Japanese Student Visa Application

I have applied for my Japanese visa!  It’s scary how I can tick off all these little things on my mental checklist before Japan, and each one brings me a bit closer to going.  Leave my job. Check. Apply for visa. Check.  Next on the list is to apply for my Takase Scholarship!  But anyway, I’m just a few lines in and already digressing, so let’s get back on topic; my visa application!

So to apply for a Japanese Student Visa, you will need the following;

·      A Visa Application Form (available online or at the embassy)

·      Certificate of Eligibility (authorised after passing the required modules at your home university, then issued directly by the Japanese government)

·      Letter of Acceptance from the Japanese university to which you applied

·      Photocopies of the Certificate of Eligibility and Letter of Acceptance

·      Passport

·      One Passport Photo

·      £43 (cash only)

Besides those I also took a pre-paid, self-addressed special delivery envelope so that they could post it back to me.  You can either go back to the embassy in person to pick it up, or do what I did if you live too far away from London to do that.  You get to the embassy, and after an airport-style security check (including showing them your passport) at the front door, you go through into a waiting area, and take a ticket with a number on it.  You wait for your number to come up on the screen, and then go to the specified counter where someone checks that everything’s in order and takes payment.  Very easy!  I applied on Tuesday, and it should all be processed by Friday, and sent out the same day, so I should receive it on Saturday morning! 

So I took the 9:45 train from Leeds to London Kings Cross, which arrived just before 12 o’clock.  In the station I then bought a day ticket for the zones 1 & 2 of the underground, before going a few stops on the Piccadilly line to Green Park.  From Green Park station it’s just a two-minute walk down to the Japanese Embassy.  From the front of the building hangs a big Japanese flag, which was quite useful considering I don’t know my way around London!  I could see the flag from the station!  I forgot to take a photo outside the embassy, so here’s one of Natasha Clancey there a few days ago ;) Oh, and yes, she really did wear a Hooters top to a serious government institution.

I happened to bump into Leeds students Amanda Brown and Paul Farquharson whilst I was in the embassy; I was wondering whether anyone I knew would happen to be there at the same time as me!

After all that I met up with Joe Holloway, who I’ve only seen a couple of times since we both left school (we both went to Bradford Grammar).  Despite some confusion as to which station we were meeting in, we eventually met up outside Charing Cross, near Trafalgar Square.  We walked up to Covent Garden for a spot of lunch, as Joe knew of a chain of restaurants called Fire & Stone.  Apparently it’s a southern chain, which specialises in pizzas with unusual toppings from around the world.  Have a look at the menu on their website here.  I had the ‘Lombok’ – seriously tasty!  And only £4.95 at lunchtime!  I'd never have thought hoi sin sauce would go with a pizza- but it did!  I guess it’s because there was no tomato sauce on the pizza base or something.  Joe had the ‘Marrakech’, which he clearly enjoyed;

After lunch we got the tube up to Camden.  The canal was, um, green.

Camden’s not as good as I remember if I’m honest :( I suppose it would still be good at night and not during the summer holidays, but it was just absolutely packed full of loud American tourists, bratty kids and tacky tat!  It had a few pretty bits still, however! It was about 28 degrees and humid by this time, and we were preeeetty toasty, so we decided to go and sit by the canal.

We then went to Cyberdog, which was interesting…I headed downstairs and was freaked out (those of you who know the place will sympathise, anyone else should look at their website).  Let’s just say, I got a chance to practice my Japanese reading with some of the products for sale downstairs.

After wondering round Camden for a bit, Joe had to go for an interview at Embankment, and I had to get back to Kings Cross, so after going to Covent Garden again for a while, we both walked our separate ways; Joe on to Embankment, and I walked back to Charing Cross to have another look at a statue of Oscar Wilde which had tickled me that morning.

After gradually getting hotter and hotter walking around London all day, it was nice to get back on the air conditioned train back to Leeds, which arrived (slightly late) back at 9:35. 

So there’s the story of my trip to London to get a visa!  Hopefully it was of some help if you are going to Japan and haven’t yet got your visa…it was a simple procedure, apart from having to get to the other end of the country that is!

In other news, I’ve done some more on the side bar of my blog; I’ve added links to the blogs of other people from the University of Leeds who will be in Japan at the same time as me, as well as the links of some good websites relating to my blog and Japan!  Oh, and have a look at the map I’ve got!  It’s been exiting (sad, I know) seeing how many people from all over the world have been visiting my blog!  Any flashing stars on the map are users viewing my blog at the moment.  Also, it’s now even easier to follow my blog (heh)!  I’d really appreciate it if you’d follow me, which you can do by clicking the ‘Join this site’ tab on the right side bar.  You can do it not only with a Blogger account, but with a standard Google one, as well as a few others.

That’s all for now, please stay tuned! 

James

A Bit of a Catch Up

Hello again!  So here’s a quick round up of the stuff that’s happened since I made my last Youtube video.  To be perfectly honest I’m quite relieved I don’t have to catch up on all those videos I haven’t done yet any more as I can just write everything on here! Apart from the China one – gaah!

I finished my first year at university!  I can’t believe how quickly it went, either!  It’s going to be sad not being able to see all the people I got to know during the year, especially those off my course and those with whom I lived for the year.  Luckily I’m going to be at university in Japan next year with Green-san, Becci and Sally, as well as the Japanese friends I made whilst they were in Britain last year, so it’s not like I’m going off on my own :)  I’m flying from Manchester to Tokyo with Ash too, so that’ll be good.  We’re both taking our PSPs and Tekken so we can spend the whole flight fighting like the cool kids we are!

During the last term of the year we obviously had exams, which were scary!  But in the end I got enough revision done and was quite pleased with my results, especially in my core subjects.  I got 1sts in Basic Japanese Language 1 and Core German, and 2.1s in Basic Japanese Language 2 and Chinese.  There was a little moment of panic after my BJL2 oral exam, because I didn’t think I’d done particularly well, and in order to go to Japan we pretty much had to have at least a 2.2 to go without any complications.   But in the end it turned out I’d done well enough, so a couple of days after getting results I went down to STA Travel with Ash to book our first tickets.  I got a single from Manchester to Tokyo Narita, via Abu Dhabi for £363 with Etihad.  I didn’t get a return, as I still don’t know when exactly I’d be returning to the UK.  I just hope they let me into Japan on a one-way ticket!!

I suppose the worst part of finishing my first year at university was moving out of my house.  I really liked my room, and the people I was living with, and just everything about it really!  Well, I suppose if you’re being picky it could have been a liiiittle bit closer to the university, but I was fine with the twenty minute walk in the morning – it gave me valuable time alone with my iPod!  Seeing as I just worked out how to embed Youtube videos into these blogs, I might as well post my January video about my residence!

I really liked that house – look at the size of my room!  Lots of the rooms at that house were that size, and it only cost about £3400 for the entire year, self catered.  My room felt empty once I’d moved out!  Even emptier than when I first saw it, strangely enough.  I got this video on my phone the day I moved out;

I finished my exams on the 1^st of June, and had a little end of exams BBQ a few days after, which was nice. I didn’t really have any plans between then and going to Turkey with Ayu and a couple of friends at the end of June, so I just split my time between my home in Otley, and my student house in Hyde Park.  It’s only a 25 minute drive, which makes it easy enough to spend a lot of time at both.  Other than that I did some extra shifts at work, so that I’d have some more money for summer.  I couldn’t see Ayu until she’d finished her exams on the 27^th of June, so I had nothing better to do!  I went for Turkey for a week, and it only cost £145 for flights, transfers and an apartment for a week!  I was very impressed!  We were in Side, a lovely old historical town full of ancient architecture and ruins.

After that I had about ten days back in Otley, most of which I spent seeing Ayu and doing more shifts at Rhythm & Booze (yes that’s the ACTUAL name of the shop in which I work), before going to our holiday home in Robin Hood’s Bay, near Whitby, with my parents and Ayu for a week, for my dad’s 50^th birthday.

That was really nice as well, but the weather was a bit dull for a few of the days.  It’s sad thinking it’s the last time I’ll get to go to Robin Hood’s Bay for over a year :(

Anyways, I’m tired of writing for the time being, so this will have to be enough for this post!  Tune in tomorrow where I’ll excitedly tell you about my new DS and moan about the Royal Mail sorting office at Sheepscar and a woman on eBay. 

I bet you’re wetting yourselves in anticipation.

James