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Alternatives such as cycling are well catered for with loads of wide pavements/sidewalks, and occasional bike lanes (great for drunken rides home at 3am). However cars are not really a possibility, despite being very cheap second-hand, because the apartments provided for us by the Board of Education have very long waiting lists for car parking spaces. Scooters are a really economical way of getting around, and can be picked up dirt cheap second-hand. If you're going further afield, hire-cars can be rented for weekends quite cheaply too. Of course we are also lucky enough to be the penultimate stop on the shinkansen bullet-train line running the length of Japan (although this is expensive). Fukuoka city is bigger and certainly more cosmopolitan than Kitakyushu, and expands your choice of bars, shopping and places to laugh at strangely dressed city-kids. It's not too far and can be reached by bullet train in only 20 minutes (normal train in 90 minutes). Fukuoka Airport is conveniently accessible from Kitakyushu, and with its newly-opened international terminal extension, is the perfect gateway for travel abroad.
Shopping & Social
Kitakyushu has several places to get hold of 'foreign' items, such as the biggest bookstore in Kyushu, Quest, stocking a reasonable sized english magazine and book section. Foreign foods can be bought at the big department stores dotted around Kokura and Kurosaki, but at a price. Video rental stores are everywhere, and are pretty cheap (unless you are late returning one, in which case the fines are plain silly!). In Kokura alone there must be over a thousand bars hidden away among the downtown area, but we're not going to spoil your fun by telling you which to try (or avoid!). Restaurants are also very common, catering for a huge variety of tastes (except possibly vegetarian!), and are not a great deal more expensive than supermarket bought food (but try to be civil when you're offered chilled red wine! It happens). Fukuoka's international radio station, Love FM, can also be received in Kitakyushu, and has shows presented in several languages (the morning show was even hosted by an ex-JET!).
Accommodation
Although this topic is covered in much greater detail in the If you're coming our way... section, it's a good place to mention the distribution of JET apartments. The main area is the Kanada Kodan area, a really nice residential estate, 15 minutes walk from Kokura centre. Mihagino is also only 15 minutes walk from central Kokura, but southwards along the monorail line. Two apartments are located in Shii, at the end of the monorail line, and are therefore rather isolated from the rest of us, but is only 16 minutes from Kokura by monorail. Itozu also has two apartments, but is only 10 minutes cycle to the west of Kanada Kodan. Edamitsu is between the two city centres, but is up a hill, and has no local supermarket. However the size of the apartments makes up for this; they are seriously big. The Yahata apartments are smaller, but are only 5 minutes away from the International Centre and right next to a station. The final cluster is located in Kurosaki, 15 minutes from that city centre, and serve as a handy stop after nights out there!
NOTE: all apartments have a kitchen/dining room plus tatami rooms.
Medical services
You don't need to worry about treatment too much if you fall ill here. Included in our contracts is health insurance (except preventative dental visits) and English speaking doctors, gynaecologists, chiropractors, acupuncurists and dentists are available. And of course we have JET counsellors and help-lines.
Weather
This is hopefully the last question you might have about Kitakyushu, and we're happy to say that we have it pretty good here (as far as Japan goes!). Rainy season is in June, followed by a humid summer of about 35ºC (98ºF-ish), until about October. By the end of November it gets rather cold, and winter drops the temperature to under ten degrees (46ºF-ish). It's very rare to get any snow at all here. The cold wouldn't be so bad if apartments had central heating, but they don't. Who knows why?
In short - yes, it is a nice place, so we hope that you'll pay a visit soon.
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