Gunma, here I come!

Today was the day we were all heading to our respective prefectures and cities! Gunma, Takasaki, here I come!

Breakfast was still served at the hotel, so after waking up and getting ready I took all my bags and went down to have one last nice hotel buffet breakfast and check out. Interesting note! There was an earthquake last night at around 2:00am but I completely did not feel it – I only found out about it because the first thing my roommate said when she woke up was “Did you guys feel the earthquake?!” to which I was very surprised and just thought “There was an earthquake?!”. But thankfully it was just a small one!

All the Gunma people met at the 4th floor with all our luggage, and we set off to Gunma on a bus at 9:30am! We made one rest stop about half way in to the drive, but other than that I just slept on the bus and we arrived at Maebashi at 12:00am! After arriving at the prefectural office (which is the tallest building in Gunma I think!) we put our luggage into one room, and then went to the basement floor to have lunch at their cafeteria! Truly nostalgic feeling and all the memories from exchanging at Kyoto University came flooding back as the cafeteria reminded me of Kyoto Uni’s awesome one! For lunch today I had cold udon noodles with dipping sauce and their free green tea – so glad they had the cold noodles option cause it is just too hot to eat any hot food in summer over here! Plus I love udon.

After lunch we had a bit of spare time so we took the lifts up to the 32nd floor to enjoy a nice scenic view of Gunma! Takasaki is really close to Maebashi so we could actually see a bit of the city from the tower! After that it was back down to the room where we met our respective BOE representatives and went with them to our cities. Takasaki has a LOT of new JETs this year so we had to split up in groups (4 people, 4 people, 7 people) to go with 3 different BOE staff! I was really glad I got put in the small group of 4 people because we got to go in one of the teacher’s car (air conditioned van!!!) and were the fastest group to finish sorting out all our stuff!

The first thing we did after arriving at the City Hall of Takasaki (Gunma branch) was register our address. The BOE provided absolutely everything we needed to do all this admin stuff – it was amazing! They gave us all a little pack that had all the necessary forms and paperwork, with the forms already all filled out for us! We only had to write our names and address (also all provided for us to copy out) and stamp our little seal (I have always wanted a hanko! So cool!) and that was it. Truly a breeze with JET – the BOE people were just so kind and detailed and had everything sorted out for us.

After that it was opening up the bank account – also a breeze. The bank staff actually came to the city hall with their stuff to collect our forms and everything! There was just a little complication with the difference between our names being in capital letters on our residence card, but in lower case letters on our forms, but other than that it was just another smooth sailing process! We’ll be able to collect our bank books tomorrow, and our cash card will arrive at our apartments about 10 days later.

After all that work was done at the city hall, we went to the Takasaki branch city hall to meet back up with the rest of the groups, and had a little briefing session. We were given another pack of info with schedules detailing the next few days’ activities, and also next week’s happenings. There was also our contract that we had to sign, and again, samples were provided so that we knew exactly what we had to write and where we had to write it (which was really just our name and the date!). Then we went to another room where our luggage was being kept and I finally reunited with my suitcase that I sent from Narita Airport!! We then took all our stuff and walked to the business hotel we were to stay at, which was just a 2-minute walk from the city hall – it is also important to note that today’s weather was so lovely and cool (cloudy!) so that made everything so much easier not having to deal with the heat.

The hotel was small and cozy and I loved how we got our own rooms! It was nice to finally have your own private little space where you could fully relax, even if it was still a hotel and not our apartments just yet. After freshening up a bit, our group of Takasaki JETs met downstairs at 18:00 to explore the area and find some dinner! We walked to Takasaki station which had a lot of shops and restaurants, and whilst some people chose to eat at a とんかつ (pork cutlet) place for dinner at the department store, 3 of us decided to walk the streets a bit more and found a lovely little yakitori place! The yakitori was delicious and their cabbage was also delicious! Salted and served with mayo – a new combination that I now really like! I think I’ll be making and eating that a lot too in this hot summer! After dinner we walked back towards the station’s shopping mall to get some more clothes from Uniqlo (it’s too addictive!) and I finally got some nice shoes from ABC Mart! Bought a nice pair of black shoes to be my indoor school shoes, and a pair of summer wedges so that I don't have to be in my jandals all the time. I then finally called it a night and went back to the hotel to shower and sleep – ready to go to our apartments tomorrow and see what it’s all like!!!