Landing in Tokyo
This wasn't too scary as I had been through Narita Airport before for two separate trips, however, this time I had chosen to arrive at Haneda and in addition to that, I had additional things that needed to be done to confirm my new visa. In reality, landing at Haneda Airport wasn't that different. In fact, it seemed a little smaller and just as efficient as I had already come to expect of Japan. I was naturally exhausted when I landed as I don't sleep well on planes anyways and it had been a longer journey than normal with sitting around in Paris for 4 hours.
Immigration was fairly simple, I was already accustomed to the forms to complete for visiting but as I had my student visa, some of these were no longer necessary. I completed those that were and heading to the queue. I was directed to the counter with a blue laminated card and once I arrived everything was completed fairly quickly and my residence card (or Zairyu card, 在留カード) was printed and given to me. I admit I made one mistake at this point. Although I already had my friend's address I was too tired and did not give them the full address at this time. This gave me some additional work later on but it wasn't really that bad.
My New Home
I won't go into too much detail here as I am staying with a friend and must respect their privacy. The apartment is a bit smaller than I was expecting however, this works remarkably well as I'm not the kind of person who needs that much space. Obviously the apartment has air con and a convenient balcony which we can use to dry clothes, etc.
The location is great as I am close to pretty much everything I need. Tokyo is, if nothing else, a city of convenience and as long as you have at least one コンビニ nearby, there really isn't much you can't get. However, I'm lucky to not only have a choice of three of these within five minutes but also a smaller and larger supermarket, a post office, a metro station, a pharmacy, a McDonald's, a library and a roof-garden. I really don't think there is anything I will want for in the next six months.
One of the first things I had to sort out was getting my WiFi unit. Now the last two visits, I had used Japan Wireless, who were awesome. They deliver the WiFi unit ordered to your hotel or even the airport you arrive at (if ordered before arrival) and when you are leaving, you simply pop it back in the pre paid envelope and drop it in a post box or at the post office at the airport. This time however, I had not gotten around to sorting this out in advance and the unit I wanted was out of stock when I contacted them. I managed to find another company though who could provide a similar service, Let's Internet jp.
Let's Internet offered a rate of 6,900円 per month for a 75Mbps unit which seemed fairly reasonable so I went for that. My classmate had gone for the same thing and she informed me to watch out for the 7GB 'limit'. This confused me as the package was unlimited but it turns out that although it is indeed unlimited data, after 7GB, a speed restriction automatically applies. You can override it fairly easily by requesting it lifted but this only works for each 500MB requested then you have to repeat the process which is a little annoying. It also transpired during this exchange that I seem to have been automatically upgraded the 165Mbps unit without extra charge due to my requested unit again being out of stock. Bargain! This didn't best please my classmate though :/ As I have pre-paid for 4 months, I assume this will continue to be the case for the four months, might have to replace the unit if they want the higher fee after that though...
Day 1 - Induction at Kai Language School
My first day at school was the day after I arrived so I had barely had a few hours to catch my breath before diving into school life. The induction was mostly in English so it wasn't too taxing. We found out a little more about how the course operated and the different levels and got a goodie bag with information about the local area, reminders to sign up for National Health Insurance and more information about the type of part time work we were allowed to do under our visa (no adult industry work!) It was interesting as another English speaking student from last year helped with translating and it was nice to get a chance to be introduced to some of the staff. I was still not really sure who would be in my class as it seemed the inductions had been staggered but what I could already tell is that there weren't many people from the UK. And the snacks were yummy.
I was pretty exhausted so after this, I returned home to finish sleeping off my jet lag.
Meeting my new Teachers, Classmates and Warming Up Week
Monday brought the first real school day and I finally got a chance to meet my classmates and teacher. The first week was referred to as warming up week and this consisted of reviewing the Hiragana that we should have learnt already, (luckily, I felt relatively confident with this and flash card self training for the past year) and our first 50 words of vocab. This was all summed up by a mini test on the Friday. Yup. That's right, my first test was on the Friday of the very first week.
My classmates consist of a mix of people of different ages and nationalities but everyone is really nice so I feel pretty lucky to be in this class. We have two people from Sweden, one from Spain, one from Australia, one from Indonesia, one from Venezuela, one from Denmark, two from Taiwan, one from Belgium and myself. I have also discovered that we have not one but two teachers! It seems the teachers alternative so we have a Ujie-san on Mon, Wed and Fri and Suzuki-san on Tues and Thurs. They are both really awesome though. Energetic and encouraging and it's making learning so much so quickly more achievable. It was actually nice that the first week was mostly reviewing things for me as I was having enough trouble settling...
So Homesick!
Now I've mentioned I've already been to Japan twice, right? Settling down here should be a doddle by now. Wrong!! I think there's a completely different mind set when you visit somewhere as to when you move there and this made homesickness (a relatively new concept to me) a reality in only the first few weeks. Maybe it was because I had visited before that the novelty factor was missing and the excitement waned too quickly but I found myself beginning to miss home and especially my boyfriend so badly in just the first few weeks. Knowing it wasn't just a few weeks on a futon on the hard floor and I could go back to my big double bed made it more difficult to accept some of the changes the way I would if it was a holiday. At first, I found myself surprised by the cold weather (we had freak snow on the 8th April!) as I had only brought summer clothes remembering the heat from last year and ironically the UK had so much unusually warm weather that my friends were boasting about beer gardens while I was wearing my hoodie and borrowing winter coats.
Luckily both the weather and the homesickness have started to improve now. I've started to make more friends in my class and I'm lucky enough to be able to Skype with my boyfriend almost daily as well as message regularly so slowly but surely I'm starting to feel more at home. I'm sure once I've completely settled, I'll realise it's nearly time to go home. Time is already flying!
Registration and National Health Insurance
There was one more thing I had to do to complete my residency here in Tokyo and that was the extra task I had given myself as described above at the airport. Because I had not registered my address, it was imperative I do this within two weeks of entering the country. I had delayed this due to my low mood and crappy weather and... well every excuse under the sun but I finally made it to the ward office on the day of the deadline to complete the simple exercise of giving them my address. This is something that not only foreigners but Japanese nationals have to do whenever they move into a ward (like a borough back in the UK). The same is true when moving out of one. You have to de-register in the ward you were living in and re-register in the new ward (unless you're moving in the same ward, in which case, just do both at once). I hopefully don't expect to move again until I leave the country so should only have to de-register at the end.
The additional part of this was the National Health Insurance. In Japan, all residents staying more than 3 months (even foreigners) must, by law, register for National Health Insurance. This covers you for 70% of the cost for any medical treatment you require while here. Hopefully I won't need any but this is also the reason travel insurance is essential as the remaining 30% would need to be covered by yourself unless you register in an additional insurance scheme such as with the school or an employer. This resulted in me getting another card to carry around, joy(!).
And that was the final step to being a resident in Tokyo and getting on with starting my new life.
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