I haven't been able to write for a while, a reason for that is that me and Mikko took off 22th of August and drove all the way to the northern Finland to first meet Mikko's mother who lives in Vuokatti. We made a stop on my grandfather's grave in Savonlinna and arrived to Vuokatti at 3am. We had lovely time and I took quite a lot of pictures. At Sunday we continued our way to Muhos which is close to Oulu, one of the biggest cities in Northern Finland. There live my grandparents from my mother's side. The weather was rainy almost all the time, but we had few moments without it as well and that time we used in the forest, picking blueberries.
We also had a great completely thoroughly rainy horseback riding experience. We contacted Sirpa who keeps a stable in Muhos with adorable Icelandic horses. Either of us had rode Icelandic horses (oh fine, me when I was something like five and barely remember) and it was delightful experince! The new gaits like tölt were really interesting and the trip was awesome. We went one hour (half of it in a pouring rain which wasn't so nice but experience itself) in the middle of nordic forest, galloped and had plenty of fun with tölting. When we arrived back to the stable I had literally about half a liter of rain water in my boots and we were completely wet. Gladly we expected something like that and had something warm and dry to put on ^^.
On Friday, After 8 hours of driving back to Helsinki we were exhausted, but at least bunnies were thrilled to see us. Our dear friends took care of them while we were gone. The idea about relaxing comeback didn't last too long because we had to start to do preparations for Saturdays bunny exhibition in Pyhtää. So when the morning sun started to shine we were already in a car driving to Pyhtää. It took about 1,5 hours to get there but when we were there we were happy that we left because it was great to meet our friends from those circles. We usually don't meet those people outside of the competitions. We didn't have much expectations from our bunnies, but they did very well and received some prices as well. We were so proud!
It's maybe unnecessary to say that we didn't spent that much time with Japanese on a way. While driving we did learn ne vocabulary but kanji studies were left aside. I'm glad to have this day as well as tomorrow completely free to study and take back the lost time. Mikko got accepted to school as well and now we are just waiting for COE for both of us and of course trying to improve with Japanese!
So last Sunday (17.8) we were in the park flea market selling our unnessecary items. The weather had been really unstable for the whole last week so we had our doubts but luckily the day was all sunny and warm. This time we took our small table with us because last time we had problems with arrangin stuff any reasonable way. The day took off really busy and we did a lot of selling. We had some design items with us and we actually got the price from them what we were asking for (which was kind of surprising). After 14pm the groud suddenly vanished and we had some items we very so sure to sell left in our hands. Luckily we can still give them away against couple of cents for our friends. Our total was little bit over 130 euro, we are happy with that!
Last week wasn't really productive when I think about Japanese. I really feel bad for it, but I was terribly tired. Not any new kanji learned, I really struggled with Minna no Nihongo aswell. Sometimes I really doubt can our goals be acchieved but nothing good comes out doubting that. I'm so glad that I have my last holiday week starting from Friday, I really need that!
Tokyo Memory
It was really hot day, last days of July 2012. Our original plan was to take off from our Asakusa hotel and head off to Chiyoda but because we did miscalculation with the trains we eneded up very much more far from the park we than what we planned. I have problems with the sun, have always had and I started to feel it getting me again so we took a fast stop in a Combini, but it already had effected to me too bad. We couldn't continue walking in the sun but didin't know where to go so we just decided to take first stairs down thinking it was a tunnel for subway. It was one of our surprising experiences in Tokyo. We didn't find a subway but an underground shopping center with different small stores almost like a small labyrinth right under the office building area above us. We stopped in a small bakery and had awesome strawberry cake made almost only from whole strawberries and whipped cream. There I also saw first time the luggage bag which later on would be my most expencive purchase from the whole trip (since we ran out of bags in Kyoto ;) ). We were able to stay inside long enough for me to feel better, but it was already too late to continue to Chiyoda so we headed back to Asakusa and spent the evening there. I wish to go see that place again soon!
Yesterday I got accepted to Yoshida Institute in Tokyo and now there isn't much I can do anymore to speed up the events. I received an e-mail from Go!Go!Nihon telling me how the system is going to roll from now on but summarized the application has now been sent to Japanese immigration to be accepted and then they are going to issue a certificate of eligibility (COE) for me. The I am required to pay school fees for 6 months in order to receive the original copy of my COE. When I receive the paper I need to take it to Japanese Embassy here in Finland and they will prior my arrival to Japan and add visa tags to my passport. And all this won't happen before last days of November because the Japanese immigration does the visa results only one month before scheduled landing.
I'm pretty relieved as well as excited that the first part of the paper war has been won now (though to think that we only had to make sure they had all the papers they needed with right kind of translations, it wasn't even a fight, more like a pleasant journey). For few last days all this has become more real and true than it has been ever before. It's also little bit scary and it is almost like you didn't really comprehended what you were going to do before.
Our (hopefully) last second-hand happening is on Sunday and we really hope to get all the extra things out of our hands. There are pretty much things we never expected to sell and let me tell you, if we weren't moving to the other side of the planet, we never would sell those items. But we're lacking storage space and we cannot take everything to be held in our relatives' places. It has probably been the first real growing up experience from this project, to be able to left so many things behind. I haven't even considered before how much unnecessary things we actually keep in our apartments (even though I have moved before and done this in a little bit smaller proportion). Like I thought we don't really have that meny things (and that is actually true to compare to any other normal couple (it's all because of our saving, we haven't had money to buy things! ^^)), but there is still so much to go. Oh well, let's see how the Sunday turns out!
(on the left our adorable Natta when he was only 3 weeks old and on the left all the
8 boxes of flea market stuff we hope to sell on Sunday
Last night Mikko was doing once again checking with the flights and with trying even the most nonsense options like two way flights (so that we won't use the return flight) he found an option we had to consider for a moment. It was a two way straight flights from Finnair lasting the minimum flying time and arriving to the destination daytime. The price was 599 euro for each and to think that last time we flew to Japan it cost me approximately 750 euro (one stop in Heathrow) and for Mikko a little bit over 800 euro with straight flight, so these ones were really cheap. We went over the budget and we never considered flying straight, but when we have compared prices with one way flights and those costs about 550 euro without stopping in Moscow so we did the decision to spoil us now a little bit and we booked straight flights! The take off is now 26th of December and we arrive Japan 27th of December. Yey! I went to sleep feeling like we would be flying next morning! Now we only have to hope all goes fine with the visas. ;)
Today is this week's first free day from the work and I have to say that I feel pretty exhausted. I've been working really hard with the kanji and the Minna no Nihongo books so that this tight schedule could be kept, but I admit that it's not easy. The past week I've tried to study before the work and after work, so to be able to do today just whatever I wanted, study kanji without having to check time all the time and spent some time with the bunnies, it all has been so relaxing (and I bought myself a sunflower (向日葵, Himawari) to keep the good spirit up ^^ )
When I've studied to JLPT tests (first to N5 even though because of work I didn't actually manage to go to the test) I have noticed that there isn't actual official kanji list for the test. I was searching different kind of lists (you can find plenty from different "Study Japanese/Study to JLPT test" pages) when I noticed this book series. So this series seems to be published for JLPT studies in the beginning fo 2012, but I haven't yet had enough time to see how do they ship it to Europe and with how high shipping costs because the book itself isn't that expensive (and for us it's too late). But because of the different resources it is hard to estimate the exact amount of kanji that N4 requires. Oh well luckily our real goal stands further than what any list suggests (500 kanji) so we should be okey!
Cheers and Ganbatte to everyone stuggling with JLPT and kanji aswell! ;)
So at least for a moment, Go!Go!Nihon has now everything they need from me. The documents where the name and personal number were highlighted were success and I managed to take scans from my old passport's pages where I had the tickets from my last visit (even the passport itself is invalid, the pages cut in half and so). So from that side everything looks great now and I hope there won't be any more problems.
I didn't receive an answer about the school fee for 9 months but when I googled by myself I found Yoshida Institutes own page where it was estimated. So now the school fee is also marked up to the monthly budget on the Project data -page. I'm still a little bit worried about the estimations, but at least we aim so much over that there has to be some moving space.
Kayna and Astria
My computer is having it's last moments and I really can't use it more than an hour at the time now. So no matter how much I'm intimidated that I have to put some money to a new one, it really has to be done. The idea about the money in the saving account would feel so much nicer, but luckily I've been working some extra again and saving for a new objective for my camera so saving and buying a computer don't necessarily rule each others out (though the objective must wait now, maybe I buy it from Japan).
I'm seriously worried about the schedule to read the Minna no Nihongo -books. While working full-time there is really many days when I feel way too tired to grab the books and start to study after work or before the shift, but for past few days it has had to be done anyway, no mercy. The greatest feeling is when I really have started to notice that I recognize all the time more kanji-combinations easier and also reading has gotten better, even though I'm still kinda poor at it. Especially katakana has been a struggle for me since you don't face them that often.
And this I must share: I hobby horseback riding with Mikko and we were kinda down when we realized that we can't ride for about one year. I was curious how common is the horseback riding in Tokyos area because last them when we were in Kyoto we actually saw a stand with couple of young citizens trying to get new members for their riding club. Back then we didn't speak Japanese more than just the basic how-to-order-food-from-restaurant kind of things so even when we tried there was no hope getting a riding lesson back then. I was very shocked when during my googling I found out that there is a stable in Yoyogi Park! Like in the most center Tokyo of all places (and only few kilometers from our apartment-to-be). And they actually rent a horse for you for 45 minutes for individual riding. The cost is pretty luxurious (because usually training hour for our in expensive stables in Helsinki costs something like this), 8 000 yen converted to be right now approximately 58 euro. But I think we need to be this crazy and at least try once if it is possible in reality (you can never know if there is some other expences they just don't inform on that page).
Clock is ticking and cause of a morning shift I had to wake up at 5am this morning and now I'm super tired. So I'll just update you really quickly and continue tomorrow with better time (and with not so tired eyes ;) ). Go!Go!Nihon didn't answer to my questions about what I should do with the visa documents they had troubles with, so I decided to try this mad idea I suggested to them and circle up with red liner my name from every and each of the financial documents they asked us to send. Then I sent them again and added the questions about the school fee and the beginning date again, just to be sure to get the answer this time.
Well, this time I received the answer really fast, only in couple of days telling me that everything was good for now and the beginning date of the school is 5th of January 2015. I didn't get clear answer about the school fee so I have to continue whit that... So this "everything is good for now" period lasted only few days when I received a new e-mail with a new problem (seriously I don't get it why they can't list everything once). I had to update my passport and due to that I don't have any tags about my last visit to Japan in 2012 which usually you're supposed to add to the visa application so that they know (this is our civilized guess) that you haven't exceeded the maximum time of the tourist visa (3 months). So now I have replied that the passport is a new one and I'm not so excited to see if they are going to think is as a problem.
But that's all really minor when we compare that we finally got our Japanese books from Minna no Nihongo -serie (books 1 & 2 plus the translation and notes from both) from Japan finally and now we understood that there is basically only 4 months until the JLPT test (1st Sunday of December) what means only 4 months time to read all of these books and complete the kanji amount. So now all the thumbs up, because this timetable is going to get tight! Silver lining of this cloud is that at least the 10 first chapters from the Minna no Nihongo 1 should be just pushover since those are the basics of the basics and something we already know. But yey we actually got the books after almost 2 months waiting and they were actually cheaper than thought! Nights~
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