i'm high on findng a community.

so...i flew in on sunday (japan time), got in at 5pm. on the flight i watched "lucky number slevin"-good with really cool editing and mise en sen but too much explanation, "friends with money"-comment on consumerism, depressing and anti-climatic, "over the hedge"-waste of time, "akeelah and the bee"-starbucks has taken the place of disney as maker of sappy ridiculous stereotype reenforcing movies, then part of the "the incredibles"-genius. getting off the plane did not feel as scary as last time i was in japan. once past customs the 'tokyo orientation assistants' guided us all to the buses. i gave up two of my bags, which will hopefully find me in hiroshima-shi, and got on a bus. i sat next to corinna, who is a nice girl going to otaru (a small seaside town in hokkaido that i've been to), she also came from portland. it took three hours to get through tokyo to our hotel (keio plaza, which if you were japanese would be very impressive). a very swanky place with i think 47 floors and two towers. the whole orientation (conference) takes place in the hotel. there are 1250 of us here or so. there was orientation 'a' just a couple days ago, so there are 2500 new JETs this year. we were guided in and given name tags, packets of info, more packets of info, room cards, then collected our bags that were under the bus and navigated our way to the correct bay of elevators. i'm on the 30th floor, room oh-six. i'm rooming with a girl who flew out from portland and is also going to hiroshima-ken. she's originally form texas though, graduated from u of o. the hotel is western style. there are two beds (a lot of the other rooms have three people in them) and a couple chairs, tv, internet (hence me posting now), a nice bathroom with the fancy japanese toilet (two bidets, one for front one for the back) and an awesome view. today (monday) has been conference all fucking day. i'm so tired. i was falling asleep in the morning opening. we had a couple sessions on teaching, some optional ones on different topics ( i went to travel, saving yen, and GLBT). the GLBT is where i felt at home. going to this session i felt soo much better about this whole situation; just seeing the people of like mind that are here. the travel one had some info, the yen one was basically useless. after this was the banquet which was horrible greasy food and no seats. we were supposed to mingle, but hell i'd been up since 5:30am because i couldn't sleep the night before so i skipped out and took a nap. in the evening (9:30pm) i was supposed to go to my prefectural gathering, i said screw that and went out with the GLBT group at 9. omg! so great. we walked over to the gay-district. first i immediately get pulled down to a table of gay men at the advocate (this is a small bar, as most are, and the tables are mostly outside). they admire my dress and ask where i'm from, how long i've been here, and what i'm doing. mind you there are all gaijin (foreigners). one guy was from florida the other from sydney. i got tips for where to go in hiroshima, made out with the guy from florida (who was a very gay bi guy) and flirted with the other men at the table. it felt like hanging out the drama boys at home (the gay boys, my uncle). then the gals in the JET group went to the quiet lesbian bar that was around the corner. really cute bartender and patron. barowin (from south africa and our guide) bought us drinks and we settled in for the next couple hours. it was great! we took a taxi back around 12:30am (only 1140 yen-$11.40) and now i'm about to shower and crash. today got soo much better. meeting the other cool girls on this trip and falling into a hag role. *sigh* i feel better.