Hi everyone,

thought I`d let you know I got my phone connected yesterday. My telephone number is : 0790-34-0657 . The 0790 part is for kanzaki-gun - the region in which I live, the 34 is for teramae which is a suburb of the town I live in and the 0657 is my personal number. If you want to call me you will need to add the international prefix for japan. Check the phone book but I think it might be 0081. I don`t know if you drop the first zero off the area code (i.e 0790 -> 790) after the international prefix like you do in NZ. Maybe, maybe not. The cheapest way to call Japan, I believe, is to use one of those prepaid calling cards you buy from dairys and shops (kia-ora, easycall, yabba, chi-tel etc...) the rates are super cheap and the cards are easy to use. Oh I should mention, japan time is 3 hours behind new zealand so keep that in mind if you want to call. I am usually at home in the evenings, after 5:15pm, but not during the day (except sometimes lunch from 12-1). If you call about 9pm NZ time it will be about 6pm in japan and I should be at home. I can`t call out yet until I set up an account with a special phone provider for cheap international calls but to do that I need a bank account and to get a bank account I need my alien registration card, you get the picture. I get my registration card next week and the bank account soon after (its all being arranged). I`m also going to sit my japanese drivers licence test so I can drive a moped/scooter to work! should be fun. I`ve been studying the road code (an english version - thank god) the english is very verbose and not at all succint but it gets the message across eventually. The road rules are very similar to NZ, drive on the left, the road signs are similar and so are the road markings so its pretty commonsense really. Yesterday, I met all the japanese teachers of english (JTEs) I will be working with at the elementary schools I will teach at (theres about 5 of them!) I did the self introduction thing (in japanese!) and told them about myself and new zealand in english (at their request). The english level varies but generally its all good. I met a resident who had very good english. It was nice explaining my thoughts as I have been living in my own world for the last week!. There is another ALT JET in the neighbouring town who I can visit. We have another orientation for the hyogo jets in a week so I can meet other jets and exchange phone numbers/emails and stuff. I have a bicycle which is great. I finally found sunscreen (phew, its hot and sunny here) so I can travel about the countryside more easily. When I get my scooter licence I will buy a scooter or perhaps the board of education will provide one for me. Then I can easily zip around the area and visit peoples and places. I would like to mention I found this crazy big bug outside my house yesterday evening. I think they`re called stag beetles. Apparently they are a popular japanese childrens play thing, they`re like little tank! The beetle is about 8-10cm long and has a big antler like headpiece. I`m told they`re harmless which is good. I decided to play with it so I took it inside my apartment and tried feeding it different foods. I discovered it really likes banana! it was is bug heaven eating my bananas. A fascinating creature, I eventually let it go back outside. Today I also found a little frog in the bus stop. I rescued it as I assumed it didn`t want to catch the bus and returned it to a nearby rice paddy.