Lots More Information

Heard even more information from my predecessor. I will not be moving into her apartment, but the new place will be furnished by her stuff. I kind of feel bad having to have them move all of her stuff to my place, but they (whoever 'they' are) seem to be very willing to do it. She even said it would be easier for me to take her stuff.

Granted, I haven't seen any of this stuff so it could all very well be crap, but I have requested pictures of the stuff she actually wants to sell me like her bed and a rice cooker. The rice cooker is only thirty bucks, so I'm not really worried about it, but her bed is 3 years old and she wants to sell it for $400.

From her description of the floor plan, the place sounds pretty big. 2 tatami rooms and a living room (which I assume also houses the kitchen) all totaling at about 94m (squared). I took a look at similar apartments available for rent in Tokyo and they are thousands of US dollars (hundreds of thousands of yen) per month! I feel lucky.

But not too lucky yet. I still haven't seen the "quality" of the place yet.

Go, Go Tomakomai!

That's where I'll be folks, and considering that I was afraid of being cast to the northernest regions of this most northern prefecture, I am pleasantly surprised to find myself placed not only in a city, but in a southern port city.

Tomakomai-shi is fairly large (about 171,000+ people) and only a short train ride away from the much larger Sapporo.

I have talked to several JETs living there already who rave about the place. My predecessor has also contacted me and given me some great info.

I will apparently NOT need a car and I'm glad for that, because I didn't want to worry about the costs. I'm still waiting to hear more info about what my housing might cost, but the Board of Education told me that I will definitely receive a heater, fridge, and stove in my apartment.

I've heard of people having to get all of these things installed and having to pay for them AS SOON AS THEY GOT THERE which would blow. Who knows, maybe they'll even throw in some furniture and whatnot too. At any rate, I suppose I can buy those things off of my predecessor.

So yeah, I'm psyched to be going to the big, bad Hokk.