Bank Accounts and Birthday Parties

 Yesterday and today were busy hectic days with a lot of walking around, but I had fun.

Yesterday the group of foreign students went into Fukuoka town to buy some bedding. One of the french girls Audrey said that she knew where to buy some for cheap, but it turned out to be just the same place as last time - Muji. This time though, there was a sale and I got some for about 4000 yen which isn't so bad. Unfortunately when I got home and tried it out the sheet was far too small for the bed =< and all of the stuff came in a set so I will have to try and take it back. I hope it's okay to take back things from the sale in Japan because I can't afford to have useless tiny bedding when I only have about 6,000 yen left! And I need to return my rental bedding tomorrow morning. Behh.

Anyway, I asked Marie where would be a good place to buy some cheap bedding in Japan and she recommended ナフコ or ニトリ, and then offered to show me the way <3 how lovely. So that will be a weight on my shoulders. Such a stress over bed sheets omg =/

Anyway, after we bought the useless Muji bedding yesterday we went into the ゲーム センター - the game centre/arcade. We played a big of what was like Guitar Hero and did some プリクラ purikura photos. That was totally fun. Really crazy. You have to move so fast and we can't understand the Japanese very well so it's just a total scramble to get anything done =p and it always chooses things for us before we have the chance =p

I ate the same instant noodles, but this time I put some tofu in it. It's SO cheap here, like a big block for maybe 50yen. A lot of stuff is very expensive, like fruit. a pack of grapes is nearly 400yen, and a pack of 4 apples is 300 (although the apples are very large here, it's still expensive). Bananas are cheap, I bought 5 quite small ones for 99yen. And today I had some udon noodles which are 33yen a packet which is more than enough for one. I think you just have to know what to buy for a decent price. If I wanted to eat what I ate at home, like tomatoes and mozarella and stuff it would cost me a fortune! Cheese is the most expensive thing ever. Although pepsi is pretty cheap in comparison.

Today we went to find the gym. We went a very very long way round, but found it in the end and it's actually really near to where we live. So tomorrow morning after we give in our bedding at International House we plan to go to the gym together =] I hope it will be alright, because the gym was quite scary and masculine so I'm glad I won't be going alone.

And then we went to a big bookstore to try and find some text books for Sophie and Ash. These are the Kanji in Context books that I bought already for some mad price in England, but at least I have them =p it's one less worry on my mind. We also have to buy a Haruki Murakami book "A Wild Sheep Chase", but I know they sell that in English in the Campus book shop. I was SO shocked in that store though. As well as manga, DVDs, CDs and even a little arcade section there was also a huge pornography section. In just an ordinary place like Borders or HMV =/ and it wasn't just a little bit of ordinary porn. There was some freaky shit - and even a rape section that was labelled レイプ　(rape). Obviously simulated, but some of them had titles like "homeless rape" and "domestic violence" and the women were all bloody and beaten and scared looking. Pretty horrible. I know this sort of thing exists in hentai but real people porn is worse I think. The only thing separating this from the rest of the store was a curtain saying 18+. Japan is weird.

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Well, the night of the 11th, as soon as it turned 12 a lot of the Japanese students and French, Belgian, etc. all came to my room and asked me to come to the kitchen. There was a whole bunch of people there and the lights were off. There was a cake and candles and everything. Surprise party =D I was all ready to go to bed so I had to run back and change and put on my makeup and everything before everyone started to take photos. The cake was really cute and had my name on it ルーズちゃん. I ate some and then people brought out the alcohol! So all the plans of doing useful things the next day disappeared. I got SO unbelievably drunk I don't really remember much of what happened next, but I took some photos with my camera I will try and upload soon. The problem is that the internet is very slow here because a lot of people are using the same service, so it's hard to upload any pictures. I will try and find a time to do it more easily, or maybe go to a place with wifi like Starbucks.

I had a great night anyway and I was so thankful to everyone for giving me a birthday in Japan. I didn't think there would be any party for a moment but there seems to be a big party culture here even though it's actually not allowed! Any excuse to drink and people go mad on plum wine. It's delicious though. They even bought me a little notebook with the design of the front cover of Penguin Classics 1984 which is really sweet, and people brought different drinks and food. I didn't go to bed until 5 o clock, and then Ash and Sophie had to pretty much put me to bed.

The next morning I had to get up at 9 o clock to return my rental bedding eurgh. I was still drunk ;__; staggering around. It was hard. I must have been rank too. And then I went back to bed, although I set a million alarms to make sure I woke up to go and see Marie at 12:30. But it still didn't work =/ I didn't get there until maybe 13:10 and I felt terrible to leave her sitting outside the station all alone in the heat for so long. I apologised loads and she was super nice about it. I hate being late any way and in Japan it's even worse because it's more important to be on time.

Anyway, we got the train to Tenjin-Minami which is a sort of shopping area and big part of town. She showed me to the Post Office which had an ATM which would accept my card. So then I finally had some money to use yay! We went to the Hello Kitty store and Marie bought me a super cute present for my birthday - a lovely little Hello Kitty phone charm where she is dressed as a strawberry with cream. It says Fukuoka on the back, I an't wait to get my new phone so I can use it. I even stuck the plastic bag it came on on the wall because it's super adorable and says "Small Present, Big Smile". Cuute. Then we went to Starbucks and I had a Matcha Cream Frappuccino that I sort of ordered myself. Well, with pointing to the picture too =/ and we talked for a while. She told me a good book stop where Ash and Sophie could buy Kanji in Context which is the Leeds textbook that we need. And then I took the subway back ON MY OWN I felt so brave =3 it was fine though, I know the way.

When I got back to International House everyone was around so we went to a ramen place nearby and had real Fukuoka Ramen =] it has meat in, but I picked it out and gave it to Ash. Although, I think the soup base is still meat =/ but I thought I would risk it and actually I wasn't sick later so either I have built up a resistance or it wasn't enough meat in there to make me sick. It was very tasty though, and super cheap. Only 330yen! Then we went to the arcade and me and Sophie sucked badly at House of the Dead. There is also a batting centre there, which is like practice baseball. Some people stayed to play darts, but I went home to sleep. I was super tired, although I stayed up a little bit online.

Today we went into Uni for 11 to meet with some Japanese students who took us to get a bank account. First we had to go to the municipal office and get a certificate to allow us to open an account which cost 300yen. Then we went to Kanayama which is where all the banks are and opened an account. There was a difficult form to fill in, which took some people 3 goes to get right =p we were there for more than 2 hours. After that we had to wait another few hours to pick up our bank books. We went to an udon place, but it was very expensive. Me and Sophie and Leila and Meike shared some onigiri and inari which only cost us 180yen each. We then picked up our bank accounts and went back to the International Office for some more administrative stuff.

Then Ash, Sophie, Meike and me went to Tenjin again to try and find the book store. We were a bit lost and a Japanese guy who could speak English just came up to us to help without us even asking! He said the bookstore was pretty famous and was just down the road by a Starbucks. We found the Starbucks but for some reason couldn't find the bookstore, although we went into a couple of others and couldn't find the books we wanted. So we went to Starbucks and I had a soya latte. Soya milk here is much more common, and they even had soya cream if you want it. You get a little sign to take with you to make sure you don't accidentally get given the wrong type of milk too. Pretty cool.

Then we found another cool ramen place where it was only 280yen! It was really good too =] and you could see them making it in front of you. Super fast food. I was so hungry too, so it was even better. Then, when we left the ramen place, we saw we were right by the book store we had been looking for the whole time. There was a copy of the books Sophie and Ash needed, but only one. Ash managed to order another of one of them, but not the other, so we will share for now anyway. I think we will be studying together mostly. After that we went home. The nights are nice here, cooler than the day but still very warm. We have all been bitten to death by mosquitos though. They even got through my tights somehow, my legs are covered in red patches and bruises because apparently I bruise from mosquito bites now.

I'm going to go to sleep soon because it is my first day of classes tomorrow! I think they will be mostly introductions this week, but I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to get studying and working hard. I'm a dork I know =p

Welcome Party and Trip to Town

On Friday me, Ash, Sophie, Meike and Chris (two of the other students who have come here to Fukuoka from Germany and Scotland respectively) went into Fukuoka town from the campus, which is a 10 or so minute bus ride. We went to the station Tenjin-Minami where there was a huge huge shopping complex under ground with lots of very expensive and fancy looking shops that I was totally impressed with. There were so many beautiful sweet shops and clothes shops and house accessories.

This is our train station sign, Fukudai-mae, which is a shortened version of Fukuoka Daigaku Mae which means in front of Fukuoka University.

And I stole this picture of us on the station platform from Meike =p

Ash, Chris, Me and Meike looking classy in Fukudaimae.

We had gone mostly to explore, but Ash and Sophie needed to buy an ethernet LAN cable in order to connect to the net here in International House.  I will have to go again and take more photos because it was really beautiful and impressive - the walls were tiled and all the shops were so well presented.

Outside of this underground section it was very very hot. Meike knew her way around pretty well and helped us find a computer shop. Chris was brave and asked the shop assistant where the cables were, and he had to explain that it was in a different shop - there were 2 buildings for the same store. So he gave me directions and I sort of understood, and then he gave me a map which I didn't understand because I suck at maps and that sort of thing. But we made it and got what we wanted.

Meike also found us a place where we could buy bedding - which turned out to be Muji which we have in the UK as well! It's much cheaper here but still out of my price range, especially seeing as I only have around 15,000 yen left in cash until I can get my bank account sorted and transfer my money over. And the bedding set was 10,000 yen, so I wouldn't have had enough money to live on. I need to buy some bedding because I have to return my rental bedding on monday =[ I will need to find a cheaper place.

We went for lunch in a little restaurant in town, which had the same ticket system as the last place I went. I asked the man about the dishes and felt pretty pleased because I managed to communicate that I didn't eat meat and wanted something with vegetables =p so he helped me a lot. I got some tempura - squid, a prawn, a piece of pepper, aubergine and courgette. And with that I got a big plate of udon noodles with strips of seaweed and a bowl of sauce to dip things into. I had seen another person taking the noodles and dipping them into the sauce before eating, so that's what I did. It was really delicious and the first meal I've eaten properly since I got here. Last night I only had instant noodles which I cooked in the bowl using boiling water and a microwave seeing as I have no pan of my own.

That's something that the foreign students have noticed about being here in Japanese halls - everyone is very protective of their own things. Not that they aren't generous or unwilling to share, and I'm sure if I asked someone would have let me borrow a pan. It's just much more normal to have your own things and only ever use them. For example, there are maybe 20 rice cookers in our kitchen and when we were showed around the girl told us we should probably buy our own. I think in the UK one would have been enough and everyone would have shared it. Maybe it's because we're tight with money =p In the kitchen everyone has their own basket of cooking equipment, and everyone has their own copy of everything - pans, cups, bowls, cutting boards, washing up liquid - with their room number written on in permanent marker so no one else uses it.  I don't see it as a very bad thing, because I understand it's just how things are, it's just different. I think some of the foreign students might get together and buy one to share between us seeing as we don't mind.

Anyway, we went to Starbucks where Sophie bought an apple crumble flavoured frappuccino which was actually pretty weird and sweet and unpleasant. I wanted to buy a matcha soy frappuccino but it was almost 500 yen and I couldn't justify it seeing how little money I have left. So I waited until I got home to have some lovely tap water. =p

And later that night we had a party!  It was hard to know what to expect, but when we arrived it was actually a very low key thing. There were lots of tables laid out with food and drinks (soft drinks) and everyone was gathered round. One of the porters talked over the microphone and I mostly understood what he said - about how he hoped that International House would become our new family. Then we kanpai-d and started eating. I had a piece of sushi with egg and some green tea flavour cake. We were then asked to go to the front and introduce ourselves in Japanese. OMG that was scary, but I managed to say my name and that I hoped we would be friends so I hope that was alright.

All the Japanese girls are funny =p they are all obsessed with my hair. They keep asking me if the colour is natural and if the curl is natural and if I put the pink in it in myself. And when I tell them it is and I did they scream! It's very odd. In fact, yesterday some school girls wanted to take a picture with all of us - they kept going "kawaii kawaii". I don't really mind it, but it's very strange to get that sort of attention.

After the first party, there was a second party which was down in the basement. There was no alcohol at that party because you're not supposed to drink I don't think (?) and we had to wait for the porters to go home. Most of the westerners went down to the shop and bought some alcohol and then sneakily drank it in Ash's room while we waited. Then we went down already a little tipsy and waited for the alcohol to arrive. At exactly 12 they opened it up - and the Japanese students said that we didn't have to pay because we were the new guests <3 isn't that so nice? There was a lot of alcohol! And people got trashed very quickly.

I got quite drunk and didn't go to bed until 5am. But I wasn't the most drunk there for sure! Actually, the Asians well out-drank the Westeners even though they say they have a low tolerance. I had a really fun night, and some of the photos were even funnier.

Today I think we are going to try and find the gym and then go to the hyakuen store (100yen store) to buy some pots and pans etc so we can cook some food and not live on only instant noodles!

It's been a hard few days, but I think I've found some great people here and I think we could all become really good friends.

Later I will make a post about yesterday and today <3 

Preparing To Leave

Well since my last post I've got a few more things done. Today I went and bought some yen. I got £500 worth to take with me, because I have a lot of payments to make in the first day and also I won't have a bank account for a while when I first arrive so I need enough to live on!

Emotionally I've been pretty up and down. It's a massive big thing going so far away from your friends and family, and my boyfriend. Alex really means the world to me. Out of the 5 years we've been together we've lived in the same house for 3. I rely loads on him for support and to keep me happy when my moods go down, and I think he relies on me a lot too. I don't have any worries about our survival as a couple because I know we're solid enough to survive even a whole year apart. But it's going to be one of the hardest things to do.

This is me and him together in Egg Cafe in Liverpool, one of our favourite places.

I'm also going to miss my mum and dad a lot. I live with my mum and Alex and we're so used to each others company. Even being away in Leeds was pretty hard because we're so close. When I was away I talked to her a couple of times a day on the phone, which I won't be able to do in Japan.

Me and my mum when she graduated.

My Dad and my little sister Niamhy, my nan and auntie hilda, my auntie jan and her little boy Frankie. I won't see them all for a whole year and it's hard to get my head around. My kitty Tabitha =[ I'm super close to her recently, because earlier this year my other cat and dog both died really close together so she's a bit lonely and clingy. 

Taba with her usual angry face

And of course I'm going to miss all my awesome friends here in Liverpool. On the 27th I had a party, that was a sort of early birthday and a going away party. Lots of my good friends came - my friend Laura travelled all the way from Oxford, and Jim came from Yorkshire and Andrew from Birmingham. Dale had a massive fight with a taxi company to get to see me. And tomorrow my friend Lucy is visiting from Newcastle.  I'll miss Amy and our drunken ramblings, Cookie who I spent most of my A levels bunking classes and sleeping in the library with, my old housemate Jim putting up with my crazies, Andrew to bitch to online and Kiel to share Japanese music. All my super special Japanese class friends who I can't wait to get to know better in the next few years.

Alex and my friend Will made an amazing cake in the shape of Nyan Cat and Holly, her boyfriend Mike and Stephie got me lovely presents and I got some cards with nice messages on them. We had some super fun times playing Twister. I really appreciate all my friends and I'll miss them all so much. I feel really special and appreciated to have such great people in my life. Here are some cool pictures from my party! 

Super awesome nyancat cake. With rainbow inside!

Proud creators of the cake.

I'm pretty sure these guys are dancing to some terrible Eurovision music.

I was so trapped in Twister.

Please excuse how totally drunk I appear here!

In conclusion to all this - I love you guys. And I love everyone I love who isn't in these photos and mentioned here. I'm so happy I have some great friends to be sad to leave behind. 

On Saturday I'll be having a meal with my family.

And I'm going on Tuesday. I'm gonna cry like a bitch =[

Banking For A Year Abroad

Well first of all my visa arrived =D I got it on the friday of the week that I bought it. They posted it really fast. And it's really pretty! There are cherry blossom flowers on the top and my face in black and white in a little circle. It's very nice and really exciting to see my actual student visa, valid for 15 months all ready stuck into my passport.

I have 15 days until I leave for Japan. My massive list of things to do it getting shorter.

I bought my insurance a couple of days ago from Leeds University. They have a pretty good cover that's designed for Leeds year abroad students and only costs £50 when you're going to Japan because you have to buy another japanese insurance on top of it. I could have looked around to see if there was a better offer, but I figured Leeds would have it sorted.

Anyway, what I mostly wanted to talk about in this post was how to sort out a bank account for year abroad. I went and asked at a few high street banks and frankly, they were very unhelpful. The man at HSBC was very determined that the only way to do it was to buy a monthly fee account, which I don't really want to do. But this is what I found out from the few places I went any how:



Halifax
To send money to a foreign bank costs £9.50 per transaction online.  I already have my student account with Halifax so this seems like a simple deal.

HSBC
Sending money to a foreign bank costs £17. To open a HSBC account in japan you need a premier account which has a monthly fee which I think is £25 a month, although their website has SO much information and the prices are in the super small print it's hard to tell >.< They also have an aadvance account, which is £12.95/month and includes travel insurance and apparently you can take money out of any machine with your visa card without any charges.


Natwest
£20 to transfer money, but they don't do it online.

My friend Hillary linked me to this site http://www.caxtonfx.com/  which is apparently a free way of transfering money from one bank to another. It seems a bit like paypal to me, but maybe less expensive! And of course, Paypal does something similar with fees, although I think the fees are quite high for large sums of money.



Money is a little bit of a worry, as always. Going to japan is a very expensive trip. Although I'll be getting a lot from student finance, and I have about £4000 savings from working/an account my mum put in for me when I was a baby that has accumulated over the past 20 years. So I will have around £10,000 for the year.
It really seems like a lot to me, but of course, there's a lot of payments I'll  have to make.

I guess I need to budget and make sure I'm all sorted out.

Things I have left to do:

• Get some yen
• Make sure I have a list of everything I need to pack
• Pack it all and weigh the suitcase etc. 
• Sign a form to get my money from the bank.

Tomorrow I'm heading back up to Leeds for a couple of days with my boyfriend. And then on the 27th I'm having a leaving party as well as an early birthday party, because my 21st is on the 12th of September when I'm in Japan. Looking forward to that =] 

Japanese Embassy Trip

Yesterday I took a trip from Liverpool (where I live) to London to apply for my student visa. It was a really fun day out =] we were going to stay a few days, because the visa application process takes 3 days and then you can go to pick it up, so we planned to do that. However, in light of all the riots and things going on in London the last few days we decided it was probably best to come home after just one day out and give the embassy an envelope to post it back to me instead.

I had a really nice day. I went to the embassy first, and then down to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and all over other bits of London. We had some food in a super cute Italian cafe. I took lots of photos and we walked literally all day around the city. By the end my feet were so tired >.< but I'd love to go back again one day, when I can stay for a few nights and really get to see everything.

Here's some photos from my day =] 

Certificate of Eligibility

I wanted to talk in this post about my certificate of eligibility and the welcome pack that I received from Fukuoka University.I got a big envelope from my teacher Morimoto-sensei in the post today. In it was my certificate of eligibility - something from the japanese government that allows me to get a visa for a year as a student. It's pretty cool and official looking, with my photo and fancy colours and watermarks like a cheque. There is also a plain sheet with some extra information about me in Japanese.

I also got a little fold up map of the Fukuoka University campus, which is all in Japanese and I don't understand very well, and a super helpful letter that has a map and directions that I'm meant to give to a taxi driver so I don't have to attempt to speak to someone when I first arrive.

I got some forms to fill in that I had to send off today. A form to request a personalised inkan (a signature stamp) with my surname in katakana for signing forms and such, a request to rent bedding for 3 days when I first arrive and a contract form for my accommodation in International House.

There are quite a lot of costs on the first day when I arrive and the orientation day on September 8th.

1. A bedding pat 3,850円  (£30)
2. International House Development & Maintenance levy 30,000円 (£234)
3. International House Insurance Contract Fee 2,000円 (£15.60)
4. Bedding set rental 1,890円 (£14.74)
5. Personal seal fee 2,000円 (£15.60)

All together 39,740 円 (£307.87) so it's pretty expensive!

However, my rent for the year in 30,000円 a month which is way way cheaper than what I spent on rent in Leeds this year. Converts to about £54 a week, and here I was spending £76 a week.

I get £7,348 from the student loans company all together.


I also have some money saved from my job last year andstuff my mum put in savings when I was a baby.

So, anyway. Now I have my certificate of eligibility I need to go to the Japanese embassy and get my visa. I plan to go on Tuesday next week (8th). Yay =] I will take pictures of my trip to London and the embassy and stuff to make this blog more pretty!

First Entry

This is just a little introduction to me, to give this blog some context.

My name is Ruth, I'm a student of Japanese in Leeds University in the UK. I'm from Liverpool and I've lived there my whole life. I went to a girl's school in Liverpool to study my GCSEs and then for sixth form I went to a grammar school for my A levels in French, Spanish, General Studies and English Literature.

I live with my mum, my dad lives not very far away with my sister. My boyfriend also lives with me, his name is Alex and we've been together for coming up to five years now.

In September 2009 I went to Leeds to study French and Japanese together. It all got a bit too much for me after 3 months, so I took a year out. I worked in the restaurant Wagamama for 9 months to save up some money and learn a bit of life experience, and then returned in September 2010 to take single honours Japanese.

This year I've been studying Minna No Nihongo (みんなの日本語) books 1 and 2, should know approximately 500 kanji and all the different grammar points in those two books. I definately don't know all that much, but that's just a base line of what I have been studying this year.

My first year hasn't been all that easy. I struggle with depression and anxiety problems that have kept me out of a lot of classes, so I missed a lot of tests, and a lot of information that was super important for my end of year exams. Although I studied as hard as I could and always tried my best, things did get difficult. In the end,  my Japanese result for semester 2 was a fail and I had to resit it on the 1st of August. Yesterday I found out that I passed that exam, and have a definite go ahead to go to Japan in my second year for a year abroad.

So... from September 2011 until August 2012 I will be in Fukuoka, Japan on a study abroad program at Fukuoka University (福岡大学) with two other people from my university, Ash and Sophie.

I've been blogging online since 2003 on livejournal, but I like to keep that more private so I thought I would make this blog for a more open account of my year abroad experience. I guess it can be a way for my friends and family etc. to keep updated on my life when I'm away, as well as maybe being useful for future students who want to know what it's like.

I know my year abroad won't be easy. I've never been away alone for a long time before, I've never been anywhere on holiday outside of Europe, and my Japanese is still a little wobbly. Although my depression and anxiety problems are better than they were earlier this year, I can never predict exactly how I will feel very far in advance, so I hope to be pretty honest about what it's like to spend a whole year away from home when you have to deal with these problems. I know I won't be the only student that goes through this, so I think it'll be pretty good to put out an honest report of how I deal and struggle with it.

Anyway, I hope this wasn't too boring. I'll definately post more fun stuff as well as serious boring things!

In the next few weeks, here are the things I have to do to sort out my year abroad:

• Receive my certificate of eligibility from the university, send it off with my visa application, then go to London to pick up my visa. 
• Sort out a bank account that will allow me to change money from GBP into yen without nasty mega charges. 
• Get ready all the stuff I need to take to japan with me (shopping trip!), and sort out how to pack it. 
• Test out the meds the doctor gave me to take on the plane (cus I really, really hate planes!)
• Keep on being positive and looking after myself so I'm best prepared to go away.

 And that's it for now! Thanks for reading. x