When I asked them if they enjoyed life on Tanegashima, they all responded by telling me how many years of “island duty” they had left. There my school would put me up in a cozy mountain lodge and give me some extra money for the inconvenience. Because, you know, spending a few days a month at a monkey-inhabited mountain paradise was SUPER inconvenient.īut the other teachers I was working with didn’t agree.
For a few days each month I would take a ferry to the neighboring island of Yakushima, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to Princess Monoke and a 7,000-year-old cedar tree.
Tanegashima is home to the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen, and as most of the islanders have no interest in swimming, the only people I would ever see on them were the few surfers who had moved down to Tanegashima to chase what they told me were the best waves in the country.Īlso, there is a space station on the island, meaning that every few months I got to see a rocket launch!īut the best part? I was teaching at three high schools, and one of them wasn’t on Tanegashima. Not only was I excited to live and work in Japan, I had received maybe the coolest placement on the JET Program: I was living on Tanegashima, a tiny island south of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands. When I ended up moving to Japan again at 22, I quickly fell in love all over. Considering the country’s obsession with all things cute – it’s a place where bank cards are covered in Moomin cartoons and grown women try to look like little girls – of course Japan would be a dream world for a six-year-old girl. My family moved to Japan for a year when I was six and I LOVED it. Though before I start I also want to say that while my time living in Japan was difficult, I think it’s a wonderful country to visit! If you’re wondering where to start, you can read my one week Japan itinerary here. Whoops, spoiler, I guess now you guys don’t need to bother reading more (which might be a good thing, since this post is long). For the past few minutes I’ve been sitting frozen with my fingers on my keyboard trying to think of a way to start a post where I’m basically going to say that I hated my time living in Japan.
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