 In Quarantine! For those that have not yet heard, I have moved to Japan to participate in the JET Program as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT)! I will be living and working in Kobe, Japan, which is near Osaka and is about a 2-3 hour bullet train ride south of Tokyo. I am still awaiting details of my specific job duties, but it sounds like I will be working with elementary school students to start. My hope with the program is to learn Japanese and get connected with the Japanese baseball community. Entering Japan at this time is very difficult due to COVID - the country has been mainly closed to most foreigners since the outbreak began. For the JET Program, we were due to begin our jobs in September 2020 but were delayed several times during the pandemic. After a long several months of waiting and uncertainty, our departure date came and we were finally let into Japan! Our flight to Japan left on Saturday, October 2nd at 9:30 am - it was a specially chartered flight, there were no business class or even premium economy passengers on the flight - just JET participants (about 180 of us)! We filled the entire economy section. 13 hours later, we were off the plane and ready to enter Japan. The immigration process to Japan was a rather lengthy one - after leaving the plane we went through multiple checkpoints (probably at least 7-8 different stations) during which we presented various forms and paperwork, then got tested for COVID, awaited our test results in a holding room, and then went through immigration and customs. The whole process at the airport took about 3-4 hours. After which, we loaded onto a shuttle bus and arrived at our quarantine hotel just 10 minutes away from Narita airport. Below are some photos from the airport - our plane (Japan Airlines!), arriving at the airport, our shuttle bus and hotel orientation session. After disembarking the bus at the hotel, several Japanese representatives gave a brief orientation, outlining the dos and don'ts of our time in quarantine. It boiled down to - don't socialize with others, don't eat outside of your room and don't leave the hotel grounds! We will be here under these rules for 14 days until October 18th at which point we will all take off for our individual placements (To Kobe, in my case). While in quarantine, we will undergo remote training on Japanese schooling and teaching, language learning and other individual activities in our rooms! I'll talk more about some of these activities in a future communication
Below are a few photos of the meals and how they are left at our doors! Additionally, each day, we must visit a desk downstairs to get our temperature checked and receive important information (today, for example, we received a new book about Japanese culture!). We also undergo COVID PCR testing twice during quarantine - once a week, roughly. While sequestered, we also carry with us a special phone that monitors our location - we are also prompted to report our location, health condition and participate in video calls every so often that confirm what we report. The video calls last about 30 seconds, during which time we record our face and surrounding locations (helps prove we are where we say we are!). We will return the phone at the completion of our time at the hotel. I will also will include here a quick tidbit that shows part of Japanese culture - someone in my cohort across the hall was having an issue with her toilet. Hotel staff visited to help fix the issue and as they entered her room, the staff removed their shoes! You'll see a photo of the staff member's shoes sitting out side the door below.  That's all for now! Check below for a link to all the photos from quarantine so far. I will post in another week about some of the things that we have learned while doing orientation and other experiences! If you'd like to subscribe to my newsletter, click here! All the best, Tom
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