Larger than Life...?

Came across this tourist video for Hokkaido, looks beautiful:

Now it does look larger than life and no denying it looks beautiful, however, thinking of my home territory the Yukon, now that puts "larger than life" into perspective. Think of this, Hokkaido's area is 83,453 square kilometres, the population is 5,500,000 people, with a density of 66.4 people per square kilometre. Yukon's area is 482, 443 square kilometres (which means you can almost fit 6 Hokkaido's into the Yukon), it's population is 34,000 people, which puts the density at a mesly 0.07 people per square kilometre.  Given that, it just boggles the mind as to how friggin' big our country of Canada is; and to put it into bigger perspective, just think the Yukon is one of our smaller provinces/territories.  As my mom would say, both Hokkaido and the Yukon definitely have God's country written all over it!

Here's a little video to spread the word about the Yukon, don't go telling your friends because we don't want them all here:

Now that we are talking about big and largess, the Tokyo area population being at 35,676,000 is one big behemoth - the sheer logistics of getting water, processing waste, electricity, flow of traffic, etc completely boggles my mind.  Here are two videos, one Whitehorse Yukon the other Tokyo.  I know Taiga's been to Tokyo a few times now, however, now that he's older be nice to hear his reaction now that he's older going to such a huge metropolis.

Whitehorse Yukon Canada

Tokyo

A new blog and new adventure - well kind of a new adventure.

Hi Friends and Family, This will hopefully be our way of staying connected to you all and keeping you updated on our next big adventure, our return to Japan from August 2013 - September 2014. It's both new and old the adventure, I will be returning to Japan on the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET), and will be yet again an assistant language teacher (ALT). I am curious about how the experience will be having done JET before and going from my high stress child protection job to something not as demanding. Regardless, Naoko and I are excited for Taiga to reconnect to his Japanese roots, Naoko is excited to bathe again in the hot springs, and I am determined to get that Japanese up to snuff!!

We will be living in Hokkaido, which is the most northern island of Japan. I was hoping for a warm beach for this return to Japan, but I guess we were not so lucky. Initially when I found out we were heading North, I was a wee bit dissapointed, however, the more I read about Hokkaido, the more I am excited to get to know a part of Japan that we may never had the drive to visit in the first place more intimately. It does look beautiful and I hear the people and the food are superb!  

For more info on Hokkaido and its natural beauty here is the main tourist site: We are specifically being placed in Kamisunagawa, population 4000. The town's official website is here: http://www.town.kamisunagawa.hokkaido.jp   Well here's hoping for an awesome year. We got some packing to do for the time being; as the year progresses will keep you all up to date with some awesome photos and stories as the weeks progress!

I think we may be placed in a housing unit with a bit of space to put up friends and family; would be great to see you our parts.  If you need to plan your visit here's the official tourist website: http://en.visit-hokkaido.jp

Taiga's ready to take on Japan!