A Brief Moment of Panic

As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought a one-way ticket from Manchester to Tokyo for the 27th of August, as I didn't know exactly when I'd be returning to Blighty.  I decided that I'd see how my plans work out once I'm there, and then choose a date on which to leave.  After reading on the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office website that any entrants to Japan must have a valid passport and an onward/return ticket, I decided to give the Japanese Embassy in London a ring, as quite a few people from the University of Leeds have got single tickets, rather than return ones.

After being transferred to a person, rather than a machine, to talk to, I was initially startled by a greeting of  もしもし (yes, I was startled to be spoken to in Japanese when phoning the Japanese Embassy).  After a second or two (or three) of awkward silence and a mumbling of "英語で話してもいいですか" on my part, we were good to go!

I explained my one-way ticket situation to the lady, who then said that she wasn't sure, but that I probably wouldn't be able to enter Japan on a one-way ticket.  She then went on to tell me that she was from the cultural department of the embassy, hence the uncertainty, and that she would transfer me to someone from the diplomatic side, who would be able to inform me for sure.

As the phone went quiet, I was nervous, but remained hopeful that she would be mistaken.  Someone from the diplomatic side then picked up the phone (greeting me with a 'hello' this time), before telling me in no uncertain terms that "they won't let you into the country".  

I was very worried at this point!  I would have to get another ticket, or change my ticket, and I don't really have enough in the bank at the moment to do that.  After getting him to repeat the fact that I wouldn't be let in about twelve times out of disbelief, I then gasped "even with a student visa?!", to which he responded, "oh, yeah that'd be fine on a single."  It turns out his colleague hadn't explained that I was going as a student, so he just thought I was going as a tourist for a couple of weeks or something. 

As tourists staying for up to three months don't need a visa or guarantor to visit Japan, they instead need a return ticket.  Fair enough really.  Turning up in a country with no real reason to be there except for 'sight-seeing', and no ticket to leave the country, does smell a little bit like illegal immigration.  I think the UK has something similar in place, too.

Anyway, that's today's drama over with, and hopefully I won't have any other problems before I go to Japan!  Or whilst I'm in Japan, for that matter.

James

My Visa has Arrived!

My visa has arrived!  It came yesterday morning via special delivery, and as I slept blissfully unaware, mum was chasing the postman down the street to try and stop him from walking away with my passport after nobody heard the door go.  The dog ran away too, but that’s irrelevant.

One strange thing about my visa is that it says it’s valid for 15 months, from 3^rd August 2011, until 3^rd August 2012.  I don’t know about you, but I see that as being 12 months, not 15.  Perhaps someone could fill me in on what I’m missing there?

Anyhow the important fact is that I can now enter Japan!  I have my ticket, I have my visa, so I could go now if I wanted to!  Although obviously I have plenty of stuff I still need to do here first!  Eeks I go in less than 3 weeks!  I need to finish my Takase scholarship application (which Morimoto-sensei has translated for me), buy a new suitcase, and pack everything!  Plus there lots of little things I still need to get, but that’s a bit boring to talk about.

Talking of suitcases though, does anyone know whereabouts I can get decent quality ones around Leeds?  I need a nice, big one, but it needs to be as light as possible as I only have a 23kg baggage allowance with Etihad.  I had a look around Otley and Guiseley yesterday, but the bags all felt a bit flimsy, and I need a sturdy one!

I think that’s all to talk about for today!  From tomorrow I’m going to be doing a lot more Japanese revision!  At ICU there’s a placement test at the start of September, and your performance in that dictates which level of Japanese you go into.  Apparently Leeds students generally go into level 3, and I’d be happy with that!  There are 6 levels, and if I don’t do well enough it’s possible that I’d go into level 1 and learn Japanese from scratch again!  But obviously that’s very unlikely indeed!

James

Financial Situation & Takase Scholarship

Today I write to you about the one thing which stops people from enjoying themselves in life, albeit in a rather paradoxical way; money.  The problem is that I don’t have very much of it, which is quite a concern when I’m living in Tokyo.  My money situation for my year abroad is as follows;

The (repayable!) student loan I’ll get is £4244, which at current exchange rates just covers the various things associated with my accommodation; the deposit, monthly rent, utilities, and bedding rental.  After paying for all that with my student loan, I’ll have £26 left over.  Not good when you consider that the transfer from the airport to the guesthouse on the first day costs £25.

Besides my student loan, I have about £2000 of my own, in savings and left over wages from Rhythm & Booze, and that’s it!  I’m there for 10 months, so I somehow doubt that £50/week will be enough to survive off. Other than the basic every day survival-type things, there are of course all the other things I need to shell out for when I first get there, such as the compulsory Japanese National Heath Insurance (国民健康保険, or kokumin kenkou hoken), Certificates of Registration, a bicycle, and all that sort of thing. 

Well, the solution is obvious, you may be thinking; get a job!  But it is not so simple!  To work in Japan on a student visa you need a work permit.  As it’s in conjunction with said student visa, you have to go through the university to apply for it.  But the catch is that my university won’t let you apply for one for a few months, to let you ‘settle in’ and to stop you from becoming too overwhelmed by the amount of things you take on. All I want is a few hours a week doing some English conversation!  Apparently you can earn about £20 an hour just chatting in English!  Obviously I’d put preparation in, but it does sound like a quite a good deal.  Oh, and apparently British English is the new cool thing to learn in Japan, not the American English that everyone was brought up with…I’m not going to complain about that!  I guess I'll just have to wait and see how the whole thing plays out.

But there is still one other avenue to explore!  I got an email a week or so ago telling me that ICU had nominated me for a scholarship from the Takase Scholarship Foundation.  They only award it to 20 people each year, but those who get it receive ¥100,000 (£770) every month from October until June!  Obviously this would be an unimaginable help, so I really, really hope I get it.  I’ve written the required 500-word essay for it, which I’ve sent to one of my Japanese tutors to translate, and now all I need to do is fill in the associated forms.  I’ll find out whether I’ve got the scholarship or not in late September or early October, and I’ll definitely dedicate a post to that result on here!

That’s all for now! Oh, and sorry for the lack of pictures in this blog, I hope you made it to the end without getting bored! 

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