Commence Planning

I've never undertaken such a huge endeavor in my life thus far. I had no idea there would be so many details to be worked out. I wasn't expecting it to be easy either, but I'm constantly thinking of new things that need to be sorted out. Transportation, Accommodation, Insurance, Food, Entertainment, Money, Safety, Allergies... The list seems to continue indefinitely.. At the same time, I'm a strong believer in leaving alot of breathing room, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Over the past few days - faced with the challenge of landing in Tokyo, still 1,400KM from my destination in Fukuoka - I've been looking at adding some more detail to my itinerary. I'm leaning towards staying at this wonderful hostel in a nice part of Tokyo called Sakura Hostel that Akemi and Noboru found and recommended to me.. I'm thinking I'll stay in Tokyo for 1 week once I arrive before I make my way to Fukuoka. This will give me some time to adjust to the time difference and give me a little taste of Tokyo before I re-visit it later in my travels.

The second thing I'm trying to iron out the details about - and perhaps the biggest as it accounts for nearly half of my trip's budget and over a third of my time - is the details of my course at Genki JACS.. I'm hoping to have a mix between homestay with a Japanese family and dorm life, hopefully with some Japanese students from Kyuushuu university.. Homestay is more expensive, so I'm hoping to be a little easier on the budget by mixing and matching. I've sent an e-mail to GenkiJACS outlining my proposal. They've always been good at replying within 48 hours.

I'd like to make a side note that working in YEN has really made things seem like an even larger undertaking than they already are. It just seems mind-boggling to think to myself 'I have to put aside ￥140,000 for transportation over the course of x number of months'. I have to constantly remind myself that this equates to less than 140,000 pennies.

My challenge to all westerners: Try budgeting in pennies for a month, you'll see what I'm going through.

Visa: Aquired

Well, after a busy 2 days in the big city of Toronto, I'm finally back home... With me, I've brought a plane ticket and *drum roll* .. a visa to live / work in Japan for half a year!

Today at about 1:45pm I returned to the Japanese consulate to get my passport back, and in it, my visa. With my plane ticket and traveler's cheques in-hand, I approached the counter, a nice looking older man on the other side asked "How can I help you?", and after showing him my plane ticket and $2,500 in traveler's cheques, he handed me a neat little package. In this package were my passport, along with a 4 page guide about registering with the immigration office once in Japan and also a list of contact numbers for support on my endeavor should I need it.

When I'd entered the consulate, there was a young Japanese couple - not too much older than myself - at the booth to my right. While the visa officer was away looking for my visa for me, the young man beside me turned to me and asked what company I would be teaching English with. I explained - to his surprise - that I was not intending to teach but rather to study. He seemed pleasantly astonished, he smiled and told me 「勉強は　がんばって　くださいね」 "do your best/good luck with your studies". It kind of made my day, as I haven't spoken to any Japanese that close to my age before. Also, he seemed so happy to hear that I wanted to learn Japanese, it makes me hope I'll be that well received in Japan. では、がんばりますよ！ Well, I'll definitely try my best!

Departure Date Set: November 7th

Well, I bought my airline ticket today.
Cost: ~$1,300 after taxes etc.
Departure Date: November 7th, 2007 @ 10:00AM
From: Toronto Lester B. Pearson International Airport
To: Tokyo Narita International Airport
Stops: Vancouver, British Columbia Canada

Unfortunately, buying a ticket directly from the airline means I was unable to get a ticket directly to Fukuoka as no Canadian airlines fly directly to Fukuoka. So, I have a ticket to Narita international airport, once I get there, I'll have to find my way to Fukuoka either via a Japanese airline or perhaps the Shinkansen.
Anyways, we'll see how that all works out once I get there, as long as I'm in Fukuoka by that Sunday I'll be good. Besides, it's the challenges that will give this journey flavor (I'm gunna kick myself for saying that later on, I know.. hehe)

Anyways, I'm back in Toronto again for a couple of days. Tomorrow I'll be going to the Japanese consulate again to hopefully pick up my passport and visa given that they're ready. They told me to come back today but I figured I'd give them an extra day. However, there's still a chance that they could ask me to come back again later if it's not ready yet. Hopefully everything is ready.

チケットをかいものしています // Shopping for a Plane Ticket

Everything is very busy at the moment; Work has been busy, in what little free time I have I try to spend brushing up on my Japanese at YesJapan.com (Probably THE best way to learn Japanese online.) Though lately I dont have alot of free time to study or do much of anything. Furthermore, after saving up for almost 3 years I'm suddenly throwing tons of money around like nothing in preparation for this trip (read on, you'll see) - kind of a strange feeling.

In a few days I have to return to Toronto to pick up my Working Holiday Visa. (NOTE: The Japanese government currently has my passport >.> - for some reason I like saying that hehehe.)
Anyways, in order for them to hand over your passport WITH the visa in it, you have to bring 2 items when you go to pick up your visa.
a) $2,500 in Traveller's Checks - this is to show that you have sufficient funds to get yourself situated while you find a Job etc.
b) Actual return airline ticket - this is to prove that you're eventually going to return and not over-stay your visa.

Getting the first of these items was pretty easy, except that my bank is an online bank and because it doesn't have any tellers it's difficult to get traveller's checks from them, so I had to buy them from a different bank.
Buying the traveller's checks from a different bank presented it's own problems, as at one branch they wanted to see my passport to sell them to me (uh... yea.. the Japanese government has my passport <.< and wont give it back until I show them these traveller's checks.. hehe still love saying that..)
Anyways, I went to a different branch of the SAME bank (CIBC), and they sold them to me without any photo ID at all.. So item a) is covered.

Item b) is a bag of issues on it's own. No Canadian airliner flys to Fukuoka (where I'll be staying for the first duration of my journy to attend Genki Japanese and Culture School); Most of the flights go to Tokyo and then you have to transfer to JAL or All Nippon airlines to go from Tokyo to Fukuoka.. You can buy tickets from Expedia or Travelocity or Orbitz that include this entire trip, but unfortunately they are only e-tickets and no actual ticket is given to you, you simply goto the air port, show them photo ID and they give you a boarding pass. This wont work for me, as the Japanese consulate wants to SEE a return ticket itself. Also, I've heard a number of horror stories about e-tickets and people getting to the airport and being told they need an actual ticket, etc. and it sound's like a possible headache waiting to happen...

So...

I've decided that I'll purchase my ticket in person at the Airport where I live: round trip from Toronto to Tokyo, with a stop in Vancouver; Once I get to Narita International Airport Tokyo, I'll have to buy another ticket to goto Fukuoka or I may take the Shinkansen. I'm aiming for a departure date of November 6th, and a return date of April 30th or May 1st..

So, I have my plate full in the next few days, and on top of all of this I have to stop at greyhound and buy a greyhound ticket to go back to Toronto on Wednesday or Thursday. isogashii ne~ (aren't I busy? -.-)

Working Holiday Visa: Approved

Well, I'm in Toronto today (closest Japanese consulate to me is in Toronto, so I took a little trip up here). I visited the Japanese consulate to submit an application for a Working Holiday Visa which will allow me to live and work in Japan for 6 months to a year..

I took a big elevator up to the 33rd floor of this really tall office building in downtown Toronto.. Off of the elevator, I made a right, and saw this big sign in both english and Japanese that says Japanese Consulate General, and it has some scrolls next to it and some bamboo and it's a very "japanese" feeling place.. So I make my way down the hall, and take a seet in a small waiting room, along the wall there's a row of booths with forms and brochures in them, all in Japanese. The visa officers were just comming back from their lunch break when I arrived, and there was this glass window with a slot at the bottom like in some movie theaters, but it was covered by some blinds... Suddenly, the curtain behind the glass window thing opened and a short Japanese woman standing on the other side of the glass said "Ha~i, dozo.. Please come forward"..

There were about 4 other people there in the waiting area, and they had all arrived before I did, so I let them go first.. Finally, everyone else had gone, and so I stood up and walked over to the window, half nervous, have brave (weird feeling).. I took my file folder with all of my required documents out of my school bag.. and handed them to the lady along with my passport.. She took a few minutes, sorted the papers, and didn't really say anything at first.. Then for a second she seemed confused and told me one of the forms was missing, and I got really nervous for a second, but then she found it stuck to the back of another sheet.. Big sigh of relief.. She smiled, and went over all of my forms that I'd filled out.. and asked me a few questions like "Have you ever been to Japan before?" "Have you ever applied for a working holiday visa before?"..

And then she read my "letter of intent" which is basically a short letter describing why you want a working holiday visa and what your motives are etc. The first paragraph of my letter is in Japanese, and basically introduces myself and explains that I've been learning Japanese for about 2 years but am still pretty week at it, thus the letter would be written in english from this point on... She smiled when she read it, and asked "Where did you study Japanese"...

Finally, after going through my submitted itinerary and a few other papers, and cropping my submitted passport-sized photograph and glueing it onto one of the forms, she looked up and me and said "your visa has been approved! please return here in one week to pick up your passport and visa, if there are any issues we'll call you"

I felt like a 10 billion yen, but was still pretty shocked and nervous so I dont think it was really showing on my face!