Welcome to School!

For all of you thinking to apply to a language school in Japan, I warmly recommend reading this no matter where you are coming from. For everyone else, sorry, this is probably very boring post. ^^

My school started Monday 5th of January 10am. We were handed a personal information form to fill in with a number in a corner. I was number 6. a Teacher guided us to a classroom where we were able to sit wherever we pleased. After a moment the teachers started calling out numbers starting from one taking two people at the time. Most of the students hadn't even arrived yet. I was called out pretty soon and it happened to be the interview test part. Of course I knew the interview would be held in some point, but it really came surprisingly fast. I went completely locked and when the interviewer spoke only japanese I jammed completely. My name? What was it again...? It went badly, but I wasn't luckily the only one.

The seriously surprising part were the classes. This is the part I want really to all of you applying to study to take a good look at, because this is where I was most surprised. I originally made my plans in order to apply to intermediate class in Yoshida Institute. In class levels that would have been the class D (starting class is A). So when we originally had checked the levels and books, we should have been able to go to D class. Maybe with few kanji less than them, but otherwice. Now to the truth. It doesn't go like that. The courses are much harder than what it seems in the paper.

We made an entrance test after the teachers had explained the rules of the school. Teachers had decided a test for you by the interview and what you had told them (how many kanji, how many years, how many books...). I was able to do the B-C test. Aaand it happened to be pretty tough one. We had one hour time and the test was 6 A3 pages long, I barely made it till the end. So be very realistic when setting your goals and understand that the language schools here gets after a some point very surprisingly hard (Basically in the swich between beginner and intermediate, intermediate students are already super talented). After the first shock I'm verry happy with my class.

My result was in between so I was able to decide if I wanted to go to A or to B class. I decided to pick out the B, but there is a condition to success well in the first grammary test held approximately 2 weeks after study begins. If you don't they will move you to A class no matter what. The school also has an ability to deport you from the country if they feel that you are not suitable to study Japanese. Of course that is a supreme matter and that would mean that if you cannot learn even hiragana and katakana in certain time (it was a quite long time tough, months or so), that would happen. (The school also tells that they will call to our parents if our attendance rate is falling, which is quite hilarious from a Scandinavian point of view.)

Also the Go!Go!Nihon doesn't really take any part for the course picking. The school didn't really relay on any information we had last year given to Go!Go!Nihon and it didn't affect on our entrance exams in any way. So I could have been telling to Go!Go!Nihon that I'm advanced leveller and it wouldn't really had made any difference. So don't take any pressure about the level you pick for them.

We started from the Minna no Nihongo book 1, chapter 20 in the B class. The speed is really nice, I really like the teachers. They only speak Japanese in the lessons and we have at least half of the 3 hours we sit in class speaking with each other and for the whole class. We study only 4 kanji in a day (with kanji I'm very much ahead, but it's nice to review these). Our class is pretty big compared to others, we have 22 students. About 1/5 is swedish, 3/5 from another Asian countries 1/5 is other European or USA/Canadian. I really like our class, people are really nice there! And so many languages are spoken there aside Japanese.

Oh and rules are pretty strict in here. Two times 15 minutes late is same as not showing up at all once. And for every time you're not showing up, you loose 3% (or more possibly if it happens all the time, I'm not really sure about this) from your finale course score. The score is build up from attendance, tests in a mid-way and home work = 300 points. And with the final exam total 300 points. So the complete total is 600 points. You have to score over 60% to be able to make it to next level. And if you wish to continue your visa (in order to continu studying here), your attendance rate has to be over 80% (so if it lows 3% everytime you're gone, count from that). And if you wish to continue to a "real" higher educational school, the attendance rate has to be over 90%. However, if you have influenza and paper from a doctor for it, it doesn't affect your attendance rate.

Our school is really lively and it is really easy to chat with other students from other classes too. I have already made friends with some people. Classes from A to C all study from 13:20 to 16:40 so it's pretty easy to meet people from levels close to yours. (D to advanced are studying at morning from 8am)

Here is some pictures from the park close to our school
and from Takadanobaba, where our school is.

Mata ne~

Plenty of People!

Right now there is so much people on the move in Tokyo. Here is always people, more people than anywhere else I've been before, but now during these New Year holidays the thing has gone crazy! Yesterday we visited Harajuku, cloth shopping in mind. It was our escape plan, becouse day before yesterday we wen't back to Shibuya in order to do this cloth shopping and well, we didn't survive for long. ^^ It might be a finn thing and we sertainly didn't pick an easy target. 

We went to Shibuya 109, the famous department store in the middle of Shibuya. It was the first day of the sales (lasting 7 days). Oh dear the noise and the people! The music is at least at loud as it is in clubs in Finland and every salesperson there is screaming offers to a megaphone, trying to outshout the shop next door. We lasted there maybe... 20 minutes. After that I felt a little bit dizzy but fresh air helped a lot. We tried again in Shibuya 109 Men's section, other side of the street. It was disappointingly small when compared to women's section (we haven't been in men's before), but also very much more less people though the sellers shouting was still the same. We also went to BIC Camera once again and Mikko bought a rice cooker. Rest of the day we spent in Tokyu Hands, an all inclusive Do-It-Yourself store consturcted from 6 floors, but plenty of different levels, since all floors have A, B and C level inside of them. Place was like a simple maze. I found a cute bag from there, couldn't help but to buy it, since it was a bunny. ^^

Back to the yesterday. Harajuku, never seen it so packed. Every street was packed. Every corner, every staircase, station and shop was packed. It was like Shibuya 109 street version. Though there it was actually fun and not so intimidating. We suffeled through the shops we knew from the last time, including Ehkä Söpö (eng. maybe cute), a clothing store carrying finnish name, but selling nothing related to Finland. I found a lovely scarf from there. After following the mass of people (you actually can't really unfollow the mass) from store to store without finding anything we arrived to Momo by Wonder Rocket. There I found three skirts and got a 10% discount from those even they were normal priced items becouse of the New Year's holidays.

We ate from a small street kitchen, something what I don't even now know what it was. It seemed combination of hamburger bread, eggs, onions and seafood, covered with little bit sweet and spicy sauce, accompanied with dried squid if I wasn't mistaken of the taste. All for 200 yen (something like... 1,80 euro), expecially cheap and tasted good. the Sun had already setted when we headed back home. (After eating in that nice small local restaurant, the chefs always wave at us when we pass the restaurant ^^)

Mata ne!
Here pictures from Harajuku and Shibuya :3

Harajuku

Fukubukuro lucky bags :3

Harajuku Station

Our weird lunch snack ;)

Shibuya

Happy New Year!

The New Year passed and I have to say that we spent it with a way never before: eating at home some delicious takoyaki and japanese pastry and going sleeping early. When fetching our takoyaki from the small shop close to station we found a small stationary supply store. It was really so tiny that I thought that if I would breath between the shells everything would fall apart. It was full of beautiful letter-papers, stickers and well, all you could imagine not finding from a book store in Finland (since they think that no-one is writing letters anymore). At night we were happy that we stayd, not only becouse of tiredness, but it felt like the whole houses roof was going to be ripped off by terrible wind. Mikko was telling that he think he felt an earthquake, but I was in heavy sleep back then.

Today was the first day without jet lag symptoms and we took best out from it. After slow morning we headed to Shinjuku to see which stores would be open. All the guides and web sites had been screaming that 1st and maybe also 2nd of January everything would be closed in Japan. Well, I can tell you that that is one irrelevant warning in Tokyo. I have to admit that alright, there was many shops closed, but all the biggest ones were open starting their New Year's sales.

In many stores we saw bags, sealed big bags with price tag on them. There was usually one person selling those bags and meny people buying them. I found out little bit later what those were: "Fukubukuro", New Year's lucky bags. The stores would collect some last years items to sell them heavily discounted, but it is all about luck, since you cannot know what you are going to get. We didn't buy any (yet), but maybe some candy or spa store would be worth trying?

From BIC Camera's sales I found a new objective for my camera. The one I had been looking for, but only 250 euro cheaper than what it usually costs in Finland. I'm so glad I didn't buy it from there, even it was there 100 euro in discount. Still saved 150 euro! Have to say that the prices with camera accessory begin way much lower than in Finland, I recommend buying here if visiting!

We also made a visit in Shibuya. The place was full of people, but you could tell that most of them were tourists becouse of the maps and photographing. We found a nice home life style store called FrancFranc where we made some purchases to make it feel more like home in Nekotalo (like big new towels and a loudry bag (so cute!)). I wish I could live in Japan little bit longer only to be able to decorate my apartment with all the things you can find from Japan. Or maybe I will just make one damn expencive decoration for an partment in Finland by flying all the things from here to there!

The last and one of the best part of the day was our local restaurant. Okey, you can hardly say it like that because close to us here in Koenji is dozens of small restaurants. And when I say small, it's not that kind of small you get used in Europe. It is one to four seats small, tiny corner and street kitchens, where chatting with the chef will become unavoidable. This one restaurant we sat into was little bit bigger, maybe 15 seats, all menu in japanese and the staff was lively but spoke only japanese. We managed with our skills and the chef was really nice. Because we couldn't tell hat we wanted from the list, he made a proposal to cook something from the menu for us after asking if there was something we really didn't like. The food was amazing and even for the athmosphere I would already like to go back (I hope after a few visits I could take a picture for you without bothering them!).

Mata ne!
Here is some pictures around Koenji and Shinjuku for you :)

Koenji

 

Shinjuku

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! ;)