Fuji City!!!

So, fifteen minutes into my shift at work, whilst telling my colleague about how I was waiting for a call from Interac... when my phone rang!! David's dulcet Scottish tones informed me that the placement that they were offering me was in Fuji City, in the Shizuoka prefecture (Hamamatsu branch). I would be teaching Elementary AND Junior High in anything from 2 to 6 schools, and driving (eeek!).
So, Fuji City is (as you might guess) near Mount Fuji - you can see it looming in the background :) ... it's an 80 minute train ride from Tokyo... one of the warmer places too. I can't find too much information about it yet, but from what I can glean so far here we go:



Mount Fuji, an active volcano, is 3,776m tall, which means that climbing it will probably cause me to collapse in a panting, sweaty heap. However, when part of it lies in the city where I shall reside, there is little justification for not at least trying to climb it!

As for the prefecture itself, have a lookie here - http://www.shizuoka-guide.com/english/index.html - for some information about the area! There are some beautiful photos there.

There are some reports that Fuji City smells bad, due to the large number of paper factories. I will have to see (or smell, as the case may be)... and as for driving, well, at least they drive on the left!

Anyway, the Hamamatsu branch is one of places where I wanted to be. I think I scared David by having far too much enthusiasm for 7am, and then proceeded to bounce around work, serving coffee like a happy bunny rabbit on speed. If there's anybody in Manchester who doesn't know that I'm going to Japan now, I'll be quite surprised.

Now I just wait for dates and hope they don't change my placement (or if they do, that it's to an even better one, of course!)...