Job Discussion Forums

[uknowtheone]

Currently I'm teaching English in Vietnam, and this is the first year I've had to live without skiing. Don't get me wrong I love Vietnam. I was wondering if anybody could recommend any good schools that have easy access to good ski resorts in Japan. Best option any jobs that involve teaching English and skiing. I saw a post once that asked for an English Teacher/Snowboard instructor. Any information would be much appreciated. Thanks,
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[JimDunlop2]

I doubt anyone will be able to point out any one school in particular to you, but I can recommend what areas you may wish to consider if you are into skiing.

http://www.skijapanguide.com/index.php will give you a comprehensive listing of which prefectures have ski resorts. Most plentiful are Nagano and Niigata.

There are many small schools all over the place -- but you can be pretty much assured that at least the large, chain schools (like Nova) will have branches even in the areas close to where you'd want to live... At that point, I'd wonder off to the thread that talks about having choice where one is placed.

Hope that helps a bit.

[denise]

When I lived in Niigata (in Nakajo), my local resort, Tainai, was about 20 minutes away. It wasn't a big, huge, famous place, but it was perfect for an after-school trip, and it did have some nice hills and off-piste stuff. There were two more places with about 45 minutes, and some bigger, more famous resorts about two, hours away--great day-trips when Tainai closed for the season. Nagano was 4 or 5 hours, good for a weekend trip.

Sadly, my university closed... It was replaced with something, a college-prep-type place, but I can't remember its name... The acronym is CIAO, but I don't remember what it stands for.

(Mind you, I'm not recommending the place, because it's the school that closed down my school--grrrrrr--but while I lived there I was able to snowboard 4 or 5 times a week.)

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[cornishmuppet]

I live in Nagano. There are dozens of ski resorts all around the city, some good, some bad, apparently, though with my limited ability it makes little difference. The closest are about 20min by car, 45 by bus. That's the closest you can get I think short of actually living in the mountains.

We have the usual Nova, Geos, etc, though Nova aside they're all pretty small with only one or two teachers. There are a bunch of other small eikawas with varying reputations. A lot of people just rock up and look for work when they get here.

Its a pretty cool city. Plus, I live here, which is always a positive. The nightlife sucks though.

[fat_chris]

[denise]

We actually cracked a few such jokes about the name before they shut us down. The students were amused when we told them what it meant.



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