(Day -38) Aomori City BoE Package!

Today marks the day that I have finally gotten in contact with my Board of Education (BoE)! Around 10:30AM on 6/23/2015  the USPS tried delivering it to me as I had to sign off, but nobody was home at that moment so the next day, technically yesterday, I decided to walk over to the Post Office just a few blocks from home and pick it up!
The packet had real valuable stuff! First and foremost came the important documents (congratulatory messages from my supervisor, contract, job descriptions, terms and conditions of the job, etc.) These forms were in Japanese, but as I made a sad attempt at reading the first sentence, I flipped the page and realized every important document had another version with the English translations. The packet revealed a lot of awesome information such as:

1. Rent is 63,300 yen.   35,000 is paid for by Aomori City.   I only have to pay 28,300 yen for rent each month ($229.02 USD/month).
2. My apartment will be only about 5 minutes by bicycle from my "workplace" which most likely means my base school as I have more than one school that I will be visiting.
3. I get 20 days of PTO! I also get national holidays and new years celebration off!
4. My gross yearly salary is 3,360,000 yen ($27,191.07 USD) w/ monthly payment of 280,000 yen ($2,265.92 USD).
5. The apartment will be furnished, free of charge, with what my BoE deems essential for an apartment to have, which probably won't exceed the bare basics.
6. The contract will be a full year. August 03, 2015 - August 02, 2016)

The packet also included an Aomori City Guide. It was a guide thankfully in English that listed things to do in the Aomori Bay Area including cultural experiences, key places to visit, and different highlights from each area in the region. It also had a little excerpt of where the city's Airport and Shinkansen may take you as well as the time it would take to get there. Just behind this pamphlet/brochure was an illustrated Aomori Map that highlighted popular places included the museum where you can view the Nebuta Matsuri floats yea round.
Lastly at about 90 pages thick was a small booklet titled "A Rough Guide To Aomori 2015." I think I will be making reference to this booklet A LOT. I flipped through it and it has tons of useful information specifically for ALTs. It touches base on your day-to-day life both in and out of work, what to do during lunch, how to get around, weather, everything!
This packet is definitely helping me get pumped about this new chapter in my life and overcome the unavoidable anxiety and nervousness of working and living halfway around the world with a poor grasp of the country's language. It is the first real official documents that I've received from abroad and I couldn't be more excited at the moment. While the current USD-JPY exchange rate sort of makes me bummed in regards to the salary, that may change, and I will still be living comfortably in Japan itself.

(Day -42) Welcome to Aomori City!

This post as of today is almost 1 month and 1 week late, but I want to make the official blog post about the placement for where I will be helping teach English for the next year!

Starting August 5/6 I will be living and helping teach English in the city of Aomori. Aomori's at the northern tip of Japan's main island, Honshu - just across the bay from Hokkaido's city of Hakodate.

From what I found out via Wikipedia Aomori is a small city, but also serves as the prefecture capital of Aomori Prefecture (Prefectures are sort-of like states here in the U.S.). It's got a population of roughly 300,000 people and averages almost 22 feet of snow per year!! most of which fall between December and Februray(V_V). It might sound unbelievable, but I'm telling you the truth. I will literally be moving from the no-snow San Francisco Bay Area to a city with one of the heaviest snowfall in the world. During those winter months temperatures will average about 30 degrees fahrenheit and between the snow and cold, I will still be expected at work -- so that will be an experience that I'll probably blog about later!

Aomori offers a lot of different opportunities to get closer to nature including many different hot springs in the mountains as well as visiting places like the Oirase River Gorge that eventually flows into Lake Towada - both of which are only a couple of the many places you can go.

In the nearby Hakkoda Mountains you can witness the crazy amounts of snow that my region gets. (It also looks very similar to the snow racetrack in Mario Kart 64!)

One of Japan's most famous festivals, the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri, is also held in Aomori City. This summer festival's held in early August and consists of giant lantern floats being carried around the city.

Besides the festival, and natural attractions the city has to offer, Aomori Prefecture is also known as the birthplace of the Fuji Apple - the first Japanese apple. It's the largest exporter of apples in all of Japan. In the city center itself, there is also a excavation site of a Jomon-era settlement, which they call the Sannai-Maruyama site. Despite being along Aomori Bay, I don't think the city's known for beaches.

One last interesting fact - Just like how people from Osaka or Kyoto speak the Kansai Dialect, people from Aomori tend to speak a different dialect - called the Tsugaru Dialect.

(NOTE: For those curious and those applying, I got my placement in an e-mail on May 13, 2015. A lot of applicants never really know when exactly to expect these kinds of information, but that was my own personal date that I received the placement e-mail.)