I'm moving to Japan!

Well I'm offically moving to Japan come August. I accepted a full-time contract with a company in Hokkaido (The most northern island of Japan), and I start the last week of August. The other school also offered me a position (the dance school) but I just can't wait until November for a job, I'd either have to fly home which would be too expensive, or stay at HESS until then and with all the the visa drama, financially it's not really worth it.

So this school is a little different then my current school as it is primarily only a kindergarten. It's actually two kindergarten's that I'll be working at. The nice thing about that is that in one work day I will always only work at one school, so it won't be a lot of communting back and forth. The schools are called Hirkarni and Hirkarni no Kuni Kindergarten. The city I'm moving to is called Tomakomai. It's on the south east of Hokkaido right on the ocean. It's a smaller city, which I wasn't sure I really wanted when I first started job searching but it's only 30 mins away from one of Japan's biggest cities Sapporo.

Oh and there are perks!!! Very nice perks I must say. For one they're giving me a car, wooee no more scooter for me. But there better not be any yellow poles there in Japan or else that poor little car might be in trouble. Also they are paying for my accomodations, with utilities included. Yes it's only a studio apartment, but that's what I have right now, and I guess I can live like a university student for one more year. I haven't seen pictures of it yet, but it's supposedly fully furnished so that will be nice. Another perk is that they're paying for my airfare to Japan, which will save me like $700. All in all for my second year of teaching this is what I was looking for, a smaller school with less politics than my current one. I'm the only english teacher for this school so I'm like the happy go lucky teacher the kids only see twice a week. I will have so many munchkins names to remember, and they'll be Japanese and not english names like the kids have here in Taiwan (yes they're also all named like Candy or Nini etc so it makes things easier, oh I have a Dumbo too, how fun is that). Since I'm the only teacher it will be like teaching my Shaou Ban class all the time (little class). A A ah-ah-ah an apple etc.

The schedule is also what I was looking for. It's 9-4pm, which will be fantastic, I'll actually have evenings again! Oh and I can try and make dinner again too, ok that probably won't happen but there's the chance of it now. With the possibility of yummy sushi for dinner every night, really why would I cook?

Another good thing is that my friend Krista is going to visit one of her friends at the end of our contract in Japan in a city called Chiba, which is right beside Tokyo. So we are in the midst of planning a trip for that week and a half before I start working. We might even go to Disneyland there, that would be so fun. But here is the website for my school if anyone is interested in checking it out http://www.tomahikari.ed.jp/ . It's all in Japaenese so good luck, but they do have a lot of pictures of what the schools look like. They look huge, and they both have gyms which schools here in Taiwan never have.

Oh and the pictures are of this weekend. I went dancing with a bunch of work friends, it was good times.