Have a Happy JET Life!

Keio Plaza Hotel Welcome; View of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building from my hotel room
On my way to breakfast, I bumped into Sarah A. at the elevator. Sarah A. is going to be the JET who lives closest to me (about 30 minutes by bicycle) in the Hidaka-gun area of Wakayama Prefecture. I’m glad it’s so easy to find the JETs going to my prefecture. After a big western-style breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast with a few Japanese touches thrown it (burdock root, vegetables,) Sarah and I wander around the AJET Bazar and pick up the must-have book, “Team Taught Pizza”. Then, we move upstairs to wait for the start of the Opening Ceremony. While we are waiting, I spy a fellow Wakayama-bound JET, Parry, who turns out is also placed in my area, the Hidaka-gun region. Once the JETs start filing into the Concord Ballroom, the rest of the Wakayama-bound JETs roll in. They have arranged us to sit by Prefecture and with only 12 JETs in this group, we are one of the smallest.
Toby (standing), Quinn, Parry, Sarah A. and I (l to r)
The formal ceremony started with a welcome by representatives from CLAIR (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) and the other three government ministries that coordinate the JET Programme: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). After those greetings, we received a presentation on Essential JET Information by JET Programme Coordinators who are all former JETs. Once that was over, the like-minded Wakayama JETs and I made a bee-line for the lunch on the 43rd floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel. It feels like you are up in the clouds overlooking the expanse of Tokyo. The lunch was one of my favourite Japanese dishes, curry.
View from the 43rd Floor of Keio Plaza Hotel, Shinjuku
After lunch, it was back to the Ballroom for the Panel Presentation portion. The Panel was lead by the Chief Textbook Inspector from MEXT. He was very funny and I love how he quoted “My Funny Valentine” by asking us, “Is my face laughbable?” His grandmother told him never to give a speech in public and here he is before all 1200+ of us. In fact, he even challenged us to give him a standing ovation, which he received after his amusing speech. No one has ever received a standing ovation before. A former British JET now working for the British Council regaled us with stories of his grocery store stalker and the different types of enkais: “Welcome Party”, “Farewell Party” and my favourite, “It’s hot outside, why don’t we go for a drink party?” One thing you often hear about the JET Programme is that you are just going to become a human tape recorder but we were assured that we will be “better than a tape recorder”. Although the Panel Presentation was long after 4 speeches, I did walk away with a better sense of my role as an ALT and the realities of teaching English in the Japanese school system. It really left us with the feeling of how we too could “Have a Happy JET Life!”