Where do you live?
In Rifu, near Sendai. NE Honshu. About 2 hours north of Tokyo. An area known for earthquakes. And kokeshi (wooden) dolls; home of one of the 3 most 'beautiful' places in Japan - Matsushima

How did you get here?

In November 2004, I was due to start teaching part time temporarily at Teikyo University of Japan in Durham. I was involved at the university partly through my links as the Collingwood Teikyo Officer, and due to my involvement with the CU-Teikyo conversation partner scheme. (I originally became involved as a suggestion by several people including the Yokoyamas, a couple who were living at the OMF mission home in Ichikawa during my gap year. They told me about the Japanese university in Durham, and said there would be ways to get involved.)
Anyway, I sent an e-mail out a couple of days before, asking some friends to pray for me. As a PS I'd written that I was thinking about going to China the following summer after graduation, to teach English for a year or so. One friend wrote back and said, 'Don't go to China, come to Japan on the JET programme'.

Up until that point, I'd never really considered applying to go on JET myself. I had several impressions of it from various people I met. The first I heard was when i was teaching in Austria in Jan-March of my gap year (my year out between school and university). One woman I worked with had been on JET and said it was the worst year of her life. She was depressed and didn't end up doing anything. High hopes for doing plenty of writing and studying zen buddhism came to a halt and she sat in the staffroom where no-one spoke to her; sat in on lessons and would be called on once or twice, never having a clue what she'd be asked in advance; would ask students questions and they would confer with their friends before answering - the one time she made the student not confer before answering, the student came out with the answer 'seven', to a question (I've forgotten what) completely unrelated. The student hadn't a clue. She did manage to save £10,000 though!
Next, I met Rosanne Jones at the OMF HQ. She told me JET was pot luck. You could be placed anywhere- good or bad. It'd be better to return to Japan with UCCF and their international sister organisation, working for one year in the UK and 6 months in Japan -or something. (I hadn't been intending to return to Japan...)
At the church in Shin Urayasu near DisneyLand, people at the English service seemed to be either Americans working at DisneyLand or DisneySea, JETs or people married to Japanese people. The JETs I met were lovely. They told me people think Japanese students are well behaved at school, but they're not.
At my first year at uni, in my Japanese Option 1 module, a couple of classmates were thinking of going on the JET programme after uni.

And so it was I received this e-mail out of the blue; the next day I turned up at Teikyo, and what was the first thing that Juliette, one of the teachers there, should say but, "Hannah, are you applying for JET?" The day before I had done a quick search on the internet and found out that there was to be a careers presentation on JET that very week in Elvet Riverside. Juliette said she would be doing the presentation, and so I signed myself up, went along and saw Nathalia there too, my friend from Japanese class in first year (who I later stayed met up with in Hiroshima where she was placed as a JET).
After filling out the application form, which seemed to write itself what with previous teaching experience and involvement with Teikyo in Durham, having an interview, I saw my placement - Miyagi - same as Chantelle who'd e-mailed me back, and when I saw which town I'd be in I realised I was only a few towns along from where John & Elspeth Taylor live, who I'd worked with when I was in Japan as a short termer with OMF.

Why did I come to Japan when I was 19?
Because I wanted to go to Asia, and was told most 18 year old girls with the organisation I went with -omf-, went there, because it was safe.

Phew! (probably most of you have heard this 10 times anyway...)