A Universe Expanding

This past week was phenomenally busy. It featured efforts to get a lot of paperwork done, get my application for internet through, 3 days of prefectural orientation training, and a weekend of travel to Kobe. Paperwork is finished, I'm scheduled to have internet installed on August 30th, orientation was good in that it was a chance to establish a contact network amongst other new English teachers nearby, and with all the traveling I did to places outside my town on the side of a mountain, my world has really expanded.

I now have a pretty strong mastery of the surrounding transportation systems, and how to get from point A to point B (and back again). I know the places to shop for household goods, clothing, food, etc. I know good places to eat, hang out, or drink. I even became a member of a gym. More and more every day, I feel like I can handle the world around me, and like I'm digging my own little niche into this new environment.

One thing that I have to make sure to keep myself from doing is creating a foreigner bubble around myself. Now that I know the foreigners in range of me, it would be all too easy to spend all my free time with only them. I want to maintain close relationships with these people because having people I can relate to, and speak my native tongue with is important. They're going through the same things as me, their interested in traveling and seeing and experiencing new things like me. However, it is equally important that I develop relationships with native Japanese people as well. This is important functionally, so that I continue to develop my language skills, but also extremely critical if I am going to ever truly fit in here. My greatest experiences in Tokyo came once I had made friends with native Japanese, for innumerable reasons, and I fully believe that will prove true here as well. That being said, it is MUCH more easy to say than to put into practice. In Tokyo, I went to a school, I was surrounded by people my age, many of whom were in the same classes, who had so many connections to me that forming friendships was almost natural.

Here, I don't really have any connections at this point. I can communicate, somewhat, with fellow coworkers, but they are ALL older than me, and most of them have their own lives/families/etc to occupy themselves outside of work. Most of my community/neighbors are either significantly older or younger. There are very very few young-twenty-somethings around. And, even if I went into the city, which is easy enough, I still don't have any connections to work to meet people. In Japan, for the most part, you really can't just walk up to someone on the street and strike up a conversation -- and for the situations where that DOES work, it's often not the type of person you want to be building relationships with in the first place. To meet someone in Japan, they often need a connection such as friend of a friend, coworker, member of your school cohort, common home town, membership at the same gym, etc. Without that kind of established tie, it's extremely difficult to transcend social formalities.

Obviously, these things will take time to evolve and develop, and I'm not letting the obstacles get me down. Things are going very well, my mood is very positive, and each day gets easier. I'm looking at a trip to Himeji Castle next weekend. Still 2 more weeks without internet though :-(

#############################
Edit: By popular demand, I opened up the comment permissions so that anyone can post comments, without need of a blog account or signing up for internet ID. I strongly encourage everyone to post comments, let me know your thoughts, etc. You can technically now post anonymously. However, I do ask that you identify yourself in some way (not necessarily with your real name - any username/handle in the field provided would be fine), so that I know who is saying what. If I don't know you, send me a message and introduce yourself! I'd love to know who's reading my posts. I do remind everyone to use discretion in what you post, as this is a public blog, and all comments and posts are viewable to anyone. I will delete any inappropriate comments, but please don't make me play moderator. Hope to hear from you!
#############################