A little about me first: I'm from New Zealand. I applied for the JET program in late 2009 and left for Japan in late 2010.
I am currently posted in Nagasaki city, Nagasaki prefecture.
Ok, so down to what happens in your first week in Japan!
You will be flown in from all over the world and finally converge in Shinjuku, Tokyo ("Shinjuku Incident" anyone? I haven't watched it... want to). You will be in Tokyo for about 3 days. In this time you're suppose to do your best and learn about life as a JET.
Ok, so that is the general idea of the first week. Now, before anything else... a warning. In your first hour after getting off the plane you will go through security and then be ushered quickly to the awaiting buses. You should get past security fine, I can't give advice about this ;) However, before being ushered onto the bus you can send your additional luggage ahead of you to your school. Be careful of this! If you want to send some onward, fine, all is good. However, some people were lead to sending their only check-on luggage ahead. They didn't have much to wear in Tokyo ;) In my experience, I was just told to line up with my 1 check-in item in the line to send luggage onward. After realising what the line was about I went straight for the bus with my 1 carry-on and 1 check-in and got on. This was perhaps the only confusing thing for us, because everybody just told us to get into the luggage sending line. If you want your luggage with you in Tokyo (your allowed 1 carry-on, 1 check-in and also a laptop), then make sure it makes it on the bus! Otherwise, if you have a few check-in luggage bags, send some forward.
Ok, so that was just a little glitch, but I did see some that went without all their gear for those first few days. However, in general Tokyo is very well organised and you never felt lost at any point. Don't worry about Tokyo! Tokyo is like a safe bubble, very organised.
Ok enough for now, more about Tokyo later.
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