Job worries

This week is going to be very intimidating because my work contract ends (determined maternity leave substitutement) after this week's Sunday and due to staff reduction consultation we had earlier on this Summer in my company, my contract can't be continued to the of this year like it was first planned to do. Luckily there is still one good option that might happen. The place where I work can hire season help for the upcoming Christmas, so there might be a chance that I can be hired for that. If that would be the case, then my new work contract would start from 1st of October. There is only one and that is that those season help contracts has to be first offered for those who had been fired due to staff reduction and of course, they might take all the places.

So every day I go to work and I'm terrified to hear my superior to tell me that all the places were taken because for our saving for Japan, that would be a catastrophe. I know that with my attitude I believe I can get some job, but I'm a little bit too honest person. I wouldn't dare to leave out a fact that I can only work for three months and that has already been reason for Mikko not been hired for one company (gladly he got another job with relations). So thumbs up people! ;)

I have also been sick since Saturday and after work I have been mostly sleeping. The pause from the work would do good for my kanji studies and Minna no Nihongo though. And I need to get healthy again, there is so much to do! It's so hard to believe that after this month we already have to cancel our gym memberships (2 months term of notice) and some other contracts as well. Japan is already so close!

 Shibya (Tokyo) 2012 & Asakusa (Tokyo) 2012

Riding Dreams

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).

 

Gion (Kyoto), 2012

Book Delivery

Hi again,

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~

From the Beginning

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

 

Nippori (Tokyo), 2012