arrival in Omagari

I arrived in Omagari on Wednesday and I was met at the airport by my supervisor at the high school I ll be working at, his name is sensei Kan. Omagari is located in the Akita Ken prefecture of Japan, it is a very rural area with the main industry being rice farming. It is very humid and rainy in the summer which makes for good rice growing conditions. As soon as we left the airport, I noticed how rural the area is. Although I am in a city, it is a rural city with a population of 90,000. However the people are spread out and you would never know how large it is. I was expecting to be in a city, surrounded by people, resterauants, bars, etc That is defintiely not the living situation I will have. I live in a small two bedroom apt , probabally 400 sq ft. It is close to my school and the train station but not much else. I will not have a car for the next year so I ll walk and ride a bike to get around. The school I am working at is 100 yrs old and has around 700 students. It does not have ac or central heating which is true of most places here. It is a little hot in the school for me , but I can adjust, the winter will be the big challenge. The best way I can describe my situation is if someone was placed in mesa, az or windsor locks , ct but everything is in japanese. I mean everything and they use kanji which is a symbol system of writing so it makes it that much more difficult. Small things we take for granted like grocery shopping, going to resteraunts, reading lables are very difficult tasks for someone with no grasp of the language or writing. I am pretty much on my own in terms of other foreigner, there are other western teachers in the area but they are all a car ride away. So i ll be on my own until I can make some friends. It really will be the biggest challenge of my life, I almost lost it the other day because the frustration of figuring everything out, its like being born into another culture. I was able to regain control of myself and am looking forward to the challenge. The way I kept sane yesterday was to explore the immediate area, I went to a small ramen noodle restaurant by myself and had soup and green tea, it was pouring rain outside and fairly cold so the meal was both warmth and comfort. I finally got around to cleaning my apartment and making it my own which helped ease the loneliness. Although a challenge I was able to do some p90x and it felt good to be here. Since there is no tv or Internet in my apartment yet, I have to rent movies on itunes at school and watch them at home. I rented hot tub time machine and it wasnt funny but was the best movie I saw in a long time due to my circumstances.