First days in Japan

We have been now in Tokyo for 3 days. Our flight arrived to Narita airport 27th of December, half hour late from schedule, but this time it felt tike the whole flight took much less time than before. I even managed to sleep two hours in plane which is pretty spectacular for me since I barely ever am able to sleep in anything which moves.

Tip for people coming to Japan and thinking about money exchange: do it in Japan. We got some money in cash as a christmas present and I'm so glad we didn't rush to change it in Helsinki-Vantaa airport or any other location in Finland. The airport offered a course of 126 yen / 1 euro. In Japan the airport exchange rate was 146 yen / 1 euro. a Huge difference, saved money right there.

(Another tip in finnish, since I know it to work in Finland, but not sure about other countries: Toinen hyvä tapa vaihtaa rahaa todella hyvällä kurssilla (verrattuna Forexiin sun muihin suurempiin valuutan vaihtajiin), varsinkin jos haluaa vaihtaa suuremman summan kerralla, on ottaa suoraan yhteyttä omaan pankkiin. OP:llä, sekä Nordealla on ainakin niin kutsuttu "matkavaluutta" palvelu, jonka avulla voi nettipankissa valita toivomansa määrän vierasta valuuttaa, vaikkapa 100 000 jeniä ja pankki veloittaa suoraan tililtä summan euroina. Nordealla valuutan noutopaikka on oma konttori, OP:llä voi valita oman konttorin tai Helsinki-Vantaan lentokentän noutopisteen välillä. Minimi aika vaihdlle on 24 tuntia ja kurssi on todella paljon parempi verrattuna muihin (itse kun vaihdoin, kurssini oli 143/1, kun Forex olisi tarjonnut samana päivänä 134/1). Siirrosta menee n. 10 euron verran palvelumaksua riippuen summasta.)

We didn't hurry too much out from the plane and were lucky enough to walk right to the passport check in. That was were the fun begun. We first tried to ask from an airport employee who directed the passanger traffic, where to excatly go when we didn't want to register as tourists, but to get the Residence Card. She didn't know right away, but put us side from the line and after a moment ordered us back to the same line with others. After walking about 20 meters in a line, another emplyee comes and asks "how long time". We response "one year" as it stands in our visas. The employee tells us to wait again side from the line and goes to another female employee. She asks her "doosuru" (japanese meaning "what do i do") so that even we can hear. After a moment of husstle, showing our passport, COE and visa tags for multiple people (for some people twice) we were guided to a line which said "recidence card". I couldn't help but to think why was it so hard in the first place.

It took only few minutes and it was my turn to go to a register. A female employee took my papers and with few word instuctions told me to watch to the camera and give the finger prints. All that went in a pretty same way as it goes when you come as a tourist. Then she kindly told me to wait for a little longer and soon my Recidence Card was printed out. I'm glad they used the same picture as in COE, becouse I for sure didn't look very sharp that moment after the flight. I moved along and it was Mikko's turn.

Our luggage were already took off from the luggage line, since it obviously took much more longer time from us to get though all the paper work. Everything was here and undamaged. The person in Customs seemed as surprised as the employees before when told that we were staying for a one year. I'm starting to wonder if it really isn't that common as I though it was?

We choose the JR Keisei-line as our transportation to Nippori, becouse Skyliner had just left 5 minutes ago and the next one would go after an hour. It was really nostalgic to arrive to Nippori. It was the first station I arrived when I first came to Japan and it looked still excatly same. Our journey continued with Yamanote-line to Shinjuku and from there by Chuo-line to Koenji before reaching our destination.

Koenji is amazing. I promise to load up photos very soon! Nekotalo is amazing too. The room was really much bigger than what we had expected and also warmer. Our landlord was there to show all the manners and machinery from our apartment and then we singed the contracts. Water, electricity and gas bills would come separetly from the rent so we also made contracts for those. I wait anxiously how we are going to sort those down for the first time ^^.

Exhousted we were. And quite frankly I haven't really got over with the jet lag yet and experience a lot off tiredness, nausea and dizziness even after these few days. I'm so glad we came here so early, it would have been pitty to go to school feeling like this! Well, jet lag like this usually goes way in 3 to 5 days, so keep thumbs up for me.

Mata ne!

ps. We found out that the City Hall is not open from 29th of December to 4th of January becouse of long New Year holidays. So we can't go to register our Residence Cards or get the health insurance. For anyone doing this, a small tip, estimate the days so that the office is actually open, becouse we will be in a quite hurry when it opens ;) (RC has to be registered in two weeks from landing)

Fuji-san

6 days

I'm terribly sorry about not posting anything for nearly two months, but here we can go on again. I was awfully clumsy and poured some water on my computer nearly 6 weeks ago and well, this was the time they took in Germany to fix this thing. I was really lucky to react super fast and flip my laptop around, so basically nothing vital or expencive went broken. Instead I had just really long waiting time and 6 weeks without computer on top of that.

It is 6 days now untill the take off. My emotions are suffeling from super excited, happy and overwhelmed to anxious, nervous and "not wanting to go". I still remember the ordeals you face when moving to new country from the time I moved to Sweden and yeah, not all those experiences I wait really keenly. But going we are and in the middle of all this packing and last time shopping and husttling, I try to also find a moment for my self just to relax. I now try to tell thrpough the changes that has been happening during the past two months.

Go Go Nihon! and COE

After the last message I blogged about, we went again many weeks without hearing nothing untill it came. The copy of my Certificate of Eligibility (COE) which would grant me permission to apply visa. I received the COE copy in e-mail with working permit papers and with the school bill for the first 6 months. When I paid away the bill, they shipped out the real COE by air mail. It took couple of days the papers to reach us but it was super fast when compared to some shippings from Japan to Finland. The ackward part was a little mistake from GoGoNihon's side, they sent wrong persons COE copy for Mikko. We don't know how they made the mistake, but gladly it got fixed really quick and our real COE's were sent out together (as we have the same address). But it sure was odd for a second.

Yoshida Institute

With the real version of our COE there was also other papers about our new school, Yoshida Insitute. The school had attached really nice info booklet and also a map how to get to school. With the papers there were also our school's pincipals personal info, what we needed to fill in our visa applications in Embassy.

Visa pending and Embassy

To apply student visa to Japan from Finland, you need one passport photo, 23,5 euro in cash (has to be the exact amount), your real COE and of course a passport. The Embassy of Japan is a small place with quiet athmosphere. You will fill in your personal info when entering the Embassy and after that you can continue to do your business with the counselor. We received a visa application form and started filling it out. I was glad that I had checked out multiple small info beforehand becouse the form includes for example questions like "your becoming address in Japan", "the landlords personal info" and if you had visited Japan before you have to be able to write down the dates of the trip.

There was quite amount of hussle in the Embassy when we left our applications, so the counselor suggested that I would come to pick up our visas next day and so happened. All went really smoothly, they called be around midday to tell the best time to visit so that I would not have to wait for long and it was really empty at that time. I dealt with a very nice gentleman, who went all the papers through with my one by one. I have heard before that people have had problems with GoGoNihon for not telling them for example about residence card, but I feel it kind of odd that their embassy haven't took care of that becouse we sure got very straight and clear instuctions what to do from the moment we would leave Finland, all the way to our new home address in Finland. I was wished happy year in Japan when I left.

Savings

It all turned out better than I ever expected. My last salary will come in January so it basically comes tax free and it is all extra for the budget. We made the last calculations about the monthly expected budget and I have to say that this care free I haven't been for years. We honestly don't really have to worry about money much as long as we won't go completely overboard with shopping. It is an awesome feeling, maybe a little bit hard to decribe, but when you have been living about two years thinking every euro you use, how could you pinch in more cents... Yeah, it is awesome feeling to think that I will finally be able to think something else than "can I afford to do this", I can just do it. It has been so much swet and tears on a way, but I really believe it will be worth it. I already couple of weeks ago went to a bank and changed some euro to yen because we are expecting the first month to go pretty much with cash since opening the bank account takes some time.

Moving

Like told before, we have been selling our things in flea markets and already collecting things together since summer, but this November and December, now we are talking about some insane months. We have gone through all our things. I have given to charity over 10 bags of clothing and shoes, some furniture went for free to people moving to their first homes. It is actually pretty hard to get rid off stuff. Really, believe me... It is so time consuming and same time really hard. We luckily have relatives who can take some of our belongings so we didn't have to rent any sort of storage. Now we have basically only boxes left, all the furniture taken away except the bed we struggle to give away (nobody wants it...). And piano, we still have the piano becouse I insisted to keep it as long as possible since we can't take it with us, surprise surprise! Tomorrow is the day we have plannes to have the apartment empty and be able to clean it from the floor to the ceiling. Only minus is that I'll be working last day tomorrow and it's a lot in Mikko's hands to get this thing finished. In our plans we won't return here after tomorrow and so we can spend the holidays with our families without any moving stress.

I would like to write more, but more comes later, sorry for all the mistakes in my english, this is one fastly done post! ;)