So, I woke up and finished off my resume and cover letter, shaved, ironed my suit, ate a quick breakfast, snapped a couple of photos for recruiters with my snazzy shave and necktie, and drank my MacGuyver-brewed coffee. No problem, although I need a new french press the very second that I have disposable income, because my non-french pressed coffee is fucking weak-sauce.
Then, I ran out the door at about 11 to: 1) change some dollars to yen, and 2) get on to my interview. Sadly, I was wearing the nice leather shoes that I bought with my suit. 15 minutes of walking later, of course, I had my first blister. Shocking. Luckily, I'd anticipated such a happening, and brought tennis shoes to change into. No problem.
So THEN, I went into the bank and tried to get some dollars changed to yen. Holy language barrier, Batman. Keep in mind that my interview is at 1:30, and it is now 11:30. I need an hour, and some padding in case I get lost, to get to my interview. After about 20 minutes of wrangling and waiting, I get to the person I need to see, who hands me a sheet of paper that requires my name, address, and phone number. Of course, being thoroughly prepared, I had 1 out of the 3...the least important one. Fuck.
So, defeated by the stupid bank bureaucracy, I ran back home to grab the necessary info. On the way, I realized that there was no way that I'd make it back to the bank in time, since they close at 3 o'clock. That's right. 3:00 pm. They all do, here. So, I go home and get new directions to the interview, which was conveniently located all the way across Tokyo, from the station nearest to my house. Getting there involved a few minor snafus, but nothing too out of hand. I made it on time. Barely on time. No problem.
At the interview, they seem really impressed, but they don't really have any positions open for me right now. Fine. THEN, while talking to the recruiter, it's revealed that, in fact, there are 7 positions open in Nagoya, Japan's 3rd largest city. THEN, the recruiter tells me that it's probably a good idea to work for Japan's language schools for a while, because the private schools will probably want teaching experience (never mind my 4 years of tutoring experience. OK, fine. I just wasted 3 hours getting there and interviewing, but maybe something will come up. Maaaayyyyybe somebody will be really desperate. In the next two weeks. Yeah. I'm going to email these (expletive deleted) on Monday, at the latest, and inform them that they have a 3 week window to find me a job, during which I will very likely either be signing a 1 year contract with a language school, or headed home to Portland, where I will undoubtedly be too poor and far too furious to return in April, their prime recruiting time. I might leave out the furious part.
So, then. The trip home. Holy god. Wrong train after wrong train. Back and forth to the same platform...2 times. Getting off to verify my route, and then getting right back on the next train...after, of course, a 10-15 minute wait. Remember that part where I had no yen, thanks to Mr. Uptight Japanese Banking System? Yeah, so I'm also starving and dying of thirst. Let me just say that when I got home...I pretty much hated the world.
Got home, changed outta the suit, and headed out the door in search of 7-11, apparently the only financial institution in this banking hell that can be bothered to operate an international ATM. 5 kilometers later...note that I forgot to eat and/or drink before I left...I find the 7-11 and get my cash, a hot Japanese entree, a small bottle of iced coffee, and a small bottle of whiskey.
Had I not acquired all of those things, my sanity would be currently in serious jeopardy. As it is, I am pretty all right. I slammed my coffee and ate my humble dinner on the bank of the Edogawa (Edo river...some might call it the Edogawa River, but that would translate to the Edo River River), and took a couple of nice, big nips off the bottle before walking back. It was a fairly pleasant way to end a long, horrible day. I walked the 5k back and ran into a nice Wayo student, not one of mine, feeding a few of the many stray cats that live along the Edogawa. We chatted for a few minutes, in broken English and broken Japanese, and that was nice, too, after a long day of feeling pretty isolated here in non-gigantic-white-guy land.
Sooooo. Anyhoo. That was my day, and this post is officially a small autobiography. Go me.
One last thing: an old lady on one of the train platforms walked by me, in my suit and my sunglasses and tennis shoes, and exclaimed, "okii da yo!" which means "he's big!" in Japanese. It made me smile. Japanese old people are awesome.
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