I'm vaguely hoping for something fairly central (so travel and getting to bigger cities every now and then won't be so difficult) or towards the south (since I have a feeling I'll be able to handle hot summers better than the cold north winters), but nothing more specific than that. I'm more or less ready to go anywhere, I'm in this for an adventure and a challenge and I think anywhere in Japan will give me that
I'll probably put down Perth's sister city, Kagoshima and Western Australia's sister state, Hyogo as preferences since both places seem pretty cool and strengthening ties seems like a valid enough reason.
I've only briefly thought about my SoP... bit hard to decide what to write until I see what the prompts will be.