Pulling Up Stakes

Our current apartment was provided to us by the Board of Education when we arrived in Fukuyama. They rent about 10 apartments in our neighbourhood and since they often hire unmarried, childless English teachers the size of the apartments are usually more than adequate. We are the first family with more than one child that has been hired in this city and I don't think Dustin's supervisor put in a lot of thought before we came into our need for extra space or adult privacy.

A few months ago, Dustin and I finally decided that our tiny apartment was simply too small for the four of us, but especially our two rambunctious boys. We started to casually look around at places for rent, but we hadn't gone to view anything or even talked to the Board of Education about possibly moving. What we had read about other ALTs on the JET Programme who wanted to find a place to live other than the apartment provided for them, was that it was possible but you would have to pay all of the key money (a non-refundable down payment, damage deposit, landlord and real estate agent fee that is usually 3-7 months rent) on the new place and your rent would no longer be subsidized. Because of this massive investment on our part we were only half serious about wanting to move. In the meantime, a cute little house in our neighbourhood that had been undergoing massive interior renovations became available for rent. It is a slightly older, more traditional style house with a fenced in yard that is miraculously unpaved and not covered in a million boulders and clipped trees; perfect for planting grass and letting the kids take their energy outside. 


We met with the real estate agent who informed us that the key money was an astronomical 385,000 yen (about 5,000 $ Canadian), but the monthly rent is pretty cheap and there was the perfect amount of inside and outside space for us. Next we talked to the Board of Education about canceling our current lease so that we could rent the house. We were informed that, no, we weren't allowed to move, not even if we paid our own key money and rent. We even offered to continue to pay rent on both places until our current apartment's lease ran out in August, but they wouldn't hear of it. So, we sat around and moped for a few weeks feeling even more cooped up than before.

Just when we had gotten over the blow having our dream knocked out from under us, Dustin's supervisor called us and said that after numerous discussions on her end, they decided cancel our apartment lease, pay the key money on the house for us, and subsidize our rent to the same degree that they do on our apartment. I am not sure what prompted the sudden and extreme change of mind, but who am I to question the hand that feeds me? In the future, I hope that the Fukuyama Board of Education will take into consideration the family size of those they are hiring and rent appropriately sized apartments. This was new territory for them, but we are so grateful at how generous and accommodating they are being.

So, we are moving on May 31st and are excited beyond words. I will post pictures of our new place as soon as we can after moving but unfortunately, it will take about a month or two for our internet to be hooked up, so my ability to post will be severely limited from Thursday on.

Fahrenheit 119... or a note on fire drills

A couple of weeks ago my school held a fire drill, that is too say that a few days before hand we had a fire drill rehearsal where we practiced having a fire drill... which is in itself a practice for a real fire so we practiced having a practice of a real event... this might sound redundant but I suppose there is no harm in being redundant when it comes to saving your life. During the rehearsal I was lucky enough to be the first person down the emergency chute from the fourth floor, which was actually a lot of fun. On actual fire drill day the buzzer sounded and all the students and teachers filed out in full Japanese efficiency to the outer field, all while still wearing their inside shoes so as to simulate what we would do if this was an actual fire. Other then the rehearsal this was very much the same as fire drills I remember from back home, however after a customary count off and reporting on how long we took to evacuate the building the similarities ended.

We were then treated to several speeches in Japanese from both the headmaster and the fire chief after which all the students were divided into three groups. Group 1 went to go watch student volunteers being rescued from the third floor by the ladder truck, a demonstration that ended with the finale of the last student getting to ride to the ladders full 45 meters. Group 2 went to go and participate in the emergency chute demonstration that I participated in during rehearsal. And I went with Group 3, where we practiced yelling "FIRE!!" and putting out a real fire with fire extinguishers.

火!

So as you can see fire drills in Japan are quite involved, in total we had a least a dozen fire fighters, a ladder truck, a tanker truck, the fire chief and an ambulance on site. All I can say is that if the school would actually catch fire, a dubious prospect given the fact that the entire building is made of concrete, that some this "training" kicks in and everyone gets out safe and sound.


p.s. as for the post title, 119 is what you dial here in an emergency... as opposed to 911.

What is the JET Programme

This post will be purely informative for those who have heard us talk about Japan and the JET Programme but don't really have a clue as to what I will be doing. My title will be that of an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher).  I will assist a JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) in preparing and carrying out English lessons in the public school system. There will be many other duties I'm sure, however until we get there I can only speculate on what they will have me doing. Many of you have asked us how long we the programme lasts. The terms are one year contracts with the option to renew for up to five years. Our intent is stay as long as possible, but we will take it a year at a time and see how things go.
For those who would like to know more about the programme itself, the JET Programme is now in it's 24th year of recruiting young(ish) foreign nationals like myself to Japan. While I am going as a teacher, the underlying goal of the programme is cultural exchange. JET is currently one of the worlds largest international exchange programmes and certainly one of the most prestigious. More information can be found here The JET Programme.