Dana Anderson, a fantastic ALT in Fukui, put this PDF together and kindly shared it with us. Though the office locations are different the process is the same for Hyogoites. Click for the ‘Mad Max, Fukui Edition’ guide to getting your Japanese Driver’s License.
When our son received the letter of acceptance for JET we were suitably impressed both with his achievement and the quality of the stationery used by the Japanese Embassy. The followed months waiting to hear his specific destination in Japan were agonising for the entire household. A distinct sense of relief followed the news…
Recently, at a family wedding, I was very distressed to find out that my year and a bit worth of teaching experience has not improved my ability to talk to children. I met a rather cool three year old (he could talk three languages and sing most of Frere Jacques) and, when called upon to…
I’ve done a few programmes like JET now; stuff where you’re in an unfamiliar environment, working in exotic locales (or, at least, more exotic than where you’d normally be) and generally away from the life you knew for quite a long period of time. Inevitably, people get misty-eyed and want to return. I always tell…
Despite being accident prone for most of my life, I have done an astounding job of avoiding hospital stays. While I may have had a brief brush with the emergency ward after breaking my collarbone at age five I have never actually had to do an overnight stay. Until now that is. Still making it…
Day 1 – 14:00 I was expecting a beautiful young woman in a maid costume. But my supervisor turned out to be a middle aged man with furry eyebrows. Major bummer! He didn’t drive a suped-up Civic with pounding bass either. But the passenger door opened at the push of a…
I’m from the UK. Scratch that, I’m from England- I think I need to unlearn to say ‘The UK’ or even ‘Britain’. You can probably already tell where I’m going with this. Recently, my country made an extremely massive decision; I’m not going to discuss the politics because this isn’t the place for that and…
As I head into my final two months of living in Japan, I continue to panic. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with myself, even immediately after I touch down on American soil (hug my mother, lavish affection on my pets, lug overly-full suitcases, pull a…
Education is arbitrary: what we learn is arbitrary; how we learn is arbitrary; whether we learn is arbitrary. This was something I suspected as a student and have had fully confirmed for me while on the other side of the chalk board. To put forward a very obvious example, there’s the seating plan. Quite…