation

Pre-departure orientation day! My family and I went out for brunch in the morning and then they dropped me off at the hotel where all the Auckland JETs were staying. One memorable thing from this day was the absolute horrific in-city traffic because of road works, so everyone had a lot of trouble turning into the street the hotel was on! I will definitely be glad to say goodbye to Auckland traffic :P

The pre-departure orientation was very similar to the Q&A/Info session held in June, just that we had to be in our suits! They covered a lot of useful topics like living tips in Japan, some great classroom demonstrations for all levels, and other presentations on transport and travel in Japan. It then ended with an open Q&A session, before they let us go on a break before coming back for the formal farewell reception! The reception had guests such as university lecturers, important consulate people, and other very important looking guests. There were drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) served, along with some fancy finger food, but it wasn’t enough food for a lot of JETs so quite a lot of people went out afterwards for extra dinner.

I headed up for an early night because the next morning we had to wake up at 5:00am!