First Info about Nara

This is an email I received from a PA in Nara:

1. Snow is not a thing here in Nara (which makes me personally sad). There will be flurries, but no hard snow or snow that prevents anyone from doing stuff. If you are down in the inaka, you get more but no real big snow storms. Nara is in a mountain basin so that means cold dry winters and hot humid summers.

2. Speaking of the heat and humidity. There is no way to express how humid it is here. I am from a humid climate and I was hating it here big time. It is really just awful because of how sparse AC is used here (especially in apartments and in the schools). You really get used to just sweating all the time in the summer. When you arrive it will be at the peak. August is the worst month for the heat and humidity with it starting to taper off in mid-September.

3.We have two train lines, JR west and Kintestsu with Kintestsu being the one most used in Nara. Kitestsu will get you to Kyoto,Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and other points in between. Nara has some of the best train systems in my opinion. Honestly, living here gets you to some of the best places in Japan the quickest.

4. Yes there are inaka placements here. Forests? Not so much. I live in the second biggest city Kashihara (130,000 people) and about 10 of us live here. There are 63 Nara JETs and I would say about 20 live in rural places. Although, the ones leaving are mostly in the more populated areas so only a few of the new people will be in the rural areas. There is Nara city, which is the capital and the largest ciyt of about 300,000 people.

5. Personally, none. The one that we do have is the mukade. A centipeade that can bite if provoked. I have only seen one and that was on a hike. They are mainly in the more rural areas.

6. We have one of the most active JET communities in Japan. Our AJET group won most active chapter this year. There are typically about 1 event each month with other things sprinkled. Nara is not that big of a prefecture so people getting together and doing things is very easy.

7. The website does not work but there is a FB group, check out Nara AJET.