Well, tomorrow's the day I officially start teaching. Wish me luck, 'cause I will need it, after the meager three days of training I just completed.

For the curious: each class is 40-45 minutes long, with teachers doing up to eight a day (or more, if they request overtime or swap shifts). Nova emphasizes conversation, so teachers are encouraged to minimize verbal instructions and maximize role-playing exercises. This eventually gets as tedious as you might expect—beginning students, for example, have only ten lessons available to them—but the repetition has the benefit of quickly familiarizing the teachers with all the lessons, making them easier to plan. And quick planning is a must, since teachers have only ten minutes to grade each student, write comments for the next teacher, pick a lesson for the next class, and create a 15-step lesson plan. Whew!

I've only taught three (supervised) classes so far, but my Japanese students were all very nice, and many of them have travelled the globe a lot more than I have. My co-workers, meanwhile, are an odd mix of Australians, Brits, Canadians, Americans, and even a few Irish and Scots. All very friendly and outgoing, as you'd expect. I gotta be honest with you, sometimes I feel like I'm at summer camp or something, only with more conversations about how pathetic American beer is.

In Japan, giant multi-level department stores (or even small ones) will usually have a grocery store in the basement, and assorted dining establishments on the top floor. (It takes some getting used to, but it's standard.) The fancier the department store, the better the restaurants on top.

Taz, one of my co-trainees, wanted to try some authentic Japanese sushi, so we took the train to Shiki (she'll be starting work there on Saturday) and headed for Oi Oi, the Japanese equivalent of... I dunno, Nordstrom's.

My kindergarten-level Japanese was enough to convey "Give us sushi" to the sushi chef, and we heartily enjoyed the following:

Red tuna, shad, salt-water eel, salmon, two kinds of mackerel, red snapper, smoked octopus, scallops, a vegetable roll, tofu skin and some sort of chewy white thing that I think the chef said was "hamo," pike conger. I asked if they had any dessert (which was about as classy as asking for fortune cookies, but I really wanted something sweet to end the meal with) and was presented with the most succulent honeydew melon I have ever tasted.

Grand total for two: 5019 Yen, or about 40 bucks. And remember, there's no tipping in Japan.

Taz (short for Mumtaz, if memory serves) is really quite attractive, and under different circumstances, I might have sprung for the meal, but she's engaged to some guy who lives in Pacific Heights... which led to my favorite comment of the evening: "Here ya go. 2500 yen. Wow, I'm not used to paying for my own dinner."

It was the best sushi I ever had.

I wish this entry could be longer, but I'm in Japan's most cigarette-smoke-filled Internet Cafe at the moment, and with my lingering jet-lag I'm not completely up to the task of summarizing Mike's Amazing Japan Experience. Anyway, I won't be starting my new job until next week (orientation & training begin Monday), so I don't really know what my new life is shaping up to be just yet.

The important thing is that everything is great. My jet-lag is almost gone already, and my tiny town of Fujimi is way cool, with a chaotic intermix of immaculately maintained Japanese-style houses, 40-foot-wide vending machines, little shacks selling squid, and five-story department stores, often on the same block. One of my roommates arrived the same day as me from San Mateo, and the other is this Australian guy who looks exactly like Russell Crowe circa "The Insider." He's been here for a year and a half and has nothing but good things to say about his life with Nova.

Anyway, I should go before I develop emphysema, but I just wanted everyone to know I'm doing fine. I wish I could upload photos, but so far I haven't figured out a way to do this. In the meantime, here are some highlights:

* My roommate Chuck and I have been wandering around Fujimi for two days straight, and we haven't seen one other white person so far.

* Grocery stores sell bread in packs of four slices. If you want them with the crusts already cut off, they have that too.

* Every car here looks like a cross between a Prius and an Aztek, only boxier. And smaller.

* Japanese schoolgirls on bikes are incredibly hot. Yeah, I know. Shut up.

Now, I still haven't made up my mind regarding the Aibo thing. But this... This just makes sense.

Not to get too Zen about it, but material objects really are worthless.

So, you might've spent six months tracking down the perfect bookshelf, couch, lamp or whatever. You might've spent way too much money on it, too. But someday you'll need to get rid of it, and when that day comes your precious lamp's only worth $40 at a garage sale. Unless no one buys it, and then it's worth nothing. Christ, the cab ride to the airport costs $40.

The keepsakes are even worse. Throwing out ten years' worth of memories, letters and personal artwork is downright heartbreaking. Then why do it, you ask? Because the alternative means carrying this stuff around in boxes for another ten years, pretending I'm still young. It misses the whole point of moving to Japan, which is to recharge my batteries, to change my perspective. And to get rid of old habits.

The fact is, I really don't need any of this stuff. The books could be given to friends. The videotapes are about to become as obsolete as vinyl records. I could fit my entire CD collection onto an iPod. The only reason I'm keeping all the furniture is that I just bought most of it, and I haven't had a chance to enjoy it yet.

When you get right down to it, everything I genuinely need in this world could fit into a duffel bag. Well, a really big duffel bag, anyway.

When my whole life fits into an airplane carry-on, will I be happy or sad?

Well, my Nova placement information is starting to trickle in, and the picture it paints is a little different from the one I was expecting. For instance:

One, I will not be living in Tokyo as requested. I won't even be living in Tokyo prefecture (read: Tokyo county). Instead, I'll be living in neighboring Saitama prefecture, a revelation that immediately prompted my Japanese friend Yo to start making New Jersey jokes. Still, he offered some consolation to my living an hour away from the center of the action: "Mike, remember, pretty much everyone in Tokyo lives an hour away from Tokyo."

Two, despite my request for a single-occupancy residence, I've been assigned not one but two roommates. This one isn't such a big deal—at least it'll make the transition easier, and I can always find my own place later. Supposedly, the turnover at Nova is so high that having five or six different roommates in the space of a year is fairly common.

Three, no one can tell me where I'll be working. Uncovering the details of my year abroad has been gradual and arbitrary—the experience that can leave one feeling a bit... blindsided. The official Nova procedure requires you to have already purchased your plane ticket before you can be told where you'll be living. After that, it won't be revealed where you'll actually be working until after you've arrived in Japan. My morning commute to the office may turn out to be a brisk walk or an hour-long train ride. (I may come to regret not bringing my Brompton.)

These substitutions aside, I'm still looking forward to the trip. When it comes right down to it, they could dump me in the Japanese equivalent of Detroit and just tell me I was in Tokyo—it's not like I'd be able to tell.