Hi again!
It's almost end of the July, the blogs counter shows only 150 (approximately) days untill the take off. The fact behind the approximately is that we actually don't have flights yet. The counter has been settled to the date which would be best for us, 27th of December, but the reality is that we may have to be flexible in order to get the best flights. That has been harder than expected though. Our dates aren't that flexible what we would like them to be. The reasons are pretty simple: we want to spent Christmas holidays (23-25th) with our families because we have to be long time apart from them. We also want to fly before New Year's Eve in order to be able to start arrangements in Tokyo before the beginning of the school. So with those boundaries it actually leaves dates to be only from 26th to 28th of December... Not really flexible?
Other problem is the flying route. I personally would prefer not flying through Russia right now and even if considered the time we have to spend in Moscow's airport is insane in most of the combinations (reaching 30 hours in some cases.). But if you are willing to fly with only one stop during the way (Moscow) through Russia the prices begins from 400 euro (for one way ticket). If you aren't willing to fly with the Moscow stop the prices rises from 550 euro and there will always be more than one stopover. So we're kinda waiting something to happen and trying to hunt a best offer. We've also considered booking two-way flights, but those won't actually come much more cheaper and because we're going to spent so long time there the flying companies can't list us right away flight back (so we would have to purchase a right to change the return date and that costs something like 100-150 euro from different companies but not everyone is offering that deal) So keep the thumbs up for our search!
ps. Have to say I'm pretty proud that I've already achieved 150 kanji limit even though it was originally Augusts goal <3 Hurray!
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| 2012 |
So at least right now one
of the reasons want to flee to Tokyo right now is not the heat. It's boiling
hot in here, in Finland, who would have guessed. Weather is almost reaching the
30 Celsius degrees which is really rare here. Our poor bunnies are all overwhelmed
by the weather and this house holds only fan belongs to them now. Also my old
laptop is experiencing troubles with the weather as well, since it is old and
already little bit broken it really cannot handle the heat and has already
twice emergency shutdown itself in order to prevent overheating. So I'm
basically just waiting when it says "puff" again and I'll lose the
work whichever is open on the screen on the moment.
Go!Go!Nihon finally
answered (yeah it's really once a week if even that fast but who could you
blame when we don't pay them for their services?) but not to the question about
the beginning date of the school. The message can be summarized to this one
sentence: "-- can you please make sure that your name is clearly visible
on the financial documents". Well, I double checked all the documents and
my name stands clearly with big font size in the front page of every document,
sometimes even with the social security number. The problem here is that if it
is official document they want there just isn’t any way to get a paper with
"more clear way for the name to be visible" in these documents,
because these documents are the ones I were given by the bank, by the tax
agency and by my employers accountant.
So I now mailed them back
and asked if they need me to circle the names up for them or something like
that, because these are the documents we need to live with now. I also reminded
them about the school beginning; let's hope that they will answer to that
question now, as well as to the questions about the fees of 9 months studies
which is also still hanging. When we first started to apply through Go!Go!Nihon
I were already aware about the problems we might face with their services
because many other people from other countries have blogged about the same
issues. So it hasn’t really come as a surprise for us and I'm already relieved
that we are not getting an apartment through them since others have had
problems for example with the apartment matching its description. And the other
significant thing is that not everything is told about what you should
actually get yourself ready for. One thing is the Tokyo’s residency card, we
googled about that. But never mind those, it's still awesome that they're able
to do all the paperwork for us and they do it for free. So I warmly do
recommend doing this through Go!Go!Nihon, but only if you're wake enough to
also confirm the information you're given from elsewhere and keep your eyes
open for surprising things!
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| Gion (Kyoto), 2012 |
So time to start the story here in Tokyo Through Blue Eyes. It's 22th of
July 2014 and there is approximately 160 days until the take off. Me and Mikko
have been completing all our documents for our student visas, paid the application
fees for Go!Go!Nihon and now we're just waiting for the results. The school we
picked is called Yoshida Institute located in Waseda, Shinjuku-ku and the
program level we're aiming for is intermediate (starting from N4 level aiming
to N2) which takes 9 months. We already have arranged the apartment for us from
Tokyo, with a bit of luck and out nationality it worked out very easily for us.
We're going to be living in place called Nekotalo (neko = Japanese means cat,
talo = Finnish, means house), which is owned by very friendly Hirasawa-san. The
room itself is small (only 19 m^2), but the rent and reliability as well as the
location in Koenji made us feel strong about our decision. We're looking
forward this so much!
One of our biggest concerns at the moment is, not very surprisingly, money.
Month after month we've been re-calculating our estimation how much it will
cost to live in Tokyo for one month, but it has appeared to be really hard.
We've been in Tokyo only as a tourists before, so it is extremely hard to
figure out how low we can actually go for example with the food cost (because
even eating out was actually pretty cheap and back then yen was really strong against
euro, now we have advantage over that because yen is now weak against euro).
Also estimating the cost of using public transportation and calling by phone
has been almost impossible even with all the googling and research we have
done, so we're estimating it hopefully far too high (100 euro for both in a
month). Mikko actually checked the student fee for public transportation for
our route from home to school and the program estimated it to be from 20-50 euro.
The reason why the range is so wide is that is that the student visa we'll have
will affect the discount and we're not sure how much.
Our goal for the coming 9 months has been 10 000 euro. When you apply a student
visa in Japan for 6 months the government expects to see 1 000 000 yen in your
account as a warranty that you are going to survive with life cost there. We've
applied for that 6 months visa, because there is no 9 months visa and the
warranty amount rises fast to 2 000 000 yen. The 6 months can be extended very
easily so that's why we are depending on it. So our warranty amount, the 1
million yen is right now equivalent to approximately 7 300 euro. We're already
over that and with the way our savings are going now, we're going to easily
pass the 10 000 euro. It's huge relief for me, though I'm still wondering how
our finances and calculations are going to work out.
And then when it comes to this moment, our biggest worry after all is to
complete the N4 level in JLPT test in December. Without any lessons or courses
it has took quite much of a self discipline because the kanji amount is quite a
lot for only half a year. And the fact that we ordered our Minna no Nihongo
-books almost 2 months ago and still haven't received them irritates me since
the time is running all the time.
Oh well, we're still looking forward for it so much and gazing the suitable
flights gets me exited every time! And we're lucky to have awesome parents too
who have promised to back us up if the worst case scenario happens even though
it's really the last option, since we want to do this on our own. (but the idea
about it that this won't be at least ruined by money is pretty comforting)
Happy summer for all!
Yours, Acha
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| Nippori (Tokyo), 2012 |
