For those of you who don't know, I am moving to Japan at the end of July to live and work for a year teaching English. I applied through the JET Programme and after a gruesome year-long application process, I was accepted. I'll be living in a small town called Kamiyubetsu on the northern shore of Hokkaido. Basically, at the northern edge of Japan, facing the Sea of Okhotsk (don't ask me how to pronounce it). It's in a small subprefecture (province) of Abashiri with a size of 160 sq. km and a population of 6,000. Considering it's less than a 10 min drive from some larger cities, I'm not too worried about the location. What I'm really excited about is that I got Hokkaido even though I didn't ask for it during the application process. I was a little worried I would get somewhere in the deep south, such as Okinawa or Shikoku since I don't think I'd be able to hand the heat and humidity there! Hokkaido is about the size of Ireland and Kamiyubetsu is at the same latitude as Toronto, so the climate is similar to Canada's. It's also not as people-packed as the rest of Japan so it's a well known for it's wilderness and mountains, and during the winter, it gets some of the best powder for snowboarding in the world. W00T! Just to give an idea of where I'll be, it's pretty close to here:

I fly out in exactly two months from now. I'm working full time and trying to pay off some bills and save up some money for my first month there. I'm planning on staying in Japan for a few years afterwards to work on a Masters degree so these last two months will be my last in Canada for a while to come..