Question time!

I got over the flue super fast. I guess that was all thanks for sleeping that much. The past few days I have been wondering a lot about Tokyo, maybe because soon it's only 100 days to go. Moving is starting to be very near and the list about things to do gets shorter all the time. I want to make sure I actually write an answer for myself about these questions buzzing in my head so I've decided to list those questions in here and answer to those in Japan, a small ordeal for myself. And I hope these little questions and in future the answer to these help others because I've had some trouble finding answers for some of these :). I'll keep the full list on "Project Data" page.

Here are the first ones what I have been thinking during the ongoing week:
Will my look draw that much attention? (because I didn't pay much notice for that last time)
Do I start to feel it annoying that people don't acknowledge my Japanese language skills?
Will people actually start to acknowledge my skill?
Will I face look-related special treatment or troubles with basics like doing mobile phone contract?
What is going to be the hardest thing to get used to our new life during the first month?
Will I receive negative attention about my weight?

For the last one I can comment a little bit. I'm considered completely normal in Finland and I don't find myself really as "fat", but knowing that in Japan people are in normal scale thinner and the ideals about "being fat" are lower, I'm kind of scared to be thought as a fat person there. For only the trip I have made a decision to lose 3 kilos (to be 60kg), but that doesn't bring me any close for those super thin Japanese people, so I'm a little bit scared. Last time I didn't really face any problems, but I noticed that when I had to pick the size L instead of S in cloth shops, it already in a short period affected my thinking. We will see what happens~

ps. I finally ordered new computer and then I can get rid off this one! Yey!

Shibya (Tokyo), 2012

Mailing

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!

Gion (Kyoto), 2012