Christmas & New Year Back in the UK (Part 1)

Goodness, it's been a while since I've posted here. I had started to write a blog post whilst in the UK, but I was so busy and, to be honest, having far too good a time to really do it properly. Below is what I wrote!

Wow, I'm writing this blog post on my sofa in my front room, there's a log fire burning in front of me, and Come Dine With Me is on the telly! This certainly feels a lot different to how I spent my evenings in Tokyo...

I haven't blogged since the day before I set off to come back home nine days ago, so I'll resume where I stopped last time!

I got up at 5am on Wednesday the 21st, before packing the last couple of things into my suitcase and popping to the Konbini to get a sandwich for breakfast. I left my guesthouse at 5:45 to take the train to Kichijoji, arriving there just after 6, and then getting on my Odakyu bus to take me to Narita airport at half past.

Um, so yeah, shall I continue where I left off? I got to the airport in just over an hour, and went through check-in and security far quicker than I had anticipated, so it turned out I had almost three hours to kill at Narita. It didn't go too slowly though; I just read some more of 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami's latest book) and listened to music on my iPod. At 11:45 we took off and started the twelve-hour flight back to London Heathrow. Unlike the time at the airport, however, this certainly didn't go quickly. I am really, really bad at sleeping on planes; there's not enough leg room at all and I can't curl up in any way. So instead I thought I'd just watch lots of films and hope the time went quickly, but it turned out that JAL has a pretty poor selection...I did watch Mrs Doubtfire though, which I hadn't watched for years! So aside from that I listened to plenty of music, enjoyed the unlimited supply of free lager and eventually got sozzled enough to doze for a couple of hours. 

After what seemed about a week and a half, we landed in London. I was relieved to get off that plane, but I still had plenty of travelling to do. I had to go to a different terminal to get my connecting flight up to Manchester, and for some reason had to go through security twice to get there. Eventually I got through to the waiting lounge, and had to wait three hours to get my next flight. I passed the time by chatting to Ayu and Mum on the phone, and I did a lot of people watching. One thing that really surprised me was how relatively fat British people are compared to the Japanese! I mean I always knew that we have a bit of a national weight problem, but it doesn't startle you until you've lived in a country where a 32 inch waist for men is L size.

Finally, I was able to get on the bmi flight up to Manchester. The plane itself was tiny! The cabin had 18 rows of three seats; one on the left, then the aisle, then two on the right. I was at the very back on the left of the aisle. Now this flight was quick, only about 45 minutes. We landed in a fair bit of turbulence, and then I went to pick up my bags. But the journey still wasn't over! After getting my bag I had to transfer over to the Manchester Airport railway station, and then wait another half an hour to get the Transpennine Express to Leeds. After an hour and a half on that train, I had to leave Leeds Station and get a taxi back to Otley. But then, finally, I was back home!!

I think that's quite enough for now, I hope you can see how exhausting the whole journey was, it's tired me out just writing about it. I'll write about my actual holiday soon :)

James

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 New Start

Well here we are, boys and girls, another corner of the internet which I have now decided to inhabit.

I did have a blog on here (or maybe livejournal, I'm not sure) a few years ago, but I got bored and decided to make my videos on Youtube instead.  However, after realising just how hard it is to make decent, regular Youtube videos (or for that matter, decent Youtube videos at all) I remembered how I would simply pop on here (or livejournal!) of an evening and splurge all of my thoughts out.  I suppose it was theraputic more than anything, and much more appropriate for little updates about my life than watching me mumble in front of a webcam for 5 minutes.

So here's the deal upon which I have decided; I'm going to keep the Youtube channel, but only have it for videos where I'm actually DOING stuff!  Such as my Berlin video, my student residence video, and the ghost stories one.  I'm not going to have any more where I sit talking about "interesting" developments!  They will be left for here!  I'll upload the occasional picture to help illustrate a point as well, you lucky people.

I hope to post these fairly regularly!  I presume that, having come to my page you know me and the fact that at the end of August, less than a month from now, I will be going to Japan to live and study there for a year as part of my German & Japanese degree at the University of Leeds.  I was going to post regular Youtube videos to talk about the sort of stuff I was doing there, but now I reckon it's probably a better idea to do that via this blog instead.  I'll still post videos where I'm out and about though!  And before I go I WILL finish the China video!!

Talking of which, I can't believe it's already been a year since I went to China! I went with my girlfriend Ayu, and stayed in Shanghai and Xi'an at her relatives' houses for a month, and also travelled to Sichuan whilst I was there. My China video will show you a little of how much I enjoyed it!  Whilst I was there I had a little notebook, in which I wrote down some of the sort of stuff I was doing every day, just a few words.  It's been really nice to flick back through it and see what I was doing a year ago to the day!  For example, under the heading of 28th of July 2010 I wrote;

Ill again :(

Ayu etc. did Karaoke

I stayed at home with laptop!

Watched Casino Royale

Ate Hotpot out

Lost Ayu!

I would very much like to go back to China soon :) As I learn how to use Blogspot, I'll add some links and stuff to my Youtube channel and Twitter page, but before then this will have to suffice! Keep checking, I'll add another post soon!

James