Training for Fujisan

What would you do if you had a week to tour Japan?

As a hiker girl on a budget, my natural impulse is to turn to backpacking. 

If everything works out with my visa (check my last post), I plan on being in Japan about a week before my official start date.  This means that I will be *cough* forced (yay!) to find some way to explore away from Iwate-ken, where I will be teaching.  Backpacking is a fun, inexpensive way to tour the countryside.  It gives me an excuse to stay in affordable backpacker’s hostels while checking out some nature-type sights (also affordable!) What better way to start my adventure than hiking up one of the most iconic landmarks of Japan: Mt. Fuji.

This spectacular vulcano has been on my mountain-hiking bucket list for...well, forever.  Although it’s very touristy, it’s still a respectable climb and will take some prep on my part.  But how does a girl living at less than 1000 feet elevation train for a mountain over 13,000?  I’m hoping that cycling will do the trick.  The goal is to make your body less dependent on oxygen, since there’s less of it the higher you climb.  Cycling, running, and other sports that push your heart rate and lung capacity can help with this.  I will hopefully be posting some info about the gear that is a must (or what I wished I’d brought) for my hiker friends as well as some hopefully awesome pictures of the sun rising over the cloud line.  Stay tuned for more!

The Waiting Game

The toughest part of this whole ‘moving to Japan’ process has been the waiting—for the interview process, for documents to be mailed across the globe, and currently for the Certificate of Eligibility and visa.

The Certificate of Eligibility is the document needed for my work visa. It’s basically the Japanese government’s way to check and make sure that both myself and the company I’m working for are legit. To get the CoE, I needed to send my diploma to prove I have a bachelor’s from a university. Being a recent graduate, the waiting time was supposed to be about 10 weeks from the start of May. 10 weeks! That would have put the starting time for my CoE process less than a month from the time I hoped to start working. Luckily, I was able to get mine faster, and I’m hoping (fingers crossed!) that I can get the CoE fast as well. Then the visa, then Japan :).

All that to say that I’m not terribly patient when it comes to this sort of thing! In the mean time, I am incredibly excited. There’s so much I have to do to get ready, and each day brings me a little closer to getting there.

The future: Music and Life

I find myself guilty of wondering what I will do with my life down the road.  It seems only natural (and widely accepted) that you have some kind of long-term goal in mind for 10, 20 years, you name it.  That’s the way to plan for success, right?  I’m not so sure.  I’ll be in Japan for a while; then after that, I don’t have any clue what the future might hold.  More travel adventures?  Maybe.  Settling in to a place and having a stable, steady career?  Perhaps.  Winning the lottery and buying a crazy expensive yacht and a fancy mansion in the Mediterranean? Ummm….well, maybe not LOL.  My point is, I think it’s ok not to know where you are heading in the future.  I was digging around online for something completely different and stumbled on this youtube vid.  The musician in me couldn’t help but be amused, and I found that I really agreed with it:

So, for the next little portion of my life I think I will just enjoy the music and not be too eager to get to that ‘final chord’.  

Watashi wa doko desu ka? Where will I be?

So, I’ve gotten quite a few questions about where exactly I will live in Japan.  This is where the power of google swoops in to save the day J  I will be living in the Tohoku region, the northern portion of Honshu (Japan’s main island).  Here’s a map, I’ll be living in the neon green section:

To get a bit more specific, I will be living in Morioka-shi, the capital city of the Iwate prefecture.  Prefectures are somewhat similar to the states in the US, just a bit smaller.  The area has a similar climate to what I’m used to Michigan, except there will be more snow in the winter time. 

Here’s a map that shows Morioka-shi in Tohoku:

Random facts about Iwate-ken/Morioka-shi:

• Iwate is the second largest prefecture, but it has the lowest population density. It is about the same size as Connecticut.
• Morioka-shi is considered very rural with its population of 300k.  It is located 2~3 hours from Tokyo by train, and is surrounded by beautiful mountains.
• Morioka-shi looks like this from a distance:

• If you want to see what Morioka-shi looks like up close, you absolutely have to check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeOZss6iPOw&feature=related

So there you have it, my soon-to-be new home town.  In a couple of months I will hopefully be able to share my own pictures instead of stealing others ;)