Hey Ho! Kedouin Cho! (first post really)

It's been over two months since I left my perfect life in Vancouver, and it feels like a lifetime and too short a weekend all at once. I moved to this beautiful village in Kagoshima not really knowing what to expect or how long I'd stay, but everyday I fall a little bit more in love with my new home.

It was a pleasant surprise to arrive here to a bookcase full of good books (and a kitchen cabinet stocked with bottles of whiskey and gin). The Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in my town has always lived in this house and it's well furnished by my work, so it felt like home from day one. And there's a hammock. That's what really did it for me I think, a hammock makes any place feel like home.

Here’s the gym of my base school, I’m there once a week, and my house is the first in the row just past the junior high. A river (I would call it a brook) runs by it and on the other side there’s a forest area; I live in constant fear of insects and animals attacking. Kidding. Really.

My village consists of an elementary school, a junior high, a small grocery store, the conbenie (convenience store), a ramen shop, an onsen (hot spring), the local community centre, fire hall and perhaps a few other tidbits, like everyone's houses and rice fields every which way you turn, and of course, the nicest people on Earth.

The staff from my base school at an enkai (office party), this one was the welcome enkai for me and one other new teacher (the math star beside me). We hit up a lovely restaurant in Kagoshima Shi and then as the night progressed, after we lost kocho and kyoto sensei (the principal and vice principal), ended up at a few more bars and a yummy ramen shop.

A beach about an hour west from my house, I can go there and be completely alone. Beach season is over in Japan, so there's nobody at the beaches. It's still warmer than what I'm used to.


The nearest cities are about an hour drive away. To the west there is Satsumasendai Shi (City), and to the south Kagoshima Shi. Sendai's population is about 100, 000 and Kagoshima's around 400,000. This picture is the view from Kagoshima Shi of Sakurajima, an active volcano which is also prime real estate (can you see the houses around the base? There's also a school on it!)