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! ;)