Visa Received

I finally received my visa in the mail today. It's been a long process. My visa is only good for one year since this is the first time that my company has applied to bring a foreign worker to Japan. This is still good though. I'm really glad that this has been taken care of. I'm now permitted to start looking at apartments, so this is a huge relief.

I'm spending my last few days here spending time with family and getting some last minute items while I pack up everything else. It's good. I'm glad I can relax a bit.

I leave for Japan on Monday, arrive on Tuesday.

Preparations

I'm preparing yet again to depart for Japan. This time is a little different though.

As you may have noticed, the blog title and layout have changed. Since this blog is now going on two years, I felt like it was time for a change. I felt this way looked much sleeker and was easier to read.

I am returning to Japan this time for work. Although there may be a few posts about work in general, specifics about the company and work will not be disclosed. This is out of respect for the company's and my privacy as well. This blog is intended to just be a slice-of-life for my readers.

That brings us to what am I doing now?

I have not yet left for my position. As of right now, I am waiting on my visa. The visa process in Japan is not standardized, which means applicants have to apply four or five times before all of the paperwork is accepted. The company/university/etc. has to apply on the person's behalf. This organization then works with the Japanese government to try to get a Certificate of Eligibility, which allows the recipient to apply for a visa at their local embassy. Without a visa, the applicant cannot rent an apartment, get a phone, qualify for health care, get the equivalent of a "Green Card," or any other number of things. I am currently waiting on my Certificate.

Filling out all of the paperwork to get the Certificate takes around 3-4 months if everything goes smoothly. Receiving the visa from the embassy takes between 3 business days to 1 week.

If all goes well, I will leave in roughly a week.

A Mummy and Lots of Missing People

5 days until my departure to Japan. Sweetness.

Well, winter clothes are packed in a box. I'm allowed to send one in advance. And I bought a slightly larger suitcase to pack everything else, so I think I'm set. The only thing that I don't have in yet is those new glasses that I ordered. I'm really hoping those come in soon.

My new yen is in too by the way, which is good because now I'll be able to afford things like books and a bike and other spiffiness. What is not spiffy is the current exchange rate. 85 yen to the dollar. Rough. Come on US! Let's get the dollar stronger because perhaps I'm a little selfish and I'd like to have a good exchange rate. ;)

I'm beginning to realize how boring this flight is going to be. I think I'll have to make friends with whatever person is sitting next to me.

In other news, I'm not sure how much everyone is currently keeping up with the Japanese news, but there's been a lot of talk about ridiculously elderly people receiving money. Now, don't misunderstand. I'm a fan of the elderly. They tell those awesome "When I was your age" stories. They're great. Anyway, back to the point. We all know about pensions. In Japan, it's been taken to the extreme lately. Family members have been hiding the truth about their elderly members' status. People who should within all rights be dead are still receiving pensions. We're talking about people who are 124 years old here. Considering this is physically impossible, I think we can call this a little absurd. This all started when government officials discovered the mummified body of an individual who had been receiving pensions for years - 30 years to be exact. The family members had left the person in the bed, and had been instructed not to enter the room for any reason. Now, without food and water, any person is going to pass. I don't care who you are. The stories have been ridiculous and the situation is a mess. The Japanese are extremely proud of their elderly population and to suddenly lose all of these centenarians is a shame. Japanese officials are now looking at everyone 100+ and trying to figure out their status. You may be asking, "How on earth did they not notice? 124 is pretty dang old." Yes it is. Well, to answer you're little question, let's look at it this way.

An official shows up at your house and asks to see your 100 year old grandmother. Grandma doesn't like to be disturbed, right? She's 100. Honestly, when you near triple digits, you sort of get the right not to be bothered for trivial little things like an official visiting the door to see if you're alive or not. So, you tell the official, "Grandma's taking a nap in the other room. I promise she's doing great, but can we please not wake her up?" That seems polite enough. So the official leaves. Great. But how do you do this for years? Well, there's a simple enough explanation for that too. When the official comes again, you just mention that grandma went to visit other relatives. If it's out of of the province, the official can't really go to the next one to check on grandma. It's out of his jurisdiction. And this is exactly what has been happening. Birthdays have just been tallied up and no one has really looked at them until they found the mummified body of that one individual. When they went out searching for what they thought was the oldest woman, 113 years old, they found that her address had been turned into a park quite a while ago. Now, Japan is desperately trying to save face and to find these missing people, but it doesn't look good. There's some serious pension fraud going on here, and we'll see how it plays out. Here are a few links if you're still interested:

When Scores of Centenarians Fall Off Radar

Adachi Mummy's Kin Arrested

Elderly Living Alone

Cities Scrambling to Find Centenarians

Till next week!

Michelle

All Ready!

Wow, almost didn't keep my promise to you all, but you know what? It's still Saturday for me, so I'm safe. :) I'll still get in a post which means that I've done my post for the week.

Anyway, I have officially completed everything. I know, I know, I keep saying that, but seriously, this time I mean it. I have talked to my bank. I've arranged to get yen before I go. I've even gotten myself some new glasses ordered. Yes, I know, it seems like a luxury, but really, they are somewhat of a necessity considering that I'm almost legally blind without them.

I've been doing some studying as well. Today, I studied for around 2-3 hours, and you're all probably thinking, "2-3 hours? That's crazy." Not so when you've been a little lazy recently. I'm only hoping that I haven't neglected my studies too much. I'm sure I'll still have a lot of catching up to do though. Here's hoping that I get caught up to where I should be before I leave.

The purpose of getting the yen is also a little important. I mean, of course I'd get some yen before I left, but I had to get enough to cover me for a while. According to the school, all fees must be paid in cash. I'm hoping that's not true of things like phones and stuff but we'll see. Anyway, so that's all laid out as well.

I have 11 days until I leave. That's pretty cool if I do say so myself. Literally, now I've just got to get studying and packing done and I'll be set. I'll update again soon.

3 weeks

As promised, I'm updating every week. I don't really have much to report right now. I've just been making the last-minute preparations. I haven't packed yet. I'm still wearing the clothes I want to pack, so it will be a while before I do that.

Recently, I've been getting in contact with my banks and notifying them that I'll be abroad. I don't really want them to freeze my account or anything since they notice there are strange charges coming from Japan with my name on them. So, that's all cleared up. I just need to make sure everything is up to date and is visible from online. I don't want anything mailed over there if I can help it.

I've also been studying, which in some ways is a lesson in futility. By this point, I just don't want to study. I'm ready to be back at school though. It's weird. Everyone I know is going back to school, and I still have about 3 weeks until I leave for Japan (almost a month until I start classes). So I'll keep working through that one. I'll probably regret the not studying a little bit. I have to get myself back on course though.

Nothing else to report right now.

Visa

My visa arrived yesterday, so I am officially set. It came surprisingly fast once I had that COE (Certificate of Eligibility) and the NOA (Notification of Acceptance). It's pretty too, all pink and flowery. Anyway, so now, I officially have everything I need and all that's left is to pack. :)

1 month till liftoff

So, here we are, humble readers. It's T-35 days until I leave for Japan. Crazy, right? I know it is because here I am staking out at my house, cleverly wasting time until I leave. Which honestly sounded like a really good idea until I realized, "Hey, maybe studying might be a good idea." And then I freaked myself out, and now I'm kind of regretting all that wasted time. But you know what? I've made good memories. I've laid out in the summer heat (actually managed to tan) and fallen asleep on a raft in the pool more than once. Yes, it's been darn pleasant...But it still doesn't change the fact that I should be studying.

I received an e-mail from Ritsumeikan the other day. It was to tell me that they sent my Certificate of Eligibility. This is good news. If you remember from my last post, I mentioned to you all that I needed this in order to apply for my visa, so all is good. That will be coming in a few days, and then from there, I'll just send everything off. Hopefully I'll have my visa within a couple weeks!

Rits almost sent me a super awesome packet today. It had a cutesy little hand-drawn map of how to get from the airport to the dorm. It's awesome. Once I get something to be able to convert this file to a picture, I'll try to upload it here for you all to see.

That covers it. As soon as I know more, I'll post up here again. :) See you in a few days!

Michelle

International Driver's Permit

T-41 days until I leave for Japan. I admit I'm excited to leave, but I feel like I really have to start cracking down on studying now. With the sunny 102 degree weather here though, it's been a little tough to maintain my original goal of studying every day. Hopefully, I'll at least be at the level I should be though when I get there if I manage to focus.

I got my International Driver's Permit the other day. These things are really cool. They're valid in a ton of countries; they're just not valid in the country you get them in. Basically, how it works is you carry this permit along with your normal driver's license and it serves as a form of state id. It's much better than carrying you passport in my opinion. You can get them at any AAA store, or you can do it online if you mail a couple passport photos to them. They just take the information of your normal driver's license, and the location where you'll be going (if you know yet), and within 10 minutes, it's in front of you, stamped and everything. Spiffy if I do say so myself. I did think it would be a card though. It's actually more of a little booklet. It's about the same size as a passport honestly, but probably much less valuable. It doesn't cost much at all either, like 15-20 bucks. It's definitely worth the price.

The certificate from Rits should be coming soon. When that arrives, I'll be applying to the Japanese embassy for my visa. That will all be done soon hopefully.

Rits allows me to ship a package to them as long as it arrives after I'm already in Japan, so I'm thinking I'm going to go find me a box or a suitcase to mail things in. That sounds nice, less to carry (aka winter-clothes). That way, when I travel, all I'm carrying are my summer clothes and some essentials.

Other students from my university are also getting ready to head off. We have people going to Kansai Gaidai (Osaka, Japan) relatively soon. If you notice on the right side, you'll see a blog called Hootenanny, Japan! This blog is written by one of my friends heading over to the aforementioned school. Check it out. She'll be updating soon, and it will give some of you something to look at.

Michelle

Some More Basics

So I arrive in Japan September 9. As of right now, that's 48 days away. You know, that sounds like a long time right now. I keep telling myself, "Oh, I have over a month. I don't need to worry about all that little stuff right now. I can do it later." But I've been telling myself that for months now, and it has just sort of sunk in recently that maybe I should really do some of those things.

At the top of my list right now is to acquire that Certificate of Eligibility from Ritsumeikan. Basically, this is how the visa process works for students. First, you must apply to your university and get accepted into the program. After that happens, you will be required to fill out more paperwork to help with placement inside the program and to help you sort out housing and such. Once you have given them more information, they will then either ask for you to or apply for a Certificate of Eligibility for you themselves. From what I understand, this paperwork basically states that you are a valid student at this university. Without it, you cannot get a student visa. If you even try to get a visa without this, then you will be asked to apply for one first, which will take months. With the certificate, it will only take a week max. So, currently I'm in limbo, just waiting for this certificate to arrive. Once it is, I'm planning to mail it to my local embassy to get my visa, but I'll be honest now. The waiting game is very nerve-racking.

Another important thing is to have a valid form of identification on you at all times. Since I don't really want to carry around my passport the entire time, I'm planning to apply for an International Driver's Permit. This can be acquired at AAA offices as well as online. Basically, these state your information in multiple different languages. They are accepted around the world, and they allow you yes, to drive, but more importantly, they serve as a form of state identification. When you are carrying one of these, you are required to also have your valid mother country's license on you as well, but in my opinion, this is much less stressful than carrying around a passport.

I still have to figure out the phone service issue as well. Although we will go over this in orientation, it will be almost two weeks before I have a phone if I wait that long. I'm not going to say I'm attached to my phone, but it is a nice thing to have, especially in a country that you do not know your way around.

Finally, I'm making the final rounds to doctor's offices and the like for annual check-ups. This way I'll know that I'm set before I go abroad.

Anyway, it is getting late, so I'll leave this post here. Take care all!

Hello all!

Hi everyone. Well, this is my first post here on Blogspot. I admit I've never been much of a blogger in the past, but I'm hoping to change that this year! I'll be using this blog to keep in touch with family and friends while I'm abroad, though of course, anyone is free to follow my adventures.

So, let's start with the basics.

Who am I?

I'm Michelle, an East Asian Languages and Cultures major who is studying abroad this next academic year at Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto, Japan).

What will I be doing in Japan?

Studying the language and culture of course! Right now, I've had about 2 years of college-level Japanese. Though I know some, I still have a long way to go! I'm hoping my experience in Japan will help me to not only gain some more knowledge about the Japanese languages and culture, but also that I'll gain more insight into myself.

Anyway, over the course of this next year, I'll try to keep this blog updated at least weekly. I'll post tips, interesting stories, and the like. Of course, if you have any questions, I'll happily answer those as well! For now, I'm going to continue my preparations, and you'll hear from me again soon!