A few introductory details

Hello friends and thank you for your patience as I slowly set myself up here in Ogaki, Japan.  I arrived safely and without a single delay.  The company sent a guy with a van to scoop me up and an hour after clearing customs I was back at the old HQ talking with old colleagues and meeting new ones.  I got a three day crash training course and next week I'll visit each school and observe classes.
So far the only difficulty has been not having a phone or internet in my apartment.  Whoever usually takes care of the American teachers phones is off on vacation somewhere and I'm going to wait for help so I don't get stuck with an incomprehensible $95 bill every month like last time.
I did bring my phone from the states, if you were wondering.  Virgin Mobile advertises that it charges "no roaming fees" but doesn't mention that it has absolutely no coverage once you stray away from its towers.  That's right, it doesn't transfer you to another network, it just lets you sit there with a dead phone wondering why the hell you paid an extra ten dollars for the "international service bundle".  Nice.  Hopefully we'll get that remedied soon, as I'd really like to communicate without yelling at people's balconies like Romeo and Juliet.
My apartment is nice.  It's on the third floor, has two rooms with a double sliding door and a tatami floor in the bedroom with a single bed.  Basically the same as last time.  What's different you ask?  Well first of all there are 11 Americans, up from 6 when I was there last time.  Also unlike last time they tend to do everything together in big groups.  Some one came knocking on my door Friday, Saturday and Sunday to invite me out.  In the past I've avoided the roving pack of foreigners, but it's actually kind of nice to have a some people to hang out with right from the start.  We did Karaoke on Friday, watched pro wrestling at a guy's house on Saturday and went biking under the cherry blossoms today.  If you want to know what my karaoke sounded like, put on Holiday by Green Day, crank up the volume and then also squeeze your cat really hard.
What else is different you ask?  Well this year I'll have between 3-5 classes a day, ages 4th-12th grade, at 5 different schools.  I'll be repeating a lot of lessons so I'll actually only have to make 3 lesson plans a week.  (one elementary, one Jr. high, one high school).  My branches are all pretty far, so although I'll only be working around 7 hours a day, my commutes will be 1-2 hours each way (I think).  Speaking of commutes, I need to use the rest of my time at the Net Cafe to look up directions to the place I'm going tomorrow.  I will post again probably next weekend, unless I somehow get internet at home sooner.  I'll also upload a few pictures of my new place to facebook when I get some wifi for my phone.  Thanks for staying tuned as I sort a few things out.